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holding boys back?
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Anonymous
Is this just your opinion? Are your statements anecdotal, or are they based on research you've done or read? Would love to see the supporting research, so please pass it on if you have it. |
Anonymous
| This was not my opinion. It is an observation and fact stated by parents and even boys. How common is it? There can be variation between schools and communities based on socioeconomics. I don't know unless specific schools supply lists with birthdates. If it might be an issue affecting your child at a particular school talk to the admissions person or a registrar. |
Anonymous
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I am going to have to hold my son back because of the cut off even though I didn't want to. The reason I didn't want to hold him back is because he looks "a year older" he acts closer to a five year old. now he'll be five when other kids in his class would just have turned 4. I think for him it would have been relatively easier to adjust to a class that had older kids than a class which will now have kids younger than him. I know he'll be looking for friends in the other classes if he doesn't find many kids of his age.
I do not agree with PP that most parents hold back boys because of academics later on. I think those who do on purpose do so, because they know their children, and know that they many not be old enough to be at whatever grade level. The cut offs are arbitrary. I don't know of any "science" behind them. What is not arbitrary is a parents feeling, and knowldege of what their child can or cannot handle. It is these parents, who rightly so would hold back their children, whether in K or grade 1 or even later on from a transition to middle school. I think that these decisions are very individual and usually in the best interest of the child. |
Anonymous
| Unfortunately, the educational system has at least two roles. First, school assist in educating each child to the best of that child's abilities. Second, schools assess children relative to their peers through grades, success in activities, etc. in order for potential colleges and employers to make admissions and hiring decisions. While red shirting may in many cases be in the best interest of the individual child, I think that what many posters (myself included even though we may red shirt our son) are upset about is that parents have the right to decide that they want their to be held back artificially in a way that results in an uneven playing field when it comes to the assessment part of education. Little Johnny isn't ready to compete with other (also understandably nervous and immature) five year olds so we'll wait a year until he's the oldest and perhaps that will help his ego/performance/assessment. Overall, though, I think that whole issue is over-hyped. |
Anonymous
| pp you make a good point. if there was a system in schools where they could assess a child and see if they agree with the parents, that may help. |
Anonymous
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As a mother of boys, I find all this negative talk about "huge" thuggish six-year-olds and dangerous "19 yo men" in high school really distressing. Do you see males as violent, evil thugs who are out to rape your daughters? I hope you are not passing these attitudes on to your girls. My boys are wonderful gifts and blessings and I love them every bit as much as you love your daughters. The "men" in high school you imagine and are so terrified of are probably not boys who were redshirted -- they are boys who failed ninth grade twice and tenth grade once and they are likely to exist whether we all redshirt or not. I also think about the flip side: if I don't redshirt my late-August birthday, he will be turning 18 during orientation week at college. That prospect worries me. Also, I know several parents of 3 yo boys (including mine) who have been told their boys have sensory integration issues and other dysfunctions. These diagnoses seem to be the new thing -- and in all the cases I know, the parents are doubtful and dubious and it's the preschools and schools that insist on O.T. and early intervention for what seem like pretty normal energetic little boy behavior. I don't think boys are different now but expectations are. The joke is the cure for sensory integration disorder is turning 6 -- or being a girl. |
Anonymous
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The following is taken directly from a literature review of redshirting (Marshall, 2003):
What we DO know about holding children out: 1. Some families delay their children's kindergarten entry because of maturity concerns. Often these concerns are influenced by the culture of the school or community. 2. On average, delaying kindergarten entry has NO long-term effect on academic achievement. By about third grade, any early differences disappear. However, the combination of youngness and low ability may have negative consequences for achievement. 3. Holding children out deprives them of struction that, regardless of age, promotes learning of many skills. 4. Holding children out does not result in any social advantage. There are no differences in peer acceptance or self-concept. On the contrary, some children who are red-shirted worry that that they have failed and develop poor attitudes toward school. They are more likely later to develop behavioral problems or drop-out. 5. Children who have been held out are more likely to receive special education services later. Enrolling children when they are eligible may lead to their receiving help earlier. 6. In developmentally appropriate kindergartens, children's age or maturity should make no difference. In kindergartens that are pressure-cookers influenced by the demands of the acheivment-oriented teachers, families may have greater concerns. I think when assessing research on this topic, its important to look at reviews of well-constructed studies (ie: literature reviews) with good reliability and validity. There are individual studies out there that have found benefits to red-shirting, but in general, they were either poorly designed (low validity and reliability scores etc) or show that the benefits are gone by the third grade. |
Anonymous
| PP: How do you explain applying this to school cut offs. So for eg. if cut off is Dec my son would have been in Kindergarten this year. But now he'll be in Kindergarten next year. so he'll be held back even though we didn't decide to. do the above 6 points apply to him too? |
Anonymous
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@ 20:06. The literature review you cite is from 2003. Since then there has been some provocative findings by economists who have used huge data sets to look at the effect of relative age on test scores and found that there being young relative to peers affects test scores negatively, not just in elementary school but in middle school too. (i.e., Bedard, 2006, "The Persistence of Early Childhood Maturity: International Evidence of Long-Run Age Effects" in The Quarterly Journal of Economics). I think the jury's still out and the evidence either way is not clear cut.
