If you are interested in some research about early childhood education, check out the “Homegrown” books by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. These were written back in the 1980s, and contain the studies of over 7000 children by the Moores, who were reading experts. You can find them online.
Their conclusion is that most children, especially boys, benefit greatly by staying close to home for the first ten years of their lives. Even if the “home-grown children” do not receive any formal teaching from their parents, many of them begin reading anyway spontaneously by the time they are ten years old. It’s really quite amazing to read the Moore’s research.
Socialization of children is best done by letting them spend lots of time with ADULTS, not other children. When you think about it, that makes sense. Adults already know all the “social norms” and they can pass these down to their children. Children, OTOH, know nothing–it’s like the blind leading the blind!
My personal feeling is that pre-school is unnecessary IF the children have a rich home life and parents who are connected with the children and spend most of their day with the children doing various activities, including at least an hour or so of reading aloud. Watching TV all day doesn’t count.
My children skipped pre-school, but we did a lot of activities. I described these in another thread. We took “field trips,” usually to a local business or tourist site, and talked to the people in charge of the site. We did lots of “nature walks.” (I have a biology degree, so I know a bit about nature lore.)
We did “experiments” and “arts and crafts”. Lots and lots of music.
At that time, my husband and I were evangelical Protestant, so we had the children involved in several activities through our church. Both girls spent time in the church nursery while they were very young (birth to age three). At age two, they started Sunday school–our church took the approach that the two and three year olds were the most important people in the church and deserved the very best Sunday school curriculum, so they really did a good job presenting the Bible story, teaching songs and motions, and doing activities like crafts. At age three, both girls were able to start the church club program (we used Pioneer Clubs, which is delightful–not like AWANA at all). And of course, there was the yearly VBS and the yearly missionary conference, both of which were lots of fun for kids.
We lived in a neighborhood with lots of kids, and my daughters had friends that they played with almost everyday. By age three, they were having “sleepovers”.
And we got them involved with ballet and figure skating by the time they were age 3 and 5.
So it’s not like my children stayed home with me and watched me knit! My mother (RIP) once told me that the girls had lived more life by the time they were 12 than most people live in an entire lifetime!
I did put both girls in kindergarten. My older daughter went to K in Raleigh, North Carolina, and at that time, it was full day. She did good with this, mainly because for two hours in the afternoon, the children took a real nap. This was torture for the children who didn’t sleep, but my daughter slept. In fact, at age 29, she still takes a daily nap.
Her K experience in Raleigh was excellent. She already knew how to read, write, and do basic math by the the first day of kindergarten. Before I ever had children, I made a VOW that they would know how to read before I allowed them to start school. You see, I attended NIU, which is a former “normal school,” which means that a lot of elementary and secondary education majors attended that college. I saw many of these future teachers party their way through the school with Cs while I worked my rear off trying to get a high enough GPA to be accepted into a medical technology internship (at that time, we needed a 3.5 GPA, and our required courses were difficult science classes). I was afraid that my daughters would end up in a kindergarten or first grade class with one of those lovely NIU grads who hadn’t really bothered to learn anything excepting how to consume vast quantites of alcohol while they were at college. So I decided to teach my children to read myself, and I did. My apologies to any teachers reading this who DID take college seriously, but I know what I saw at NIU, and it wasn’t impressive.
Anyway, my older daughter is a very social person, and for her, Kindergarten was a great “networking” experience.
We had moved to Northern Illinois by the time my younger daughter was old enough for Kindergarten. Her experience was not nearly as good. She also knew how to read, and she was doing grade school math at age five. For her, kindergarten was boring beyond belief. She had an older woman teacher, who was kind and sweet, but not very ambitious. Also, it was only half day, so it was over before it even got started. My daughter was and still is a very meticulous person who wants to do something thoroughly and finish it, and it drove her nuts to have her activity or work interrupted after only three hours.
Of course, at the time my kids were in grade school, our schools were embroiled in a deseg lawsuit, and everything was a royal mess. By the time my younger daughter was in 2nd grade, we had pulled them out of public schools and they spent the rest of their school days through 12th grade in a private prep school which did tracking and individualized education. We all loved that school.
I think parents need to realistically assess their home life and determine whether their children will benefit more from staying home or going to kindergarten. I don’t think pre-school is ever necessary unless the parents have some kind of situation that prevents them from interacting in an enriching way with their children. Kindergarten–it depends. If it is half-day, I say skip it if you can legally do so in your town.
I still managed to “adjust” and graduate miss salutatorian by a decimal!
And in the big scheme of things, look at how many years a child will be in school for seven hours a day. I say if a child can stay home with their parent(s) through Pre-K and Kindergarten, that would be ideal!
I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to add another a second child to our family by then so those few hours will (hopefully) be ones that can be spent with just one baby instead of two.