Interesting. My son went to a play based preschool and they did not teach the alphabet or beginning reading at all. Their belief is that at preschool age the kids learn more by playing and it's important to be well socialized. I did no special tutoring at home but we do always like to read books to our son. Anyway, in Kindergarten (and he goes to a very good school) maybe half the class did not know much at all - were not good yet in phonics or good at writing letters etc. Now in 1st grade there are a couple kids who are a little slower at reading but the other 18 are all doing great. Our son tests way above the curve for his age range and did last year too. That's sounds like I'm bragging...what I mean is why do those teachers expect a pre-K aged student to already be good at phonics? It seems to me like most kids going into Kindergarten don't read (or not much) much yet anyway and then the kids are all reading well by 1st grade. That's a hard call. I am not sure if you should wait a year. Does your daughter like you reading with her and sitting and doing letters and numbers? She's not even 5 yet so it's hard to tell. They change and learn SO much in just 6 months. Some kids do take Kindergarten twice...so that is an option too.