Five Year Old Abilities

[SilverSabre25]

So yesterday, when my mom was here holding down the fort when I was so sick, I heard her scolding 5 yo dcb to color ONLY on his OWN paper. This is an ongoing problem with him and has been for a long time. He's been known to take someone else's paper and cut it up, too.

Am I correct in thinking that a child who starts kindergarten in three weeks should be able to keep his crayon on his own work?

[Starburst]

Have you tried separating him from the rest of the group (giving him his own table and supplies) during those type of projects?

But yes it does seem he as impulse and/or boundary issues.

[JoseyJo]

I would def think a 5 yo should be able to do this- We expect all of our children to color on their own papers and if they cannot do so are separated at art time. We take 18 mo and up and usually w/i a few months of sitting in a high chair for art as soon as they mess w/ someone else's paper they are able to sit at the table and work w/ the others without problem.

[daycare]

If I knew this about the child I would not set him at the table with the rest of the kids. I would tell him why.

I would give him one chance daily to sit as a group and then one and done. I woul tell him I want you have fun do please make good decisions.

[SilverSabre25]

Thank you for agreeing with me--I was pretty sure a 5 yo ought to be able to keep to his own space.

He does have a lot of delays/issues. He's 5, and his mom and I only understand maybe 75% of what he says. He's got the weirdest pronunciations, and can't follow two step directions. He lies a lot (and rather craftily...it's beyond the somewhat age-appropriate "what I wish was true" stuff), can't be trusted to follow even the simplest rules, and cannot correctly answer who/what/where/when/why type questions.

i've told mom multiple times over the almost 3 years I've watched him that she NEEDS to get him evaluated. I've told dcd too. But they've never done it. Poor child...I feel so sorry for his kindy teacher. And get this--they live in a not-so-good school district and mom was going to open enroll him to a better school, but the one she was looking at is 80% black, and she decided that "wouldn't do him any good" so she is sending him to their home school, which is one of the worst performing in the entire district, because it's predominantly white. WTF lady?!

[JoseyJo]

Thank you for agreeing with me--I was pretty sure a 5 yo ought to be able to keep to his own space.

He does have a lot of delays/issues. He's 5, and his mom and I only understand maybe 75% of what he says. He's got the weirdest pronunciations, and can't follow two step directions. He lies a lot (and rather craftily...it's beyond the somewhat age-appropriate "what I wish was true" stuff), can't be trusted to follow even the simplest rules, and cannot correctly answer who/what/where/when/why type questions.

i've told mom multiple times over the almost 3 years I've watched him that she NEEDS to get him evaluated. I've told dcd too. But they've never done it. Poor child...I feel so sorry for his kindy teacher. And get this--they live in a not-so-good school district and mom was going to open enroll him to a better school, but the one she was looking at is 80% black, and she decided that "wouldn't do him any good" so she is sending him to their home school, which is one of the worst performing in the entire district, because it's predominantly white. WTF lady?!

Wow! Some people :confused: We have one (actually the one whose mom dropped him off when I wasn't here this morning before I opened!) who goes to kindy in 2 weeks and does not know all his letters, hardly any of his letter sounds, most of his numbers, cannot write all the letters of his own name correctly, and can only write the numbers 1, 0 and 8. We have had him a year and have tried SO hard to help him ( I do not think he is special needs) but dcm puts no value on learning, only on sports, and he also has trouble concentrating because he is constantly exhausted (due to his and her extreme sports "social life", games until late at night, etc.) I also feel bad for his K teacher but also don't want his lack of readiness to reflect bad on our program!

[Starburst]

Wow! Some people :confused: We have one (actually the one whose mom dropped him off when I wasn't here this morning before I opened!) who goes to kindy in 2 weeks and does not know all his letters, hardly any of his letter sounds, most of his numbers, cannot write all the letters of his own name correctly, and can only write the numbers 1, 0 and 8. We have had him a year and have tried SO hard to help him ( I do not think he is special needs) but dcm puts no value on learning, only on sports, and he also has trouble concentrating because he is constantly exhausted (due to his and her extreme sports "social life", games until late at night, etc.) I also feel bad for his K teacher but also don't want his lack of readiness to reflect bad on our program!

