"Redshirting" Kindergartners
From Ed Week:
The youngest kindergarteners in any class are about five times more likely to be retained in school compared to their older peers, a new study states.
Moreover, educators don't tend to modify their teaching to include a variety of age groups present in kindergartens—but they should make such accommodations, wrote Francis L. Huang, assistant professor in the University of Missouri College of Education, in her study "Further Understanding Factors Associated with Grade Retention: Birthday Effects and Socioemotional Skills," published in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
The age difference between the oldest children and their youngest peers in any kindergarten might be 12 months—a difference of 20 percent less life experience, Huang wrote.
Their Early Years section had an article last year about holding back a younger-than-the rest kindergartner. This study says that children from wealthier families hold back their younger kindergartener more often than other families, boys are twice as likely as girls to be held back and white children are held back more than black children.
"Delaying kindergarten means finding and paying for another year of child care," Bassok said. "For most low-income families, redshirting is far too expensive."
My husband and I held back our younger son (he just missed the SPS cut-off date in September). We could have appealed (and likely got him in) but our thought was that him being one of the youngest AND likely one of the shortest kids, throughout his school years, was not good. It worked for us but we were able to do so and that may not be a choice for many.
This is an important consideration as Common Core comes. I will write a separate thread on this issue but many child psychologists and elementary teachers are speaking out and saying that Common Core is developmentally inappropriate for K-2. Also to note, Governor Cuomo's Common Core review panel said NO kids, pre-K to grade 2 should be taking any standardized "bubble" test.
To protect young children from anxiety and to promote research-based educational practices, the State should prohibit the use of standardized “bubble tests” for children in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
This is well-known YouTube video by Dr. Megan Koschnick speaking on this subject of Common Core and younger children.
The youngest kindergarteners in any class are about five times more likely to be retained in school compared to their older peers, a new study states.
Moreover, educators don't tend to modify their teaching to include a variety of age groups present in kindergartens—but they should make such accommodations, wrote Francis L. Huang, assistant professor in the University of Missouri College of Education, in her study "Further Understanding Factors Associated with Grade Retention: Birthday Effects and Socioemotional Skills," published in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology.
The age difference between the oldest children and their youngest peers in any kindergarten might be 12 months—a difference of 20 percent less life experience, Huang wrote.
Their Early Years section had an article last year about holding back a younger-than-the rest kindergartner. This study says that children from wealthier families hold back their younger kindergartener more often than other families, boys are twice as likely as girls to be held back and white children are held back more than black children.
"Delaying kindergarten means finding and paying for another year of child care," Bassok said. "For most low-income families, redshirting is far too expensive."
My husband and I held back our younger son (he just missed the SPS cut-off date in September). We could have appealed (and likely got him in) but our thought was that him being one of the youngest AND likely one of the shortest kids, throughout his school years, was not good. It worked for us but we were able to do so and that may not be a choice for many.
This is an important consideration as Common Core comes. I will write a separate thread on this issue but many child psychologists and elementary teachers are speaking out and saying that Common Core is developmentally inappropriate for K-2. Also to note, Governor Cuomo's Common Core review panel said NO kids, pre-K to grade 2 should be taking any standardized "bubble" test.
To protect young children from anxiety and to promote research-based educational practices, the State should prohibit the use of standardized “bubble tests” for children in pre-kindergarten through second grade.
This is well-known YouTube video by Dr. Megan Koschnick speaking on this subject of Common Core and younger children.
Comments
HP
Heck , I started K at age 4 (December birthday, bless the '70s) and still graduated in the top 5% of my High School.
--Annoyed
This September New Yorker piece cites research that comes to the exact opposite conclusion. The study compared performance over time of kids with higher and lower relative age (not specifically kids who had been started early or "red shirted").
"Not only did (relatively older kids) score significantly lower on achievement tests—both in kindergarten and middle school—they were also more likely to have been kept back a year by the time they reached middle school, and were less likely to take college-entrance exams."
The hypothesis is that younger kids are more motivated (encouraged?) to work hard to catch up with the older students and that the "effort" mindset they develop serves them well throughout their school years. Older kids, on the other hand, do well in early years, but may fail to develop persistence and other traits associated with success.
