I personally know a girl with Down syndrome who attends that school. Integration is almost always the better way to go. You should look into it a bit more. 😉
From what I’ve gathered, the school is trying to break up the preschool groups. Obviously, they aren't going to make sure nobody knows anyone—that's just not realistic—but the goal is to stop those little cliques from forming.
In the US, you enroll a kid between their 5th and 6th birthdays during any semester—I think there are 🤔 of them. It really just depends on when their birthday falls or whatever works best for the parents. By age 6, they have to be enrolled. If you sign them up during one of the last two semesters, it doesn't count as its own year; it just rolls into the next one, so the whole thing is treated as 1st grade. Their school year kicks off in January.
I know how it goes. We’ve been working on that using visual aids, but honestly, I find it works best when we just weave the exercises into casual, everyday conversation.
Brian Jones8 said:I know this isn't the main topic, but I'm curious—what are you all doing to tackle this?
Regarding the delay... I'd love to hear from parents whose kids are already in school after being held back a year. Did that extra year actually make a difference?
The teachers at our preschool are being pretty harsh; they're convinced he'll be struggling forever. ☕Fine, I hear you. I’ll work with him and stay on top of his lessons, but I'm really hoping one more year of preschool gives him a chance to catch up on his speech and sharpen his focus a little.
We mostly prompt him during daily conversations by asking follow-up questions to get more detail. He tends to leave out important stuff—like the subject—so there are a lot of gaps, making it hard to follow his train of thought. With the speech therapist, they work through picture books routinely. His memory is great, so when he retells a story or a cartoon, it’s usually just verbatim dialogue or text pulled straight from memory. If he can't recall an exact line, he just skips it. It seems like he hasn't quite grasped the difference between summarizing a story and reciting it from memory yet. 🤣 He’s definitely not quiet; he loves to talk, but yeah... 😁
Reading and writing aren't really an issue for him. He’s shown interest, and we’ve stepped in to help whenever he asks. I can see him starting to grasp basic math principles now, too. But speech, retelling stories, even general comprehension—that’s where he struggles. Honestly, once he starts school, we're just going to have to push him harder on those specific areas. He's absorbing everything, but it's slow, and he moves at his own pace. Given how much we've dealt with so far, I really wonder if a year of delaying enrollment would actually result in any meaningful progress in those areas.
I just wanted to touch on speech therapy and the idea of delaying school entry. My kid has been seeing a speech therapist for three years now. He hasn't quite hit those developmental milestones yet, and I worry some minor issues might stick around. I know things like essays, creative writing, and reading assignments are going to be a total grind, but honestly, requesting a delay never even crossed my mind—he’ll be starting kindergarten before he even turns seven. His attention span is pretty hit-or-miss too; he can rarely focus for more than 20 or 30 minutes unless we're talking about Legos. 🤣
nimblelynx7 said:There’s a massive difference between delaying a kid who is clearly school-ready just to give them a breather, versus delaying a kid who is struggling halfway, or—even worse—forcing a kid who is already on the fence into school because you think it's "for their own good."
Look, all three approaches have their merits, but I don't see how taking an extra year is going to ruin anyone's life. I don't get the rush to force these kids into the system. Why hurry? You’re just creating a situation where they might fail a grade later. And honestly, trying to push them toward the workforce or the IRS sooner isn't going anywhere. Like someone else pointed out, it's not like opportunities are going to vanish overnight.
If you make school this sudden, overwhelming primary obligation, you're just setting them up for a massive shock to the system.
The thing is, kids have already been getting used to having responsibilities in some capacity—whether it's at home or out at daycare. I don't really get this "half-and-half" concept. What does that even mean? A huge chunk of kids going through testing aren't 100% ready. I could list plenty of reasons why my kid isn't quite there yet.
Don't kids this age already have responsibilities? Is this really going to be their first brush with actual accountability? It’s not like they were raised in a bubble, so I don't see why this is such a shock.
I’ll admit, I was a little worried they might push his appointment back because of his speech and comprehension issues—you never really know with these things. I could already see myself arguing with them about why an extension was totally unnecessary, so I went ahead and armed myself with the psychological testing results from his pre-school speech therapy sessions. 😂
I was definitely all for moving forward with it. My doctor did mention that we should probably work on my fine motor skills to see if there's some room for improvement.
We had our checkup and testing at the doctor's office today. By the end, my wife told me everything went great and he passed with flying colors. Then she turned to me and asked what I thought—basically whether I felt he was actually ready to start school or not. Honestly, the kid isn't even close to the cutoff age yet; he's only six and a half. I walked away with this feeling that they ask every parent that same question. 🤷
From what I understand, after all the testing is done, the school's specialist team and the local health clinic work side-by-side to review everything and make decisions for all the kids. It seems a bit odd to me that we might be waiting until August when enrollment starts back in early June. 🤔
Doesn't sound like much of a three to me either, unless we're talking about some tiny little deer you can barely see behind a massive chimney in the foreground. 🤷 Stuff like this—composition, lighting, all that—is pretty subjective. A professor once told me that
shadowcrane91 said:Don't even worry about it.... I already told her we'd try again next time. Honestly, I'm the one who felt super awkward about this whole thing...
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That’s really good to hear, though unfortunately it doesn't happen often enough. I'm glad you noticed it and that you'll be able to handle things differently now that you know. 👍 Mine is still at the preschool stage, but I've caught myself many times realizing it's me reacting to things, not him.