Delay Kindergarten At Your Peril

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/d...your-kindergartners-start.html

Parents who want to give their young children an academic advantage have a powerful tool: school itself. In a large-scale study at 26 Canadian elementary schools, first graders who were young for their year made considerably more progress in reading and math than kindergartners who were old for their year. In another large study, the youngest fifth-graders scored a little lower than their classmates, but five points higher in verbal I.Q., on average, than fourth-graders of the same age. In other words, school makes children smarter.

The benefits of being younger are even greater for those who skip a grade, an option available to many high-achieving children. Compared with nonskippers of similar talent and motivation, these youngsters pursue advanced degrees and enter professional school more often. Acceleration is a powerful intervention, with effects on achievement that are twice as large as programs for the gifted. Grade-skippers even report more positive social and emotional feelings.

These differences may come from the increased challenges of a demanding environment. Learning is maximized not by getting all the answers right, but by making errors and correcting them quickly. In this respect, children benefit from being close to the limits of their ability. Too low an error rate becomes boring, while too high an error rate is unrewarding. A delay in school entry may therefore still be justified if children are very far behind their peers, leaving a gap too broad for school to allow effective learning.

Anonymous wrote:^^^and one is April. APRIL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely are in Kindergarten...and in some cases it is both K and 8th grade. It is truly insane which is why OP created this post.

Look, something like 4-5% of kids redshirt. Even if half of these are due to their parents' Machievellian manipulations to "get a leg up," that means that in a class of 20-25 kindergartners you might have ONE redshirted kid due to nothing else than a desire to "game the system."

What this is really about is revealing your own hyper-competitiveness that goes nuts at the idea of a single child being a year older than yours. And your intolerance of any differences.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tea.asp 9% of children at first kindergarten entry are 6 years old. That would indicate that >9% of children are redshirted _at first kindergarten entry_ since some school districts still allow children to start at 4 years old. That 9% floor then increases as parents decide their child needs a second turn at K, or does a "Pre-First" year between K and 1. It will further increase with the redshirts in middle school.

Some areas of the country probably see very little redshirting, which means to get that 9% floor, some areas of the country (like around the DC area) will have more redshirting. My children's classes are 1/4-1/3rd redshirted by high school entry, so obviously on the high end.

People redshirt based simply on when the birthday is. Based on not wanting their child to be the youngest. Based on wanting their child to have an academic or athletic edge. As well as redshirting due to concerns about academics, or social abilities, or family upheaval, or all the "good" reasons. None of that matters terribly much when you have a child who is age appropriate for first grade, but because that child is 3 months younger than the _next youngest child_ and in a class with children 16+ months older than him, he is struggling with inappropriate behavioral or academic expectations. Whereas if the class age weren't stilted 3-6 months older than it should be, he would be on the "low end of normal" rather than "there is something wrong with this child."

It's not competitiveness. It's concern.

I just don't believe you have any classes in public school with 1/3 of the kids redshirted. That would mean that every kid with a birthday in the summer or fall redshirted. Data?

In my children's case it's a private school. But with a min. of 9% redshirted children, high rates of redshirting in certain private schools doesn't take care of the whole trend. The trend exists in public schools as well.

I'm just offering data (sourced) for people who throw out the suggestion that redshirting is rare as a reason for ignoring the concerns parents have for the redshirting trend.

The 9% figure is bad science/myth. 3.5% is the actual rate according to a recent study. http://ero.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2332858415590800

I will say it again: your panicked reaction to redshirting says a lot more about you and your anxieties than it does about the actual phenomenon - and certainly you have no clue whether it is appropriate for any individual child that is not your own child.

Please explain why you think the National Center for Education Statistics is reporting bad science. Do you have evidence? Is there a reason the Department of Education would be propagating lies?

Your Sage link uses a study from VA, and limited to students who attended full time kindergarten in class sizes of 15 or more. That excludes many small and private schools. The Dept. of Ed. numbers come from across the US.

Your need to believe that redshirting is a nonissue, even in the face of people telling you that significant numbers of children in their childrens classes have been redshirted, to such a degree that you will simply dismiss a Dept. of Ed. numbers as "myth" speaks pretty strongly. But, perhaps you have evidence that the Dept. of Ed. is full of liars. I'd love to see it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely are in Kindergarten...and in some cases it is both K and 8th grade. It is truly insane which is why OP created this post.

