Struggling in Kindergarten

I too am in this exact situation with my son (a June bday)! Just talked to the teacher about it this week and was debating if/how to pose the question here (you did it beautifully, btw!). I don't have anything to add but will definitely be able to use some of the advice that you've received so THANK YOU!

My son struggles with focus. Late birthday. If I could do it over, I would have held him back, absolutely.

Honestly? I wouldn't worry a lick about it until the end of January. You would be amazed at the difference I see in my students' maturity level and work ethic after Christmas break. I don't know what it is, but there is something that changes by that point for lots of kids. This is my tenth Christmas break coming up and I've seen it every year! Again, I have no idea what it is, but I would re-evaluate after Christmas. Of course, keep on top of it, keep in contact with her teacher and keep doing what you're doing. But try not to worry for now. You have the whole year to decide if you want her to do K again, but she sounds like she could just be a typical young kindy to me. :)

I am going to bet, she is right on track, just still young. Very normal, it is just more obvious because she is being compared to children older than her. some people hold back their children so long, some children may be going on 7 in her classes by the end of school year. .

Do you all do crafts at home? Cutting pasting, coloring? Baking? If you sit with her, will she complete the project?

If you get up and walk away, will she complete the project? even if not being watched/

Is she good at listening to a book as you read to her?

Our daughter was one of the younger children all the way through school.

BUT she had been in Day care since she was 6 months and so she had practice, with the school rules. Stay in your chair. Clean up the messes, Show me your work when you are finished. They had story time 2 times a day. They walked in lines. They helped serve lunch.

So if your child had not had some of this training or experiences, it could be she is just a little behind compared to the other students.

Some fun therapies that will also help with her attention is to have her sort things. Like a piggy ban. Empty it in front of her and have her put "like things' together. Pennies in a box, nickles in a can, dimes in a bowl, quarters in a baggie.

Then have her count and place them in stacks of 10's...

this will take patience, but also build up some fine motor skills in her hands. Their hands and fingers can become tired when they are not used to using them for so long.

Have her help you make cookie dough for "Thumb Print cookies".

Then have her roll out balls.. have her line them up on the cookie sheets. then have her make a thumb print in each ball on one sheet. then have her use a finger print on another cookie sheet. let her either place a chocolate candy on each cookie, or spoon a small amount of jam in each print. (having her unwrap all of the Hershey kisses is also a fine motor skill)

Again, this will take concentration and build up those hands and fingers.

Over the Christmas holidays.. have her write some very short thank you notes for all of her gifts. She could even draw a special picture and then sign it thank you.. on the bottom of the page. The relatives will love it, and she will be practicing her school skills.

Before you go to the store, have her "Write up" the grocery list. I would not worry so much about the spelling, but having her feel like what she is writing is important, will help her understand, the things she writes at school are also important. Make sure she can call back what she wrote. If not, tell her she can draw a picture of the item, to help her remember. Or both of you sit together and make up the list. Have her collect information from dad about what he needs from the store too.

In her stocking, give her, her own "grocery list pad".. She will always want to help.

She just needs to put school work together with her own life, so she can "Own it".. School is school, but when she realizes she is actually helping you.. she will be so excited.

Congratulate her, each time she completes little projects and tasks. When she does not complete them, just encourage her to go back and finish.

Use yourself as an example. "If i did not finish cooking, we would not be able to eat dinner. "If dad did not finish the laundry, we would have to wear dirty clothes.. etc..

My oldest is an August baby.... and like yours, very smart, and a very sweet child!

Anyway, she was easily distractible, also...... always more interested in what everyone else was doing. Not hyperactive, just had a hard time staying focused. We would

Anyway, teachers just worked with her.... but in 2nd grade, that teacher started recommending that she be held back. We didn't... (at that point, anyway).

In 4th grade, things REALLY came to a head... she was lying about completing her homework (saying she just had a few problems, pretending to do it, but actually throwing it away)....... here's the interesting part.... in math, on the Iowa Basics tests that year, she tested at late 3rd grade on math computation, but 7th grade on math comprehension... she understood it intuitively, but was still trying to do the math with her fingers. Also, a lot of things in the family happened that year, so it was a stressful year.

