Redshirting: Why Holding Kids Back From Kindergarten Is A Bad Idea

The Daily Beast:

As private kindergartens prepare to send out acceptance letters this week, competitive parents are trying to game the system with so called red shirting -- delaying their kids' start in school so they'll be more advanced than their classmates. Kristina Dell on why it's backfiring.

Read the whole story: The Daily Beast

Comments

[LisaCACO]

01:00 AM on 02/14/2011

"Still, most parents will tell you that kindergarten is not what it used to be. "Many say that kindergarten is the new first grade," says Glickman. "Kindergartens across the country are getting rid of play areas and becoming more about reading and math." Mothers like Korbey talk about kindergarteners sitting at desks for seven hours with only 15 minutes of recess sprinkled in, which leads many teachers to support the notion of holding back younger, unruly boys because it makes the class easier to control."

our daughter had just turned 6 when she started Kindergarten. we held her for a year for this very reason. she just wasn't ready to sit still at a desk as the kindergarten classes required. she has sensory issues but was already reading at a 2nd grade level. we searched for just the right environment for her but couldn't find it. on the advice of her OT we held off for a year and we believe we were right. she's now a very confident kindergartner in the right school (an expeditionary school). that extra year was crucial. developmentally her body just wasn't ready for today's "K is now 1st grade" academic environment. imo, it wasn't that she wasn't ready for Kindergarten, it was that they changed the rules for kindergarten. kindergarten needs to be play-based like it used to be. until then, I'd do the same thing again and urge any parent in the same position to do the same.

[wolfiegirl]

10:30 PM on 02/14/2011

I know. My kids don't have those late birthdays, so we had no dilemma. But, the expectations at each grade level are so ridiculous, and at times beyond what the average kid can do, that I would encourage everyone in doubt to consider a later start.

[LisaCACO]

03:05 PM on 02/15/2011

every mom and dad should visit a kindergarten and ask themselves realistically, "can I see my child doing that?" "Is my child ready to do that?" if the answer is no, or if you have doubts, wait a year. your child will thank you for it. a child should start school feeling like a success, not a failure. it's not their fault if their body is just not developmentally ready.

[Bryan Morris]

01:28 PM on 02/13/2011

Age is an arbitrary number, it's your cognitive level that really matters.

[trinity]

12:32 PM on 02/12/2011

In our state, this is only the case if a child attends a private school. The state is very strict on the birth date rule (Child must be 5 before August 1) when it comes to public schools. My daughter was ready to start Kindergarten (she already met kindergarten state standards academically and was quite mature for her age), but she was still 4 until November so she was not allowed. So she attends a private school where children work in groups of students with similar abilities and it happens to be all children with "late" birthdays that could not start public school. I think it really depends on the children. Some children who are barely 5 when they start, especially boys, could really use the extra year in preschool. Many moms I have talked to, who kept there boys out for another year, are extremely happy with their decision, as their sons really excelled in school.

[medicim]

12:50 AM on 02/12/2011

There is an ongoing English study of children that has reported that older children have better test results on their state mandated tests, than younger children. They study concludes that being older is an advantage for testing. The social policy ramifications of this, include the fact that those who entered school as an "older" birthday have greater access to the "top" universities, are over-represented in the professions etc. And also those who can afford to delay their children's admittance to school can "buy" the older birthday advantage. However, the study did not recommend delaying the start date of school for younger children as they concluded that this would disadvantage younger children even more and particularly less socially advantaged children, as they would spend another year without the protective stimulative effect of schooling. However, if it is true that being older buys you a better grade then I think as societies we need to make sure that we take account of this when we create/use high stakes tests that impact choices of schools, careers etc. We should also be taking account of the age ranges of students when we collect school data. I'm pretty sure that schools with free high and reduced lunch populations have high numbers of "young" students. This has been my own anecdotally observation. Conversely the private schools are full of older students. No wonder the disparity in test taking.

[been2there]

01:25 AM on 02/11/2011

The real question is not age, but readiness. My daughter was young, and my son was on the old side (he turned 6 half-way through kindergarten.) The difference is that my daughter left kindergarten reading at a 12th grade level, and my son entered it reading at a 12th grade level. In reality, neither kid truly belonged with their age cohorts, and the mis-match only got worse with time. I wound up home schooling, and one hit college at 16, the other at 14.