Look, something like 4-5% of kids redshirt. Even if half of these are due to their parents' Machievellian manipulations to "get a leg up," that means that in a class of 20-25 kindergartners you might have ONE redshirted kid due to nothing else than a desire to "game the system."

What this is really about is revealing your own hyper-competitiveness that goes nuts at the idea of a single child being a year older than yours. And your intolerance of any differences.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tea.asp 9% of children at first kindergarten entry are 6 years old. That would indicate that >9% of children are redshirted _at first kindergarten entry_ since some school districts still allow children to start at 4 years old. That 9% floor then increases as parents decide their child needs a second turn at K, or does a "Pre-First" year between K and 1. It will further increase with the redshirts in middle school.

Some areas of the country probably see very little redshirting, which means to get that 9% floor, some areas of the country (like around the DC area) will have more redshirting. My children's classes are 1/4-1/3rd redshirted by high school entry, so obviously on the high end.

People redshirt based simply on when the birthday is. Based on not wanting their child to be the youngest. Based on wanting their child to have an academic or athletic edge. As well as redshirting due to concerns about academics, or social abilities, or family upheaval, or all the "good" reasons. None of that matters terribly much when you have a child who is age appropriate for first grade, but because that child is 3 months younger than the _next youngest child_ and in a class with children 16+ months older than him, he is struggling with inappropriate behavioral or academic expectations. Whereas if the class age weren't stilted 3-6 months older than it should be, he would be on the "low end of normal" rather than "there is something wrong with this child."

It's not competitiveness. It's concern.

I just don't believe you have any classes in public school with 1/3 of the kids redshirted. That would mean that every kid with a birthday in the summer or fall redshirted. Data?

In my children's case it's a private school. But with a min. of 9% redshirted children, high rates of redshirting in certain private schools doesn't take care of the whole trend. The trend exists in public schools as well.

I'm just offering data (sourced) for people who throw out the suggestion that redshirting is rare as a reason for ignoring the concerns parents have for the redshirting trend.

The 9% figure is bad science/myth. 3.5% is the actual rate according to a recent study. http://ero.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2332858415590800

I will say it again: your panicked reaction to redshirting says a lot more about you and your anxieties than it does about the actual phenomenon - and certainly you have no clue whether it is appropriate for any individual child that is not your own child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely are in Kindergarten...and in some cases it is both K and 8th grade. It is truly insane which is why OP created this post.

Look, something like 4-5% of kids redshirt. Even if half of these are due to their parents' Machievellian manipulations to "get a leg up," that means that in a class of 20-25 kindergartners you might have ONE redshirted kid due to nothing else than a desire to "game the system."

What this is really about is revealing your own hyper-competitiveness that goes nuts at the idea of a single child being a year older than yours. And your intolerance of any differences.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tea.asp 9% of children at first kindergarten entry are 6 years old. That would indicate that >9% of children are redshirted _at first kindergarten entry_ since some school districts still allow children to start at 4 years old. That 9% floor then increases as parents decide their child needs a second turn at K, or does a "Pre-First" year between K and 1. It will further increase with the redshirts in middle school.

Some areas of the country probably see very little redshirting, which means to get that 9% floor, some areas of the country (like around the DC area) will have more redshirting. My children's classes are 1/4-1/3rd redshirted by high school entry, so obviously on the high end.

People redshirt based simply on when the birthday is. Based on not wanting their child to be the youngest. Based on wanting their child to have an academic or athletic edge. As well as redshirting due to concerns about academics, or social abilities, or family upheaval, or all the "good" reasons. None of that matters terribly much when you have a child who is age appropriate for first grade, but because that child is 3 months younger than the _next youngest child_ and in a class with children 16+ months older than him, he is struggling with inappropriate behavioral or academic expectations. Whereas if the class age weren't stilted 3-6 months older than it should be, he would be on the "low end of normal" rather than "there is something wrong with this child."

It's not competitiveness. It's concern.

I just don't believe you have any classes in public school with 1/3 of the kids redshirted. That would mean that every kid with a birthday in the summer or fall redshirted. Data?

In my children's case it's a private school. But with a min. of 9% redshirted children, high rates of redshirting in certain private schools doesn't take care of the whole trend. The trend exists in public schools as well.