Anyway, we were moving at the end of the school year, so when it came time to enroll her the next year in her new school (new city, new state), we talked with the new principal about whether or not to have her repeat 4th grade..... and we all agreed that it would be best.... and our daughter was part of that decision, also.... so she repeated 4th grade after we moved. This also gave her a chance to catch up maturity wise, also.....

For us, that was the perfect time.... none of her friends had to know..... it gave her a fresh start... and she did wonderfully! (She just completed her PhD in Microbiology at Johns Hopkins)......

Would the outcome have been as good if we had her repeat an earlier grade? I don't know.....

Daughter #3 was also an August birthday, but had more of the social issues that come with ADHD..... we delayed her entry into kindergarten, but she still struggled with things.... some grades were a problem. Ultimately, she left the regular high school (with 2 months to go), and finished up at a different style high school in a credit recovery class..... but she got her diploma, at any rate. She still struggles with things.... but not academics, because she is very smart... she just has more of the social issue struggles common with ADHD type kids. We never did go the medication route, but I wonder if that would have helped.....

My advice? I really don't have any... for us, it worked to hold #1 back at 4th grade..... we didn't have quite the success with #3... but but the two girls are completely different types of personality.

Keep watching her over the year..... and I don't know that there is ANYTHING you can say to "keep her focused" ... she isn't doing it intentionally..... there are just too many things around that she sees as more interesting or important. ;)

My GD also had problems staying on task. She would play with her earrings, a scrap of paper, whatever. She would bring home math homework where she was supposed to copy the problems from the board. She only had 1/2 of the problems. The teacher said b/c she only paid attention 1/2 of the time! This was last year in 4th grade. (The attention problem had been going on since Kindergarten)

She's in 5th grade now. I just had my parent/teacher conference at the beginning of the month and I specifically asked about her being distracted. Teacher said he hasn't noticed it. So I think she outgrew it.

I think you should go ahead and let her go to 1st grade as long as the academics are good. She will mature and outgrow the rest in due time.

My son is a mid August birthday and very bright but has never been good at following directions. Fortunately he is at a school where he has the same teacher for 2 years in a row. The first 6 months with a new teacher are usually rough. He tests every rule, dawdles in class to test how serious they are about making him do work, etc. He is in 4th grade and it was a rough 1st quarter. But now I have insisted that the teacher communicate more regularly with me and she has involved my son in setting specific daily goals for himself. Part of the difficulty is he gets very bored in class and especially when the focus is worksheets on material he has already mastered. So I have no regrets about his having started K as a barely 5 yo.

However, I am working through the book SMART BUT SCATTERED and creating specific goals for him to work on improving what are called executive skills (involves self control, task initiation, work endurance, organization, and about 4 other important life skills). I highly recommend the book as a guide for you. Especially since it sounds like your daughter is bright and has no trouble with the actual work, but struggles with the structure, focus, and organization of the classroom setting.

There is a HUGE mental developmental stage between kindergarten and 1st grade. Almost always the kids suddenly enter their latency period of development and become better students.

Don't even consider holding her back in kindergarten please. Make them let her go to 1st grade. If she is not challenged next year she will only goof off more then she'll be 2 years behind her peers. That will be with her the rest of her life.

Let her move up and get a tutor if needed. She will change during that year and you'll see a different child mentally. She will lose so much of that child like innocence as far as discovering the world around her and she'll be much more about the mental processing of information.

If she repeats kindergarten she will not be challenged with new information and I worry that she'll falter even more. So move her on up with her peers and see how 1st grade goes.

I think she's fine.

But if she continues to wander during reading or math have her tested for dyslexia, in 1st and 2nd grade.

I knew my son was dyslexic before he was in kindergarten, my oldest and I are also dyslexic, but he did not test as dyslexic until 5th grade --- so keep on them.

My son is not necessarily on the younger end of things (his birthday was in April, started kindy this Sept.), however, he is a pretty dreamy kid and has similar challenges. What his teacher came back to me with during conferences is that while his attentiveness to task and task persistence need strengthening, that this is fairly common for kids his age. As she's been teaching for 29 years, I really trust her opinion, and she did not seem worried.