One other note: August is the most common month in which to be born, I've read, though I can't cite a source. So by making the cut-off September 1, there are a lot of children who will just squeak in or not, and a lot of parents who have to grapple with the decision. If the cut-off were Dec. 31 or June 1 or some other date, we might not have quite as many children on the cusp. |
Anonymous
This is a disgusting thing to say. Sorry your kid has sensory integration problems, but this is crap. |
Anonymous
| I dunno; I have a son who is 4 with sensory integration disorder, and I found that quote neither disgusting nor crappy. In fact I laughed. |
Anonymous
| To PP 10:40. 20:06 here. Thank you for your reference. It was interesting to read, however, like many articles on the subject, there will always be research on either side of the coin that you can find to support your beliefs. That is why I think it is so imperative to look at literature reviews, not just one single article to look for trends in findings. Also, the article you mentioned looks at youngess from the standpoint of its affects on the economy (wages earned etc) as well as test scores. If test scores and future wages are your benchmark for success, then this is an important finding. However, if social experiences, and self-concept are important markers to what you deem as success indicators for your child, there is pleny of other research that says just being young is not disadvantageous, and in fact can be a gift. Notable reseachers on the subject (Graue and Di Perna) refer to this as the "gift of opportunity." One last point I'll make on the subject, part of the data set in this and other research is someone skewed in that there are many low SES children in the youngest quartile (since redshirting is more prevalent among higher SES groups) and this confounds possible conclusions in that its impossible to say whether it is youngness contributing to lower wages and test scores, or is it the socio-economic disadvantages that are contributing to these results, and not youngess alone. |
Anonymous
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New NBER working paper on redshirting:
ABSTRACT Forty years ago, 96% of six-year-old children were enrolled in first grade or above. As of 2005, the figure was just 84%. The school attendance rate of six-year-olds has not decreased; rather, they are increasingly likely to be enrolled in kindergarten rather than first grade. This paper documents this historical shift. We show that only about a quarter of the change can be proximately explained by changes in school entry laws; the rest reflects "academic redshirting," the practice of enrolling a child in a grade lower than the one for which he is eligible. We show that the decreased grade attainment of six-year-olds reverberates well beyond the kindergarten classroom. Recent stagnation in the high school and college completion rates of young people is partly explained by their later start in primary school. The relatively late start of boys in primary school explains a small but significant portion of the rising gender gaps in high school graduation and college completion. Increases in the age of legal school entry intensify socioeconomic differences in educational attainment, since lower-income children are at greater risk of dropping out of school when they reach the legal age of school exit. http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14124 |
jhuber
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Thank you for the NBER link on "academic redshirting" - I have downloaded it and will be reading this, and sharing this with our administrators. I'd also recommend to others (if it hasn't already been suggested) the NYTimes article titled "When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?" from June 3 2007.
So many times it's a case-by-case decision, to withhold or delay, and it's vital that an unintentional bias doesn't direct decision-making. I have spoken to parents of boys on both sides of this issue. My brother and I were both mid-September birthdays and entered early into pubic schools rather than late. Overall this seemed to be fine, though I think the fit was stronger academically than socially. Of course, had we been less challenged academically with a late start the following year, there may have been other sorts of headaches. The road not taken... |
Anonymous
| this article from New York Times is very good. Now I am starting to worry about my children who will start K in September. |