It’s a question I’m already pondering two full years before I need to make the decision: When will my son be ready for kindergarten? Aaron turned three last week. Having a fall birthday means he will always be one of the youngest kids in his class. In two years, he will qualify to start kindergarten as a four-year-old – for a few weeks, at least. That is, unless I decide to hold him back.
Educational literature and the media are abuzz about this trend of redshirting kindergarteners. Many parents want to make sure their kids are emotionally ready to start school. Others don’t want their children to the smallest in the classroom, or the least advanced.
So when I read an opinion article in the New York Times arguing that most kids should start kindergarten on time, even when their birthdays are close to the cut-off dates, I was intrigued.
It turns out the research consistently shows that, on average, children who are held back a year do no better than those who start kindergarten with their designated class. One study found differences in test scores between younger and older classmates declines over the elementary school years, and that children benefit from having older classmates to learn from. Another longitudinal study found that delaying kindergarten does not result in any long-term advantages, and that younger students may have a small advantage in human capital later in life.
Clearly, each child needs to be evaluated individually to determine when he or she is ready to start school. But the evidence clearly shows that many four-year-olds will do just fine in kindergarten and may end up ahead of their peers in the long run thanks to their early school experiences.
Personally, I will be carefully considering our choices for Aaron over the next several years, with lots of input from his preschool teachers. In the meantime, it’s nice to know that he can be successful – whatever decision we make.
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