I would say that if the teacher can keep your daughter moving along with some gentle prodding, I wouldn't sweat this too much. There's a lot of catching up that happens during the second half of Five.:)

A couple suggestions which might help, and which have helped us at our home with our little 'lost in space' kiddo:

First, kids don't understand the importance of staying focused or task persistence, other than getting things done. So please, don't talk too much about it. Just keep encouraging her 'oh, is that finished?' when giving her a task. (not 'are you finished', which she might be, but "is THAT finished", which makes her look beyond herself.)

Give ample time for a task. If you are acknowledging/rewarding behavior, keep the acknowledgment immediate. We have a 'dot chart' at home; everytime something is done immediately, worked at persistently, good attitude, or if it's challenging but he finishes it, we put one or two blue dots on the chart Right Away. I even point it out to him, so he knows they've been earned. Having to wait for a whole week to review behavior is way too abstract. In our house, Kiddo collects Blue Dots for helpful behaviors, Red Dots for misbehavior/not minding/copious complaining. (Newly earned blue dots can cross out or cancel red dots. ) When we collect a hundred blue dots, we get a trip to the nickel arcade. I started him out with twenty, just to be fair, and he really can earn as many as he likes on any given day. I'm not a huge fan of incentives, but we (okay, me!) really needed to see an attitude change, even if it is short term.

(That was long, but I hope I explained it well.)

Also, when having your daughter's eyes evaluated, do ask about eye function/eye teaming. An ophthalmologist may be able to help you with this. After as series of evaluations (because we weren't sure why Kiddo was a little 'off') we discovered that he does have some vision issues which can be a hidden disability. (Ocular motor dysfunction and convergence insufficiency-- has a hard time focusing on some things, and sometimes, double vision.) We've been working with an eye therapist to improve the muscle tone of his eyes and to help train his eyes to work correctly. This has been very helpful.

Only you and the teachers know what will work best for your child. My guess is that unless the teacher is seeing a problem and asking for you to have her evaluated or to seek other resources, she's likely going to grow out of this over the next few years. I haven't met too many kids who didn't get totally absorbed in thinking about something from time to time, even the older ones.

Time, time and time. Do not even consider keeping her back right now. There is still 6 1/2 months of the school year left. Too early to make any decisions. Give her some time to mature a bit.

my older son started early too (he was actually 4 at the time) and it took him a little longer to stay focused. i don't think it would have been a bad thing to wait, or to let him stay in kindergarten another year, but by the end of 1st grade he was rockin' along just fine.
it sounds as if you know your daughter well and are fully involved in her educational development. i think she's going to be just fine. do try not to worry and push her too much. at 5 she's not likely to have laser-like focus, and we sure don't want anything to squash that shimmering imagination.
:) khairete
S.

I don't have any solutions, but wanted to offer support. We're in the same situation with our son. He's 5, young for his class - he's a June birthday, and many of his classmates were already 6 at the start of school! He's doing fine academically, but is having a hard time staying on task. And I don't think it's ADD - he's able to focus so intensely on legos, puzzles, reading books (or having them read to him, really). And we go to a great school, with a 13:1 student:teacher ratio.
The teacher is working with him and has suggested a sticker chart HOURLY to track his ability to stay on task. My sister-in-law who taught kindergarten said that sometimes there might be a child that needed to sit separate from the other kids to just minimize the distractions of the kids around him. And I think it's just something that kids need to grow into. My SIL also said that once kids build enough skill with their writing, reading, etc., their interest quickly accelerates because they can see the link between expressing themselves and their school activities like journaling, etc.
I'll bookmark your question and PM you, if we find any great solutions!

My kids are born late, they were 4 when they started Kinder and then turned 5.
They were fine though.

One thing I might add is: does your daughter get enough sleep? At this age, if/when a child is tired or lacks sleep, they cannot concentrate the next day and it affects their entire behavior the next day.

my son was diagnosed with ADHD this week.

before doing that, we tried a few things to try to help him focus and stay on task (and stop constantly getting in trouble at school for disrupting and distracting everyone else...amongst a long list of other things...)

one thing we tried was no tv during the week. sunday night through friday morning, the tv stayed off if he was up. we watched tv only before he got up and after he went to bed.

with our (much more extreme) situation, it barely did anything. but i still think that in some small way, it helped. it could be that your daughter might benefit from less stimulation at home, that might help her little brain calm down and focus during school.

