Gavin Kindergarten ready?

It has always been a discussion in our house on whether to send Gavin to Kindergarten when he is legally able to (the school year following his 5th bday) which would be this coming school year. Not because we are worried in any way about his skills, but because of what research and professionals say. Children born after February and planning to go to Kindergarten should really be screened, especially boys. Gavin fits in that group. However academically he is totally ready and wanting to do so many new things on his own. Yes, we work with him and have a lot of learning games and encorporate learning tasks and academics into so much of our day and daily routines, however he is really pushing himself right now and very interested in new skills. Socially he is ready as well.  At school and daycare he is the kindest boy and does a lot with friends. He is still very clingy with us (Matt and I) around and his behaviors can be quite sassy when we are around. I do worry, however, about how hard  he is on himself and has such a hard time taking an imperfections. His frustration level is very low and he says he can't do something or gives up the minute he gets an answer wrong (for instance he almost quit when doing lower case letters tonight)... Even though these are skills we are just starting and are not in any way expected for a preschooler, he was upset with himself.  He would say I am not smart, I don't know this.  That breaks my heart. I question whether he is this way at school. If so, I worry about him learnign things in school when they get tricky or skills increase as they do naturally and all kids struggle with certain skills. I wonder if doing one more year of preschool and then doign Kinder when he turns 6 would allow him more time to mature and learn to deal with frustration. On the flip side, if he knows so much now next year will be a review for him and he may get a false sense of comfort knowing almost everything they are teaching and not know how to deal with learning a new task. I also worry that he would be bored and then check out and not enjoy school as much as he does.... Such decisions to make... Matt and I are open to both and will do whatever is best for him. We will talk more with his preschool teacher, however she has already says she believes he is ready!  Because I was curious, I did do some academic probing with him tonight and he knew a lot more than I thought, since the last time I had done any probing with him was this summer. Boy do they learn a lot in preschool and at home when we make it part of every day. Even in the car he is asking me to do games with him (guessing letter sounds, rhyming, segmenting, counting, etc)... Here is where he is currently at... I can say that from Kindergarten assessments at Bendix, these are skills he is expected to be at 100% at the end of Kindergarten and he still has a half year of Preschool and whole year in Kindergarten:

 

capital letters he knows: 26/26
lower case letters he knows: 18/26
can give the sound if he sees the letter: 16/26
can say the letter if he hears the sound: 18/26
can give a word that starts with a letter: 15/26
hears a word and can tell me beginning sound: 20/26
writes the capital letter without any prompting: 17/26 (23 if I give him HWT verbal 
           prompts)

writes lower case letters (did not assess yet)
can give a rhyming pair: 5/6
segmenting: giving individual sounds and asking him what word that would make: 2/6

words he can write on his own: Gavin, Mya, Mom, Dad
can count to: 119
can count backwards from 10
can count up to 100 by 10's
counting by 2's and 5's-doesn;t know automatically yet 

recognizes and gives name for numbers to 11 (some teen #s but not consistent) -goal to recognize #s to
       100 by end of K
hears a number and can give next number :90%
hears a number and can give number before: 100% up to 20 more difficult higher #s

He is AMAZING!!! So proud of the little dude!!

 

We will continue to ask and talk, but our current thought is off to Kindergarten next year. As parents, you wish there was a crystal ball for us to look into to know which decision would be better. He is small enough that he would not stick out being a year older, however kids can be cruel and will find out he started a year later and he may feel bad about that... However, it could make him more mature and make him more successful. Just not sure what is exactly right... Do you ever as a parent???