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Redshirting Kindergarten
Elizabeth Weil recently wrote an article for the New York Times titled, “When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?” (reprinted here and here) where she discusses the advantages and disadvantages of starting kindergarten a year late.
In most states, kids will start kindergarten when they turn five. Generally, kids cannot start early but may delay a year at their parent’s discretion. Holding kids back a year so that they will be older, larger, and more mature is often called “redshirting” - a term borrowed from sports. Studies show that 6 to 10 percent of kids in kindergarten have been redshirted. In affluent communities, the averages are 5 to 6 times as high. Some argue that any advantage a reshirting child may have would disappear after the first few years of school. In contrast, a study in the Journal of Sports Sciences found that a disproportionate number of World Cup soccer players were older than their peers on youth soccer teams. Another researcher found that the relatively oldest students are 11.6 percent more likely to enroll in college.
State governments are trying to leverage the advantages of redshirting in an effort to improve test scores. California, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, Arkansas and Tennessee all have recently passed or are trying to pass legislation to change the kindergarten cutoff dates so children will be older when they start school. "If I had just one goal with this piece of legislation it would be to not humiliate a child," said Dale Folwell, the Republican North Carolina state representative who sponsored the birthday-cutoff bill. "Our kids are younger when they're taking the SAT, and they're applying to the same colleges as the kids from Florida and Georgia." California’s governor Arnold Schwarzenegger also argued for the change saying, “38 states, including Florida and Texas, have kindergarten entry dates prior to California's."
Would you delay your child's start to kindergarten to give him or her physical, social and academic benefits? What are the disadvantages?
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1 Nerd-It
Don't do it
I saw a good blog post on this subject today at gop3.com. It gave 1 big disadvantage I had never though of before
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It Makes a Difference by gnifyus :: NR7 :: Show
I was someone who fell on the opposite side of this story; in fact, to borrow the term used here; you might say I was "greenshirted". I can't remember why, but I did not go to kindergarten, instead, because I could read, I went right to first grade, but because I was born in December, I was still 5 years old. Knowing how to read and do basic math carried me through the first and second grade with flying colors, but when third grade came it was a partial disaster because everyone else who was able to caught up by then, and my lack of maturity from being about a year and a half younger than some kids began to take its toll in many ways. Not having the wherewithal to begin to develop and understand good work habits by then was one detriment to my schooling, the other came out of the social aspect of being smaller and just plain younger than most. Being seven when third grade starts is much different from being almost 9. On top of that my family seems to have the genetic disposition of maturing slower at a given age anyway. (I was still growing in my early 20's.)
To make a long story short, this age difference carried right through to college even; I was 17 in the September of my freshman year. It would be one thing if I was a super-genius or something, but as it was I think having at least ''one" more year under my belt would have made a big difference as I look back. Maybe when I go to a nursing home I'll finally get my due by having the advantage of being "younger" than everybody else there. (I kid.)