The past few months, I have spent an inordinate amount of time preparing for my DS to enter kindergarten. That is, I have researched and visited a number of local and not-so-local schools, obsessed over whether to send him to full day or half day kindergarten, and worried about his ability to concentrate and his lagging fine motor skills.
Now that kindergarten is, “the new first grade,†these things matter. Despite his obvious intelligence and relative maturity, he is still barely 5, an age when I was attending kindergarten 3 days a week just to get me out of my mother’s hair.
A recent article in the New York Times, When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten? , gave me one more thing to worry about. With California’s December 2 cut-off to attend kindergarten, that is, children must be 5 by December 2, I felt assured that my DS would be one of the older ones in the class. That it turns out, is important.
“Obviously, when you’re 5, being a year older is a lot, and so we should expect kids who are the oldest in kindergarten to do better than the kids who are the youngest in kindergarten,†….After crunching the math and science test scores for nearly a quarter-million students across 19 countries, Bedard found that relatively younger students perform 4 to 12 percentiles less well in third and fourth grade and 2 to 9 percentiles worse in seventh and eighth; and, as she notes, “by eighth grade it’s fairly safe to say we’re looking at long-term effects.â€
So far so good. However, in my neighborhood, which includes both multi-million dollar mansions and densely packed apartment buildings, “academic red-shirtingâ€, the practice of holding back children with late summer and fall birthdays is common. Our local elementary school automatically assigns children with birthdays after July 1st to a two year kindergarten class called “preppie-Kâ€, which has them entering first grade at 7 rather than 6.
This practice in theory gives younger children the “gift of timeâ€. However, it now has the effect of making my late February birthday child one of the younger ones entering first grade next year rather than one of the older. The way I calculate it, the oldest first-graders next year will have birthdays in July and the youngest in June.
Sigh, there obviously is not a good answer to this dilemma that will work for everyone, but it gives me one more thing to worry about. Have you considered “red-shirting†your child? Is it common in your neighborhood?
[tags]parenting, kids, advice, advise, school, age, kindergarten, pre-k, education[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by Macarena Guajardo Mavroski, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
8 responses so far ↓
Colleen // Jun 4, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Great article…
I am lucky… my son missed the cut-off for our district by a few days. So I don’t even have to think about it. Although, I know I would have held him back (not because of academices, because he just is not socially ready)!
Although many parents believe that starting a child early or later will guarantee academic success, this is just not true (I have seen tons a research showing that kids flat line in grade 3 - if they are just average kids.) Oftentimes, the children who are the oldest kindergartners are the most successful. They have had time to mature and become ready for the regimen of the school day. The most important things (in my opinion) about preK - 2nd grade is that the kids have a natural love of learning… when they start to hate it or get frustrated is when you start to worry!
Some links of interest:
http://preschoolerstoday.com/resources/readykinder.htm
http://www.ksdk.com/news/education/education_article.aspx?storyid=107132
this addresses the academic advantages…
http://www.azcentral.com/families/education/articles/0427latekindergarten-ON.html
Whatever slight academic advantages older students might have in the early years typically evaporate by third grade, experts say. In a 2002 report, Deborah Stipek, dean of the School of Education at Stanford, found that existing research showed that on average older children did not academically outperform their younger peers. Nor are there social or emotional benefits to being older in the grade, her own research has found.
maggini // Jun 4, 2007 at 5:45 pm
The quote you had…I think it does have some acceptions. In my state, the cutoff was September, so the way my birthday fell, I got into kindergarten at age 4. I did really well in school because I wanted to prove that even though I was younger I could do just as much as everyone else. I think it can work both ways, and age isn’t as important as how much you push yourself to do well in school (at any age).
Nice blog!
Mike // Jun 5, 2007 at 4:57 am
One of our kids’ friends is planning on doing the 2 year kindergarten. But, they are starting him early and then the second year will be his normal year of kindergarten. The only reason they are sending him this coming fall to K instead of Pre-K is because of how much cheaper K is.
Heather // Jun 5, 2007 at 5:39 am
I feel your anxiety.