Beacon Hiller
Not appealing a cut off date isn't "holding back." It's just following the rules.
I think that part of the solution is that absent extraordinary circumstances, the age deadlines should be followed. That will still mean a 12m age difference in classes, but it will mitigate the effect of having 12m+ age differences (which can happen, if parents chose whether they'll keep back, say, their fall birthday children).
A number of private schools were telling people with summer birthdays to "try again next year", resulting in 1+ year gaps (in one year, I counted a gap of 16 mo gap between the oldest and youngest child). Some of them are switching to simply having a summer deadline (July 1, I think for some). I like that solution better.
There might be kids on the margins who should either be advanced or delayed, but it shouldn't be a standard practice.
zb
These private schools also have lucrative "Fives" programs which they can extract another year's worth of tuition from parents...
--Annoyed
Educational systems are different, and kids start school at different ages, so I think we can't get really clear answers. But, there's no way to make everyone the same age (well, at least until people chose to control their reproduction based on school deadlines, and they probably won't, since school is only one thing with a deadline), having a fixed range might decrease range and. Combined with including developmental stage in expectations (not just chronological), maybe we could mitigate negative effects (if they exist) of being younger in a class.
zb
Years ago, K was a half-day affair and now it has morphed into a chair and desk affair with Common Core standards.
Now we have a clamoring for universal Pre-K...
Should we just renumber the grades and end up graduating after Grade 13?
Perplexed
Advanced Learning screening criteria (AKA MAP tests) needs to be age-based not grade-based like it currently is. There is a disproportionate number of kids in APP that were red-shirted. I've said it before on this blog, if your kid starts K at 6 years old instead of 5, they are not necessarily "gifted" if they breeze through the homework and classwork. They could be, but they could also be average if they had started on time. There are plenty of kids 12-14 months older than my kid with a July birthday (who started on time) at Lincoln. I am not exaggerating when I say there are several kids with May birthdays whose parents held them back.
At least, most of the rec sports leagues put these kids onto teams based on their b-days not grade in school. The shame is they don't get to play with their classmates.
We started our son with an August b-day on time. He has kids in his K class that are turning 7(!) in kindergarten!!! Come on! Then, the parents push for accommodation since their kid is so "advanced". The good news for our son is there are quite a few other boys with summer b-days that weren't held back. There is a huge social difference between these kids, and it's problematic. Our limited experience points to the older boys being in trouble quite a bit. The older girls don't necessarily click with the younger ones since there's a huge developmental difference between 5 & 6 year olds.
People hold their kids back because kindergarten now requires specific executive function skills, behavioral skills, impulse control, and transition ability which is 1) sometimes later to develop in boys, I think for both nature and nurture reasons, and 2) was absolutely not required when anyone posting on this blog went to school, so anyone posting's experience is completely irrelevant to parents deciding today. We still had NAP when I went to kindergarten, which lasted 4 hours including the nap. Nap! Can you imagine, between the MAP tests and writing paragraphs in K, nap?!
I have two summer birthdays, and one winter birthday. I sent everybody on time, but have some mild regrets about one of the summer birthdays. Academically things are great, but socially there have been some bumps pretty clearly caused by the kid being both younger than their peers and also a little slower to develop socially. I think how you are with your peers in elementary school is pretty formative, so I wish I had given that child a more appropriate set of peers by sending them the next year.
-sleeeper
And have you considered that the older boys were held back because they had low impulse control, would have been more trouble the year before, and this is just the best everybody can do.
-sleeper
The achievement portion(MAP) is grade based and asks whether you are both far enough ahead of your current grade to need something different than what gen ed is offering you, and also whether you are ready to handle the accelerated program at APP in the grade you will be in. Given that the program is accelerated, it's completely conscientious of the school district to assess readiness. And if the kid still has lots to learn in a gen ed program, then the gen ed program is a great spot for them right then.
But I also think this is divorced from the red shirting issue, which I think is much more about behavioral expectations in kindergarten then later program choices.
-sleeper
I do know some of the families, and I know them well. Granted, there are *some* instances like the 2e you point out, but others do not fall into that category at all. And, if you re-read my post, I said the AL testing SCREENING criteria (i.e. the criteria that determines whether or not your kid gets the IQ test) is grade-based not age-based. It's only that 2nd round of testing that is age-based (what was the CoGat when my kid took it).