She's going to be kicking herself when he's in high school and wont be allowed to play sports due to poor grades because his education is not her top priority (and eventually he probably wont care either).

Is there anyway you can right a letter to the school that you do not believe the child is ready for kindergarten? If you do have a preschool-based program, I would warn the mom that he will not be allowed to walk in the graduation ceremony (or at least not get a certificate) because you do not believe he is ready for kindergarten. The FCC I used to work at that did preschool would hold back kids if they believed the child wasn't ready for kindergarden, and in most cases the parents agreed and understood.

[JoseyJo]

She's going to be kicking herself when he's in high school and wont be allowed to play sports due to poor grades because his education is not her top priority (and eventually he probably wont care either).

Is there anyway you can right a letter to the school that you do not believe the child is ready for kindergarten? If you do have a preschool-based program, I would warn the mom that he will not be allowed to walk in the graduation ceremony (or at least not get a certificate) because you do not believe he is ready for kindergarten. The FCC I used to work at that did preschool would hold back kids if they believed the child wasn't ready for kindergarden, and in most cases the parents agreed and understood.

I told her he wasn't ready this Spring and she was thinking of holding him back a year. I told her that I thought he could catch up but she would have to start working w/ him A LOT at home and making it a priority. She decided just to start him in K this year.

I really want him to do well in school, even if she doesn't so I started doing extra learning activities w/ him during nap time (on top of our regular preschool) since he didn't sleep all of nap and we don't have naps in K here. She was fine w/ it until he told her it was hard work and that he needed her to help him at home so he could get more practice -he came up w/ that on his own Then she decided he didn't need the extra practice and "just needed to be a kid".

I explained to her that I wasn't asking him for too much- just working w/ him doing learning games for 1/2 hour, then he gets to watch a 1/2 hour learning show (we watch NO tv here so that was a big treat), then gets to color or I would read to him. We kept paring it down more and more until he was just had to trace (for example) the number 2 twice, then write it twice, per day. He was SO proud of himself the first time he could make a 2 but she wont give him any real praise for anything academic. Then she started keeping him up later and later at night (practicing for t-ball she said) and said he was so tired he needed to go ahead and take nap and not do the extra preschool activities. I finally gave up on it and he takes a full nap now w/ the little kids.

He was going to be before/after school w/ us so I was going to talk to his teacher on ways we have found that work w/ him but she is moving out of town so he can go to a school where a former schoolmate of hers is the principal. I hope that instead of coddling her the schoolmate gives her a heart to heart that she will actually listen to!

The kicker on this one- guess what mom does for a living? Social worker of course! ::::

[littlemissmuffet]

Wow! Some people :confused: We have one (actually the one whose mom dropped him off when I wasn't here this morning before I opened!) who goes to kindy in 2 weeks and does not know all his letters, hardly any of his letter sounds, most of his numbers, cannot write all the letters of his own name correctly, and can only write the numbers 1, 0 and 8. We have had him a year and have tried SO hard to help him ( I do not think he is special needs) but dcm puts no value on learning, only on sports, and he also has trouble concentrating because he is constantly exhausted (due to his and her extreme sports "social life", games until late at night, etc.) I also feel bad for his K teacher but also don't want his lack of readiness to reflect bad on our program!

I'm sorry but honestly... I don't see how if you can't help this child learn his letters and numbers how mom is supposed to???
Almost all of my dcks learn their alphabet, numbers, shapes, colors, etc here with me because they spend more focused awake time with me in a week than with their parents.

[daycarediva]

TRUST me, don't worry about the academics of K. Most kids entering will NOT have these skills and the ones who do will be bored while the teachers plays catch up with half the class. I am big into our local PTA and head most of their fundraisers. I know every K teacher well and they ALL ask me to make sure those kids can handle losing their shovels, NOT know their abcs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCZ8J_7zb5s

The op's 5yo dck sounds like he is developmentally delayed and/or has a learning disability. I know the feeling. I have a 5.5yo here entering K in fall who doesn't RECOGNIZE his own name, let alone other letters. Definitely has a speech delay, cannot get pronouns correctly(mixes up he/she/her/him) or learn a routine, doesn't understand over/under/around/through/in/out, 2 step directions? HA! can't rote count to 10. Mom sees the issues now though, so he is 1 step up.