I'm just offering data (sourced) for people who throw out the suggestion that redshirting is rare as a reason for ignoring the concerns parents have for the redshirting trend.

The 9% figure is bad science/myth. 3.5% is the actual rate according to a recent study. http://ero.sagepub.com/content/1/2/2332858415590800

I will say it again: your panicked reaction to redshirting says a lot more about you and your anxieties than it does about the actual phenomenon - and certainly you have no clue whether it is appropriate for any individual child that is not your own child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely are in Kindergarten...and in some cases it is both K and 8th grade. It is truly insane which is why OP created this post.

Look, something like 4-5% of kids redshirt. Even if half of these are due to their parents' Machievellian manipulations to "get a leg up," that means that in a class of 20-25 kindergartners you might have ONE redshirted kid due to nothing else than a desire to "game the system."

What this is really about is revealing your own hyper-competitiveness that goes nuts at the idea of a single child being a year older than yours. And your intolerance of any differences.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tea.asp 9% of children at first kindergarten entry are 6 years old. That would indicate that >9% of children are redshirted _at first kindergarten entry_ since some school districts still allow children to start at 4 years old. That 9% floor then increases as parents decide their child needs a second turn at K, or does a "Pre-First" year between K and 1. It will further increase with the redshirts in middle school.

Some areas of the country probably see very little redshirting, which means to get that 9% floor, some areas of the country (like around the DC area) will have more redshirting. My children's classes are 1/4-1/3rd redshirted by high school entry, so obviously on the high end.

People redshirt based simply on when the birthday is. Based on not wanting their child to be the youngest. Based on wanting their child to have an academic or athletic edge. As well as redshirting due to concerns about academics, or social abilities, or family upheaval, or all the "good" reasons. None of that matters terribly much when you have a child who is age appropriate for first grade, but because that child is 3 months younger than the _next youngest child_ and in a class with children 16+ months older than him, he is struggling with inappropriate behavioral or academic expectations. Whereas if the class age weren't stilted 3-6 months older than it should be, he would be on the "low end of normal" rather than "there is something wrong with this child."

It's not competitiveness. It's concern.

I just don't believe you have any classes in public school with 1/3 of the kids redshirted. That would mean that every kid with a birthday in the summer or fall redshirted. Data?

In my children's case it's a private school. But with a min. of 9% redshirted children, high rates of redshirting in certain private schools doesn't take care of the whole trend. The trend exists in public schools as well.

I'm just offering data (sourced) for people who throw out the suggestion that redshirting is rare as a reason for ignoring the concerns parents have for the redshirting trend.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They absolutely are in Kindergarten...and in some cases it is both K and 8th grade. It is truly insane which is why OP created this post.

Look, something like 4-5% of kids redshirt. Even if half of these are due to their parents' Machievellian manipulations to "get a leg up," that means that in a class of 20-25 kindergartners you might have ONE redshirted kid due to nothing else than a desire to "game the system."

What this is really about is revealing your own hyper-competitiveness that goes nuts at the idea of a single child being a year older than yours. And your intolerance of any differences.

According to http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tea.asp 9% of children at first kindergarten entry are 6 years old. That would indicate that >9% of children are redshirted _at first kindergarten entry_ since some school districts still allow children to start at 4 years old. That 9% floor then increases as parents decide their child needs a second turn at K, or does a "Pre-First" year between K and 1. It will further increase with the redshirts in middle school.

Some areas of the country probably see very little redshirting, which means to get that 9% floor, some areas of the country (like around the DC area) will have more redshirting. My children's classes are 1/4-1/3rd redshirted by high school entry, so obviously on the high end.

People redshirt based simply on when the birthday is. Based on not wanting their child to be the youngest. Based on wanting their child to have an academic or athletic edge. As well as redshirting due to concerns about academics, or social abilities, or family upheaval, or all the "good" reasons. None of that matters terribly much when you have a child who is age appropriate for first grade, but because that child is 3 months younger than the _next youngest child_ and in a class with children 16+ months older than him, he is struggling with inappropriate behavioral or academic expectations. Whereas if the class age weren't stilted 3-6 months older than it should be, he would be on the "low end of normal" rather than "there is something wrong with this child."

It's not competitiveness. It's concern.

I just don't believe you have any classes in public school with 1/3 of the kids redshirted. That would mean that every kid with a birthday in the summer or fall redshirted. Data?