I agree that not many, I can't say zero, Seattlelites red-shirt kids for sports. That's probably more of a football culture, but I don't know.
Mag mom
Academically, he is a slightly above average student --- mostly A's --- and has never communicated he was bored in school (anymore than the average kid). He is definitely not gifted.
Frankly, my wife and I (both educators) believe this was a good decision.
--- swk
If you hold a non-2e, normally developing kid with, for example, a May b-day, back, who knows if GenEd in the "correct" grade for that kid would have been "something different" enough? I think the MAP screening tests for AL programs should also be age-based. That would eliminate the issue you raise in your comment. And, I don't disagree with you. I just disagree with 7 year olds taking the same exact screening test as my 5 year old.
I grew up in the midwest. Back when I was in school, the cut-off for K was September 30. If that's still the case, you could have 4 year olds taking the Fall MAP test as kindergartners and the "6 1/2" year olds in K in SPS are "normed" against those kids for further AL testing purposes.
That is the problem to me. Whether it's for sports or academics, "redshirting" for this reason, IMO, stinks.
--enough already
Note: I was the youngest in my grade with a end of Nov birthday. My husband was kept back and was the oldest in his class with a similar late Nov birthday. We both enjoyed our relative experiences.
HP
I understand the issues of impulse control in boys, but I think it should go with the territory in K and I hope the current red-shirting trend starts to swing back the other way. I don't love it that my incoming K kid will be 14+ months younger than kids in her class. She certainly "shows" her youth socially but if she can make it work, we feel she'll be better off.
Another mom
Probably our biggest complaint is when teachers expect the younger children to have the same maturity level as some of the older classmates. There is sometimes a lower tolerance for what is typical behavior for their age.
parent
We had an early September child - just barely missing the deadline -who we wanted to start early. We had to jump through hoops to do this - get him tested, apply late, hope to be accommodated at our local school depending on space. When, a couple years later, he tested into APP, it was basically a non-starter as they wanted to hold him back a grade. If you have a ready child born Nov 1, I think you're just completely out of luck.
In contrast, if a parent wants to hold back their May child, no hoops to jump. No issues with APP - even though it's only 1-year acceleration at that point.
Essentially, the system encourages red-shirting vs early-entrance.
Why not handle these the same? I.e., a late entrance kindergarten application. Limit it to July and August kids. If parents want to redshirt their child, require testing to determine if it's appropriate, else assign them to 1st grade. If that child qualifies for APP, require a grade skip for 2 year acceleration.
jsh
I don't see what the problem with a 5.5 year old taking a test with 7 year olds is, if they are in the sane class. The question is whether any of those kids need something different, not how each of them would do if they were the same age. I think the test should be trying to figure out who the outliers are, not how they got there.
But app is just a big distracter in this discussion. I think kindergarten is not appropriate for many kids, and I wonder if we should change kindergarten, not the kids(or blame the parents for recognizing that.
-sleeper
I have to believe that whatever the consequence of starting Kindergarten at five or six, the difference is surely incremental and, just as surely, short-lived. More to the point, I have to believe that the consequence, such as it is, is highly idiosyncratic. What is good for one kid could be bad for the next and have no effect on the third. Like nearly everything having to do with the development of a living thing, it should be regarded on a case-by-case basis.
I wouldn't make any generalized statements about the effect on children - benefits or harm - nor would I bother to do so since, I suspect, whatever the effect it is likely to be very small in the vast majority of cases.
curious
Pesonally, I have a kid who just missed the cut off and was not accepted for early entrance. It was not for lack of academic readiness but because the child didn't raise a hand before answering the question and didn't walk one foot in front of the other down the stairs. Yet, a child of age may do those exact same things and may be less academically ready and be considered qualified or eligible to go to K. Not sure why it matters for one situation and not the other.
lmk
-- old time APPer
--Wondering
So, I have no idea what they were looking for and I would not be surprised if they took more girls than boys. And, maybe experienced teachers can make an accurate assessment in 50 minutes but there's also bound be errors as well.
lmk
Summer boy mama
Don't count on retention in KG if your little wiggly one needs more time to develop. At least not in Seattle. Retention is a four letter word and that won't happen even if you want it. If in doubt about his "readiness" at all, keep him in preschool. That is something you won't regret.