i would suggest, it's not a matter of trying to figure out how to motivate her - she's 5. it's really a matter of "working with what you got" at this point. she can physically/mentally only do so much. it may not be in her power to sit still and focus yet. don't label this as something "she" needs to do better at, if it's something she truly can't control yet.

i would also note, that we only took the steps we did when it was obvious our son (although blowing all the academic stuff out of the water - he is excelling at all of his school work) would fail at school (eventually,) if we didn't intervene. i hope you find something that works for your daughter - as long as she is not in danger of failing at school, i think you are doing exactly right to just work with her and come up with ideas how to help her. good job mama!

Oh, this could have been me! My son was a June birthday, and it seems everyoen around us--esp. with boys--was holding their summer birthdays back! But my son is a big kid, even as a third grader, now, he's still one of the biggest kids, and I can't imagine what we would have done with him at home for another year! He struggled in kindergarten. His teacher approached me in September, concerned that he had forgotten his lunch bag at school a few times. I wasn't concerned; he was bringing home the stuff that mattered to him, and if he forgot his lunch, well, lesson learned: he took a plastic sack. He was getting timeouts daily for blurting out of turn. His teacher was frustrated and suggested punishment at home, but that was just my impulsive, a little less mature boy. There were two boys who were about his size in his class--who were a full year older than he was, and who had had an additional year of preschool. By the end of the year, he was still blurting out, but enjoying his timeouts (obviously not working as a punishment, but I guess I wasn't concerned--he was punished enough, in my mind, by knowing he'd displeased his teacher, because that was more motivation for him than the timeouts. Now that he's a third grader, some of that has been a long uphill road--his teacher last year was quite harsh in her punishments, and he struggled with anxiety in her room. But, he is a good student, pays attention, likes school, and is one of the top readers in his classroom (in a culture that seems to foster the idea that girls are readers, not boys), Wait a while. Talk with her teacher about how to work on her weaknesses. THAT is exactly what kindergarten should be for. She will be such a different kid by spring; it's way too early to tell about next year. But you can work on some of the things that she's struggling with, giving her some framework for how to be responsible and remember what she needs to and pay attention. Those are hard things, and it's great that you see how important they are.

My big kid is the same way...head in the clouds. But she does great on tests and understands everything. It's crazy and we don't know how she does it since it is like pulling teeth to get her to concentrate. We give her reminders daily to look at people's eyes when they talk and listen when people speak. Some people think she is a little disrespectful...but there may be something way more interesting to her (oh shiny) than what they are saying. I went thru life the same way....distracted...it is a learned way of controlling yourself to stay on task. I still do it daily and have never needed to be medicated. Help her learn coping strategies and distinguish what is important...she will do fine! I wouldn't hold her back unless her grades reflect problems.

My older daughter was just diagosed after 7th grade with ADD-Inattentive type. There were signs I remember as far back as 2nd and 3rd grade, but it didn't get severe until she hit puberty. I think it would be harder to figure out if a younger child has ADD. My DD is a late August birthday. Her preschool teacher in the 4 year old room said her year was a 10 out of 10. Academically, she had the skills. So we sent her to K as one of the youngest so she could start with her neighbor friends. She did pretty well in K-2 with just a few bumps. She had trouble focusing on teacher's directions in 3rd grade. Socially, things got tough in 4th grade. Academically, she took a dive in 7th grade. I think another year for her to mature would have really been of benefit, so if I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know now, I would have held her back. I would not rule out repeating K for your daughter. If you think it would be hard for her to be retained while her peers move on, she's still so young, are there any possibilities you could transfer to another school? Not sure about your area, but in ours we have a lot of choices even within the public and charter school system.

my advice is REPEAT K

and not for the sake of your daughter for the sake of your sanity=)

My daughter is a September 3rd baby and is in 1st grade now, she turned 6 the day before 1st grade started this year. She actually missed the cut off but completed K at a local public school with a diferent cutoff so they allowed her to enroll. Every time she has an issue I blame myself for not holding her back. In reality all kids have issues but being that it was my choice to enroll her (i had to for monetary reasons) i always feel like its my fault when she has school issues.
She is very bright, and sweet, and shy. She is on track all over (actually tested advanced on her test, we J. found out) BUT the begining of K and the begining of 1st grade she had issues adjusting to testing and being able to sit for an hour long test and also J. not being confident enough. So much so she tested well below average on the begining tests and was enrolled in extra labs for help...2 weeks later i email and say , great if she needs help BUT she can read at home and also can do times tables in her head...they retested and she came up advanced
ALSO so many people are holding back their summer birthday kids so some kids in her class are a year and a 1/2 older then her.

