"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 s ection had an article last year about holding back a younger-than-the rest kindergartner. This study says that children from wealthier families hold bac...