SSD Staffer
goodgrief
goodgrief
The book seemed to legitimize and encourage this practice for the parents who want to give their child an edge over others.
--enough already
RR
If it isn't sensitivity, it's immaturity and lots and lots of impulsivity.
For youngsters who join a K that is still more social and less paper-pencil, kids do well. But by first grade, they have a lot of self-management issues and first-grade teachers are teaching more than ever before. It's a problem. A student's arents may not think it is a problem but often times the parents of the other kids in the classroom do.
What's wrong with an extra year of love and security from Mom and Dad?
Not to mention preemies. Most teachers I know keep their own kids back esp. if they're boys.
Reader
I know a few parents who have delayed their (bright, normal) child's entry into K, and they are just doing it to get every possible advantage for their little hothouse orchid. They have no problem paying for another year of expensive preschool to do it. it's not fair to everyone else.
8/28 Birthday
I said she should not start KG if she has doubts about her son's readiness, especially if her "Backup Plan" is to retain him in KG. And from my "insiders" and SIT member perspective, it's the schools, not the parents who are pushing developmentally inappropriate "readiness" for 5 and 6 year olds. The schools are pushing the "perfect the kid" envelope.
SSD Staffer
2boysclub
What unfair advantage do you think these children are gaining - and over whom? I kept my child with an August birthday home because he was 't ready to be away from home for a full day. (No expensive preschool for him either - 7.5 hours a week in a church basement.) How do you imagine this affected his kindergarten classmates?
I have no interest in giving the state any more control over our children.
And aren't all children required by law to attend school of some sort? Having them start at a specified age doesn't seem any more heavy handed. Ultimately I think we are giving the district a free pass by not demanding that kindergarten be more appropriate for the age of kids that they expect to attend.
One more thing - shirking the recommended starting age is trend primarily of the privileged classes, which I find confusing - shouldn't our privileged children be more prepared for starting school?
2boysclub
I think what @8/28 may be getting at is the skew that could happen if a significant number of families chose to hold back their child. The expectations might shift to the point that the youngest student now feels like an outlier, when they just followed the rules for cut-offs. Does this really happen, or do teachers see a pretty normal distribution of ages/bdays?
Our child's 1st grade teacher lamented that K is now 1st grade. Back in the old days (when I was a child) K was optional. Our school started at grade 1. Kindergarten was half days of singing songs, pasting and cutting, and learning numbers, letters, and colors.
In Washington State, school attendance is not compulsory until age 8. You can't make a child go to Kindergarten. In most states compulsory attendance starts at age 6 or 7.
-old timer
I appreciate the dialogue :)
2boysclub
Today's kindergarten includes standardized testing on a computer in the fall, reading expectations, the expectation that the children can sit still for over six hours, the expectation that kids take PE "seriously" (no joke) rather than treat it like a chance to run around, etc. In art, they have to produce pieces of work according to standards. Free form art is not allowed. Again, I'm not kidding. If the school system wants just turned five year olds to blossom in K, then change K!
Instead, SPS gives parents the nudge to keep summer birthday boys back. Teachers keep their own kids back, the teachers and administrators talk up keeping kids back when parents tour APP, you have to fight the system to get in early, but do nothing to keep them back, etc. The clear message is that they endorse the process and it makes it easier for teachers to manage classrooms.
Go back to true K, and I'm sure you'd see a lot of parents making different decisions. Until then, parents will keep making their own decisions based upon the knowledge they have when their kid is just five.
-signed, another old timer who remembers nap time in half-day kindergarten
Old timer- I know that at least in the NE, since the end of the choice era, more parents send their kids in early. It used to be that you got sent to the back of the line if you went in early(and so were sent to John Rogers no matter where you lived), so people would just put their kids in on time or hold back. Now, if you test in, you are the same as any other enrollee, at least with respect to neighborhood schools. My elementary teacher friends say this has changed the make up- the spread is wider, but it is pretty balanced.
