What are the requirements for entering kindergarten early?

Question

my daughter is 3 now and i know she will have to be 4. she is very bright, i work in a small daycare and she usually out-smarts the 4 year olds even now... so, a year from now i would like to have her tested to get in early, what will they test for

Answer 1

It depends on the school district.  Some will allow "testing in" and you've received the answer on what is on the test.  However, on the flip side...we have a school district that does not agree with this at all and we met a road block at every corner.  So now, they are going to get a Kindergarten child who reads at a beginning first grade level, is able to write legible setences, adds and subtracts double digits, knows literacy components that is expected at the end of Kindergarten, knows how to count change, tell time, skip counts by 2s, 5s, 10s to one hundred, etc :-)  Let's just put it this way...I'm not a fan of "workbooks" but he loves them and so I use them as a supplement and I buy the first grade levels and they really aren't much of a challenge.  On top of that he has great social skills.  So what will they do...it's going to be an interesting Kindergarten year!  Good luck...call you school district up!

Answer 2

i went through that with my daughter. she ended up having to take 4 tests, including an IQ test, and have an IQ in the gifted range. she passed them all fine. and it was definitely worth it. here's what i told another parent thinking of enrolling their child early:

my daughter was in the same boat. she could identify all her capital and lower case letters in isolation before the age of 2, would walk around spelling her name for people, etc...and i was given a terrible run around because i'm a young, single mom. i called the school district and said that i wanted her to be tested to start school early. they were like, 'oh, it's really hard to pass the testing to start school early. your daughter has to have a iq over 130...blah blah blah'. and i said, 'right, i want to have her tested to start school early.'

so they set up her first test with the school guidance couselor. of course she passed with flying colors and went on to take 2 more tests with the school psychologist on a different day. after passing those, they then gave her yet ANOTHER test and passed that. it was quite a lot of testing.

after the four tests, we had a 'team meeting' which consisted of me, the school psychologist and the school principal. again, my daughter was in the same boat as yours, reading at 3, writing, drawing, adding, patterning, sorting, etc... the school psychologist still didn't recommend her starting early. luckily, she passed all the tests so highly, that i had the right to say, 'well, i want her to start.' and she did.

and i don't regret it one bit.

she's the youngest in her class, yes. she's in second grade. still the highest reader in the class. doing basic multiplication and basic division. she's not any smaller than the other kids and fits in great.

in my senior year of college (my daughter was 3 at the time and i knew she was gifted), i did my critical inquiry paper on whether it was advantageous to place gifted children in acceleration programs or simply in enrichment programs. i'll be honest with you, i was hard pressed to find information saying that acceleration is not good for gifted children. you really need to pick up and read in a hurry:

Genius Denied

you'll love it. you should read it before you embark on your daughter's grade school adventures. YOU are your daughter's best advocate.

since your daughter is younger, you don't need to go through the testing yet, but get familiar with your state's information and policies on gifted education before you call and before you go for the first round of testing.

a good site to look at is the davidson's institute for talented development. there are so many articles on early childhood giftedness that would be so helpful to you. here's the link to their articles on giftedness in early childhood education:

http://www.gt-cybersource.org/

i have found their website extremely useful for all sorts of information and guidelines.

good luck!

Answer 3

Check with your local school board.  My child missed the five year cut off to enter kindergarten.  I had him tested (for WV) and they required him to know the basics (letters, numbers, hopping, skipping), but he also need to know how to rhyme, hold his pencil correctly, point to pictures that matched the beginning sound that he was given (shoe for the sh sound), using scissors to cut straight lines, etc.  I will have to have him retested, because he did not know how to rhyme.  Good luck!  In my state it is expensive ($175) and it is done by a psychologist hand picked by the school board.