Skip to content

A new age for kindergarten?


Friday, September 24, 2010

Orange County Register

Columnist Teryl Zarnow tells how she held her son back a year from entering kindergarten because he was less than 5 when the school year began. She knew she had made the right decision. Over the years, she observed kindergarten as a school volunteer with each of her children. “With three children,” she writes, “I went to kindergarten three times”

“Even then—when kindergarten still had a play kitchen in one corner—it was asking a lot of a 4-year-old. Students spent a week studying the letter ‘A.’ They traced it and glued rice to outline its shape. On Friday, they ate apples.

“Most states require a child to turn 5 by Sept. 1, but California is one of only four states enrolling children younger. This year, after 13 tries, the state Legislature passed a measure to change the cutoff date from Dec. 2 to Sept. 1.

“It’s about time.”

View the full story (Orange County Register)