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I Don’t Want My Son To Read In Kindergarten

September 23, 2016

I remember few details from kindergarten: a giant slide in the middle of our classroom, a mid-year visit by Smokey the Bear, the gentle voice and red hair of my teacher. Kindergarten was its own little world within the school — a nurturing cocoon — with its own special playground, its own tiny buses, its own half-day schedule. This spring when my son’s wonderful teacher recommended an additional year of preschool for him, instead of advancing with the rest of his class to kindergarten, I didn’t panic. After all, the school he was attending was small and academically challenging, and I understood he might not be ready for its particular standards. The teacher’s concerns — that he had trouble writing his letters, didn’t focus all the time in class, didn’t answer questions about literature with enough detail — didn’t worry me much. He was four. Just a little boy who liked garbage trucks and Sesame Street. We were moving to the suburbs anyway, and I figured my son would do just fine at our local public school, where he would spend his days listening to stories, playing in sandboxes, making friends, and learning the basic routines of classroom life. Months after this conversation with his teacher, I realized that my son would probably do just fine in public school kindergarten, but only if he could go back in time and attend kindergarten in 1980, not 2016. My son is not ready for kindergarten in 2016. More »