-sleeper
8/28 Birthday
What I can add to this conversation though is the pressure parents receive to hold their child back. Attitudes like n's are prevalent. The principal at our neighborhood school told me on a tour that it is "always" better to be the oldest child in the class versus being the youngest. I remember the conversation because I was surprised at how absolute her opinion was. I felt like we were being discouraged from sending our child on time, based on a generalization rather than knowledge of our individual child.
Honestly, it was hard to go against the advice of professionals. But if a child is ready academically, I don't see how you deny them. An extra year at home with mom and dad might not be the optimal choice for a child who is eager and ready to learn and expand their horizons.
Lastly, our experience in APP is different than others have reported. Because I was worried that my kid would be younger than classmates by 12-16 months due to red-shirting, I've paid attention each year. I've talked to other parents. In 4 years in APP, most of the summer birthday kids were born the same year as mine. I haven't seen a lot of red-shirting. Yeah, totally anecdotal, but I put this out there so that people don't leave this thread with the impression that APP kids are "old" for their grade due to not staring school on time and that's why they're there. Just like everywhere, some kids went on time, some didn't. I trust families to make those decisions for themselves. I just hope teachers and principals take the time to consider kids as individuals instead of making blanket proclamations.
Yet again, a problem we could ameliorate by having smaller class sizes. I do think the difficulty of managing the more immature kids is mostly a problem of too large class sizes. If here were 17-18 kids, it wouldn't be a problem. It's a problem with 26 other kids.
-sleeper
BTW, brain research shows that brains develop generally along similar time frames and yes, brain development, does affect learning.
It's your assumption that children are competing for advanced reading groups that makes no sense to me. Does your kindergartner care which reading group her friends are in?
The child I started late is tall for his grade for sure - but he's tall for the next grade too. He's not sporty - so need to worry we're gaining an unfair advantage there.
Gen Ed Mom
-mom of 3 boys
-mom of 3 boys
Gen Ed Mom
Was it the Spectrum program at your school or a few kids entering K late that frustrated you so much? I ask because I've seen your many posts detailing how Spectrum ruined a year of your daughter's schooling. So I'm surprised to see you now citing redshirting as the reason. Or, is it both? I'm trying to understand . . .
-NW momma
Gen Ed Mom
I specifically asked SPS if they were going to tell my son he was being tested. They said they wouldn't mention it to the kids, so I didn't tell my son. Why put pressure on him? The first thing out of the evaluator's mouth was that the kids were there for kindergarten testing. I didn't have a chance to explain anything to my son before he was literally marched off to the testing room.
The results letter reasons for not admitting my son was that he didn't know all the alphabet (upper and lower case), nor his address and phone number. At home, when I asked my son to write the alphabet on his own, he mixed up only two letters. For a kid who hasn't entered kindergarten yet, isn't that ok? And how could he know his address and phone number if we never taught him that? And as for those boy stereotypes that they can't sit still, well, my son can sit for hours working on projects. The whole thing was BS. But at the end of the day, I realized that even if he got in and then somehow got into APP, they'd make him repeat kindergarten which we'd never make him do.
Luckily his preschool teacher was very sympathetic and has continued to challenge my son in school. I can only hope he's as challenged when he enters kindergarten. Oh and on top of all this, we've actually heard our friends "jokingly" mention how we've redshirted our son. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I want my son to be challenged. I don't want him to be bored.
My boy with an August birthday (who was born 7 weeks early) started school on time. The teacher would comment on how smart 'Johnny' was since he could was reading level H. For whatever reasons, "Johnny" was 15 months older than several other boys in the class who started on Level A books. Regular discussions were required with our boy letting him know that, no, you're not 'stupid' (his word) because you aren't on Level H. It got so bad that we finally said "Johnny" is on the appropriate reading level for his age. You shouldn't compare yourself to anyone else much less someone that much older than you.
So, Lynne, again, yes, they do care. Our school only has two classes per grade. Parents know each other well and each others' kids. It is a common complaint that kids are really upset.
Now, walk-to-math is a problem, too. The kids know who's in what grade math. Our school unfortunately uses the grade level math the kids are doing instead of some code like "red" or "blue herons". Kids (and some parents) go around asking kids what grade math they are in...And, YES, it bothers the kids who aren't in the higher math.