I stressed about this issue last year. The cut-off date in our area is Dec 1 and my son’s birthday is at the end of Sept., but even so, I worried. He was 4 when he started Kindergarten and he’ll be 5 when he starts first grade this coming September. He did great. There is a huge age spread in his class and though he is among the youngest, there are others close to his age. I wasn’t worried about his academic skills, and indeed, he is the top reader in his class to the extent that he’ll be going into a reading class with the 3rd grade next year. I worried about his social skills, but after a couple months of “learning the ropes” he relaxed into the routine (full day 8-3pm) and isn’t so exhausted at the end of the day anymore. It might help that his is a charter school that used the expeditionary model; I don’t know. I do think that it’s more important to focus on the readiness of an individual child instead of whether or not their age falls within some arbitrary range. My son would have missed a lot if he’d done another year of preschool. I think he would have been bored, but certainly I wouldn’t assume that our choice was the right one for every child. There was another boy in his preschool class who went on to his kindergarten and that boy is an entire year older, but again, that was the right choice for that boy. The gap of a year really doesn’t seem that big of a deal when you see all the kids playing together.
IntheFastLane // Jun 5, 2007 at 6:11 am
In Indiana the K’s must be 5 by Aug. 1st (currently) but it was July 1st when my son started and his birthday was the end of July. So he was 6 before he started Kindergarten. This was a good thing for him emotionally, but intellectually, he is now bored with the work in 1st grade. But, being the oldest has had some advantages for him. He has refined some of his leadership skills and he enjoys being able to do extra things because he already completed the 1st grade work.
My oldest was also on the older side, but she would have done fine being younger too, but I think this maybe because she is a girl?
My youngest has an early June birthday so he will only be 5 when he starts K. Even though he is only 2, I am already thinking about it. He is way more independent than his brother, and seems to be fairly bright. He is very verbal is always playing with the older kids so, I think he will be fine being on the young side. But, it does make me think about the fact that he will be almost a full year younger that his brother was in each grade. Time will tell…
Whitney // Jun 5, 2007 at 6:26 am
I wrote a long post about this over at The Parent’s Eye View, my other blog, besides this one.
http://ldpodcast.wordpress.com/
There are 2 important studies that appeared last year in the Journal of Educational Research, about full vs. half day kindergarten, and the benefits of “redshirting” and where it seems to make a difference. I have the references over there, and if anyone is dying to see them, I can see about getting them to you- drop me an email at ldpodcast@gmail.com.
My feeling is that we need to take a broader view that education needs to be hooked up with child development, how kids learn to think, and when their brains are ready for the next stage.
And this is important because of what we expect kids to get out of kindergarten. Is kindergarten about socialization and getting ready to learn for all that desk stuff that comes in first grade? Is it about already learning math and reading skills to be ready for higher things in first grade? Is it, or should it be about learning to write letters and associate them with sounds? I think the debate needs to be more on appropriate curriculum and what a kid needs to get in kindergarten rather than rigid age guidelines.
My younger one, when we are applying for kindergarten spots in several schools, has a June Birthday. One school recommended another year of preschool for the age-size reasons (not to mention how big they wanted their athletes to be in 7th grade and above….). Another who did extensive testing, and found John was testing on some measures near a level of an eight year old at age 4, said they would take him, no problem. We went with the school that would take him, even though it was a half day program.
I did this because I felt John needed and could handle the stimulation. He has done very well, but that has been as much about who John is as it has been about what school has done for him. Bottom line, it’s about the school, the teachers, and the curriculum much more than the age, in my opinion.
Finn // Jun 5, 2007 at 7:02 am
Here the cutoff is September. My son was a November baby, so he was late to Kindergarten. However he had been in preschool since the age of three because he is disabled.
I honestly believe the extra year in preschool was good for him. In the three years he was there we saw a tremendous change in him. He blossomed. By the time Kindergarten came around, he did great.
Since you talk about issues with motor skills and concentration, would you consider holding him out of Kindergarten and putting him in a Pre-K program for a year first? This would give you a chance to see how he does and ease him into the academic environment.
I think you have to go with your gut. Do you feel your child is ready? Don’t think, feel. If you’re gut says no, wait. As was said in a movie I saw recently, decisions are easy. You’re probably coming to us because you don’t like the decision you already made.
MC Milker // Jun 6, 2007 at 4:51 am
The biggest issue, as I see it, is that there may be no good decision, especially for boys who are known to develop focus and fine motor skills later. In many ways, programs that emphasize play in kindergarten are better for boys but, many boys ARE ready for the intellectual stimulation- just not the way it is typically taught.
My struggle has been to find a program that really reaches out to boys, very different learning style. Some do exist but, finding them can be a challenge.
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