If you calculate that as to a % of her life so far
a year and a 1/2 older at 6= 25% older. THATS A HUGE diference.
yes in future years 1 1/2 year wont be so big

7-21%
8-18%
9-16%
10-15%
and so on

But right now that's a huge diference
Emmy is holding her own and her teacher says in no way would she repeat her testing so high now...but if i had, she was be crusing by and not having issues adjusting

My son has a late Aug. birthday 2006 and lat year, at the suggestion of his preschool, we started him in Kindergarten. He was 4 and turned 5 after a few days of starting. I was a parent helper so I volunteered twice a month in the classroom. I had concerns about his age but we decided to give it a try early and see how it went. after half the year, it was evident to us that he was struggling with the academic content, not the social part. It was a maturity thing and we kept in contact with the teacher. I would come hom after volunteering and feel so sad that he couldn't keep up, but he was trying. At the spring conference, she concurred with me that he may not be ready to go to first grade based on his testing scores. We decided to put him in their all day Kindergarten this year and he has done well and is right where he should be. I was also concerned about him being upset by his friends going on to 1st grade. I told him that due to his young age, he was going to all day Kindergarten before 1st grade and he seemed to accept that fine. He asks questions about it at times but has made new friends and is able to do the activities and work expected. So, I would suggest that you do what you can to make the learning fun at home, keep going with the school year and see how she progresses. You can't make her more mature than she is. We waited until June last year to make our final determination to repeat Kindergarten. For us, it was a no brainer because our son couldn't keep up. For our son, it was the right decision but we took our time deciding.

My son missed the cutoff, and started later anyway, but I held him back as the school recommended. He's on the spectrum, and attended SELF since he was three. Last year(his second year of kindergarten), was his first year of standard school. They wanted to bump him into first grade, but I held firm and believed in SELF's recommendation. I'm very glad I did.

He is now seven, in first grade, and has just gotten his first report card of the grade. All A's. He's reading like a second-third grader, and is racing through math(both in high 90 percentile in STAR testing).

Is she in Title1 kindergarten? They have programs that help children learn focus. If not, ask them if there is a way for her to be worked with one on one with the OT weekly to help her learn focus. Since you are involved with her schooling, she'll be doing fine whatever you decide.

Hang in there!

I would keep her back. My son is a mid August baby as well and now in 3rd grade. In some ways as a second child he is mature and other ways very immature. He's come a long way, but has struggled. Kindergarten was ok, and he had a terrific teacher. Last year (1st grade) was very hard with a teacher who was less patient, and he had to work hard to complete his work. He also has trouble focussing and staying on task.

This year he has a terrific teacher again and is doing "ok". The work continues to increase and it's tough for him to keep up.

Ideally, I would have kept my kiddo out another year and had him in a more academic preschool (vs a play based one). I feel like if he'd had more time to mature and work on his skills he would have had a stronger base, everything would be easier. As it is now he always starts behind and catches up by the last quarter of the year, but the whole year is a struggle. And because he's not super confident in his work, the teacher matters a lot.. Some have the patience and the toolbox to work with kids that are between the cracks and some don't.

He also was too far along to "qualify" for keeping him back in kinder, meaning he was able to do the work and met all the standards to move on to 1st grade, so that wasn't really an option for us. Repeating kinder wouldn't have been good for him because he could do the work and would have been bored probably having behavioral problems as a result. If we would have kept him out all together before kinder, it would have been much better for him.

I have not experience it myself but can tell you, a good friend of mine was told that her son would be better if he was hold back a year, before 1st grade since he was in the young side and as you mentioned lacked maturity, she decided not to do it, to move him forward and now she regrets that decision because he is always a little immature for his group and age related discipline. Good thing you are having her evaluated s you have an informed and well based decision.