The placement into the math is another problem that doesn't fit into this thread. But, the walk-to classes are very well-populated by kids who happen to have parents on the PTA or who volunteer on a regular basis. High MAP scores mean nothing.
On another note, I know LOADS of SPS teachers who have sent their kids to K on time. I wonder if some of these comments are bogus.
There is no need to be rude. It was an honest question - as this is something that hasn't come up with my kids. It sounds like your son's kindergarten teacher wasn't very good at her job. Comparing children/complimenting them on their reading skills (as compared to their classmates) is not ever appropriate.
It sounds like you do not approve of the Spectrum program at your school or walk to math. Are you of the opinion that every student in a grade should be taught at the same level at all times? If not, do you have suggestions for how the method of differentiation could be improved?
This is a late response, but I didn't want to ignore you in case you are still reading.
Here's my reasoning. I think our schools make age-inappropriate demands of five year old students. I don't think there's any chance those expectations would change if everyone enrolled their children in the "appropriate" year.
Parents are required to educate their children - not to send them to school. I would never voluntarily give the state (or the district) more control over my child than they already have. Their responsibility is to offer my child a basic education. I don't want them encroaching on my family life any further than that. That's one of the reasons I can't stand uniforms in public school and am not a fan of mandatory community service hours.
I agree that parents who are wealthier and/or more well-educated are likelier to consider waiting a year to enroll their child in kindergarten. That makes sense to me. They are more likely to be able to afford to stay home another year or to pay for another year of child care. (I kept my child home for social/emotional reasons rather than academic ones and I think that's generally the case.)
In the end, I thought my child needed another year of freedom more than he needed to enter kindergarten. If kindergarten had been a half day program I might have made another decision.
I am annoyed by how many parents redshirt their kids these days, and more annoyed by their reasons for doing it ("I want my child to be a leader" "I want her to have more time to mature" "I want her to be the smartest"). So being a leader means being the oldest, and not demonstrating qualities of a leader (i.e. standing up for a friend on the playground, helping the new kid sharpen a pencil)? And what CHILD is emotionally mature? They are children. They are supposed to be immature. And how is redshirting going to make them feel smarter when all the kids their age are above them doing more advanced work? Ok course if a 4th grader does 2nd grade work with 2nd graders, he will be the "smartest," but he won't be challenged enough. Education/ school is not a competition where parents can brag about how their child is great and doing better then everyone, it's to prepare a child to eventually work.
In Seattle, if you have a September or October birthday, you can apply for early entrance testing to kindergarten, and because we knew she was ready we did apply. The first stage is a group class where they screen out kids who are not socially ready. Those who are socially ready are later given a one-on-one individual test with a school psychologist to see if they are academically ready and our daughter was accepted.
During her kindergarten year -- where she was by far the youngest beginning as a 4-year-old for a couple of months -- she did fine socially. As we anticipated she also tested in as APP eligible, although her eligibility letter also came with a note explaining that because of her young age she would still need to wait another full year before enrolling in APP 1st grade with her same-aged peers. (Until middle school APP does not accept any early entrants younger than their age-level peers, although in contrast Spectrum and ALO do allow such early entrants to move ahead to the next grade.)
So the next year she continued on and completed 1st grade in our neighborhood school with her older classmates, retaining her APP eligibility by participating in the ALO program in her 1st grade.
Then this school year she made the switch and is now completing 1st grade (for the second time) at APP at Lincoln, now as one of the older kids in her class. While some repetition was involved, APP math is certainly taught to her at a much more advanced level (although she is an exceptional reader and we do not feel she has been similarly challenged in her present classroom compared to her math instruction or even her old school reading groups).
Socially, switching schools always requires making new friends, but we're glad she joined APP at 1st grade with all the other new kids. Because she's not a big kid it's also nice for her now to be one of the older ones and no longer the smallest. She is really flourishing at school. She is also now going to the same school as her 4th grade brother, which works well for our family.
We are glad she followed the early entrant route she did. As some have already mentioned above, it allowed us to give her regular academic challenge and also, significantly for us, to avoid another full year of expensive preschool.
So for our daughter, starting early proved to be the right choice.
Damien Grant
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