[carester]

07:09 AM on 02/10/2011

My son turned 5 a week before school year started. He was the only kid in his class who could read and do simple Math. He never set foot in a pre-school/day-care. Since 1st grade, he has won the Math award EVERY SINGLE YEAR (he is now 12 and in 7th grade). He is 5'9 already (according to the growth chart he's way too tall), practices Judo (tallest kid there), has NEVER, EVER had any discipline issues at school or at home. My husband started school at 4 because he wanted to go with his sister. He graduated from HS at 16 and at 26 got his Math PhD. His twin nieces were Sept. babies and of course were held back. School has been a total struggle for those girls. Bottom line: Whatever is going to be, it's going to be :-)

[Amalek]

12:25 AM on 02/10/2011

Born in late November, I went to kindergarten at 4.  I went through life being the youngest at everything - youngest eagle scout ever, youngest college graduate, youngest CPA, youngest partner in a big four firm, and retired young at 50. That part was great.  I would have thrown a fit had I not been allowed to go to school at 4. In fact, my earliest recollection is a temper tantrum at 3 when my older friends started ahead of me.

The negative was sports.  (And a short period of not being able to drink in college when the drinking age for beer was 18).   For sports I was up to a year younger than classmates, and a year is a big deal when you are a child.  I honestly believe I could have played in the NFL had I waited a year.  I then would have been the biggest and strongest kid in class.  I would have been selected for every team and received the best coaching.   But the good side of that is that now I am a world class master's athlete, and a year younger than my peers in the same age group!

[Halter]

12:04 AM on 02/10/2011

Studies in the past have shown that young adults gravitate to others their same age. Retained students have a higher drop out rate than students with similar academic profiles who were not retained. The presumed reason why is that students in high school gravitate to friends who are their same age, and if friends have graduated, retained students leave with them, sans diploma. I don't know if the same applies to red-shirters. I have personally witnessed bullying behavior on the part of redshirters and retained students. I think it may cause long lasting social problems, unless of course, everyone in the school has been red-shirted.

[Eric Mann]

10:46 AM on 02/10/2011

You are reading the studies that show retained students have a higher drop-out rate incorrectly. I did a paper as part of my MA on this. There is a correlation, but there are so many other contributing factors to dropping out, that causation is hard to connect to this one. Most likely, the same factors that contributed to the grade retention continue in the student's life and cause them to drop out later.
Additionally, the studies showed that students who were retained earlier in life-before 3rd grade or so-had little to no more likelyhood to drop out later than their peers.
Grade retention can be seen as a "canary in a coal mine" for the likelyhood that a student will drop out, but not as a factor causing it.

[am10]

07:22 PM on 02/09/2011

My daughter turned six a week after starting kindergarten. Why did I hold her out? Because I didn't want her starting kindergarten at four. I did plenty of research and this was an absolutely agonizing decision. It turned out it was the best decision. I have a husband who did transitional (between K-1) back in the day and it was the best thing that happened to him. Plus, I've seen too many kids who simply were too immature to focus on school.

While holding kids back for sports is ridiculous, I have found that the majority of parents who throw their kids in (when they are not read) simply don't want to pay for daycare another year.

[ViktorN]

07:51 AM on 02/10/2011

I don't like it when parents second guess other parents but I have to say that I'm skeptical about your choice.

I've seen two cases of girls who were red-shirted who started kindergarten much more advanced than their peers. Their maturity compared to other kindergartners caused a lot of problems in class. These girls were bored, they manipulated and bossed around the other younger kids and in general caused a lot of unnecessary drama.

I am more sympathetic to the decision to red shirt very young boys than I am girls. Boys at that age already trail the girls at socialization and verbal skills, so a younger boy who is judged a little behind the curve might benefit from waiting a year.

I just don't think this is the case with girls though. Girls handle school much better at that age, whether they're younger or older, than boys. The havoc that a mature 6 year old girl plays in a kindergarten class in completely unnecessary. In one case, the parent of one of the girls really did it for the most superficial reasons - intentionally so that her daughter would be ahead of the others. Really annoying, to say the least.

[Eric Mann]

10:47 AM on 02/10/2011

But it really boils down to a case by case basis, and you should have stopped when you said "I don't like to second guess other parents..."

[am10]

11:25 AM on 02/10/2011

You're talking about a behavior problem. My daughter is extremely shy. While she does very well in school, she is not the most popular or bossy. Nor is she way ahead of her peers academically. She falls right in line with her classmates and I really can't imagine having put her in early. Plus I think you're talking about girls during the younger years. Have you seen how brutal middle school girls are to each other? I'd rather her have the maturity and confidence to get through those years. And I'm not wild about kids in college at 17. I know it's done, but I have seen a difference.

Also, what they do in kindergarten now is what we did at the end of first grade. I've seen more "young" students in need of extra help than I've seen "older" students cause trouble.

[Widespread Panic]

07:13 PM on 02/09/2011

I think what these parents are doing is wrong if it's only to make their kid seem smarter than the rest of the kids.

I thought of holding my daughter back a year because she was so much less mature than the other kids going to kindergarten. I felt like she needed an extra year to grow out of her shyness and mature more before she would be ready to deal with the other kids. However, I decided against it, I figured she'd eventually find her way and she did although she is still shy.

[am10]

07:23 PM on 02/09/2011

My daughter is like that and I held her out…and she is still shy. So I can't imagine having put her in early. Honestly, I wasn't worried about kindergarten - I was worried about middle school.

[Widespread Panic]

07:38 PM on 02/09/2011

Sometimes I wish I had held her back. She's in 9th grade now, but she still relates to kids about a year younger than her than the ones her age. She's still shy, even though she plays sports and is a great student. She just hasn't developed the social skills and assertiveness needed to engage with the other students.

My daughter is not the norm though, most of the kids I know like her overcame their shyness by the time they hit middle school. So I'm sure your daughter will do much better than mine did.

[gravity defiant]

06:00 PM on 02/09/2011

The reason this is happening is that kindergartens have become developmentally inappropriate for 5-year-olds. Many, many 5-year-olds can't succeed in K, not because there's anything wrong with the child, but because we're asking them to do tasks that are better suited to 6- and 7-year-olds.

This is NOT the fault of K teachers, though. As with so many things, the blame is diffuse, and there's plenty to go around. However, NCLB is a good place to start looking. Third-graders are tested to within an inch of their lives. Third-grade teachers are overwhelmed with trying to prepare their students for that, so they push second-grade teachers to take some some of what used to be 3rd-grade curriculum (it's not uncommon for second-graders to start memorizing the multiplication tables these days. When did you learn that? Fourth?). That, in turn, requires 2nd-grade material to drift down to first, and first into K. Obviously that's a gross oversimplification, but you get the idea. The problem is, kids' brains aren't growing any faster just because someone in Washington decided we need to Improve School Achievement. Today's K curriculum is like expecting all 8-month-old babies to be able to walk without support: A few kids can do it, most can't, and most of those will learn eventually and do just fine if given the time they need to develop.

[Halter]

11:55 PM on 02/09/2011

Thank you.Education should be viewed as a blossoming, not as a race.

[changing]

10:29 AM on 02/10/2011

Right on target. Kindergarten should be a place where a variety of developmental levels could be managed. Instead we are pushing and pushing every kid. Wish the deformers would take a course in childhood development. That being said, there are times when an immature kid does profit from staying back and blossoms when put into a program later.

[SF TKF]

03:50 PM on 02/09/2011

It really depends on the child, doesn’t it? Holding them back can't be universally bad any more than forcing them in is universally good.

[optimist7]

04:29 PM on 02/09/2011

I think that's the point of the article. It should depend on the child, but it appears that it doesn't.
 
Parents are worried about their child having a better chance of winning a sports scholarship? Or worried about their son not being the shortest boy or their daughter the tallest, most curvacious girl in the class as they grow older? And teachers don't want to have to deal with fidgety children? Wow!
 
To just start with that last one, if a teacher wants children in his or her class who will sit still at a desk throughout the course of a full school day, perhaps instead of holding the children back, that teacher just shouldn't be teaching kindergarten. These are the same teachers who call parents in for conferences and recommend Ritalin to keep children sitting still in their boring classes. I suspect those same drugged children are more likely to turn to drugs to solve their problems in later years.
 
As to the parents, they need to get a life, and stop trying to live vicariously through the lives of their children. If they provide their children with love and attention, the children will thrive. This nonsense of a "gift of time," adding a year of education before college is absurd. When they get to high school, these poor kids will be told they have to start doing college level courses to qualify for a top tier college. When will it end? Will our undergrad college students all start working on their doctorates in their sophomore year? And then what, they'll all be Einstein when they enter grad school?
 
And yet, America's students are falling behind most of the other industrialized nations. What's going on isn't working. Educators should just go back to the basics and concentrate on trying to teach every child in every grade the knowledge and academic skills appropriate for their grade level. If an individual child is struggling to do that, the teacher's role is to find ways to help that child learn. If an individual child has mastered the work and wants to do more, the teacher's role is to find ways to give that child more interesting or advanced work. I can understand that in poor communities, there are social problems that complicate education, but in the average school, I just don't see why there's such a problem.

[am10]

07:26 PM on 02/09/2011

Maybe we should rethink full day kindergarten then. No kid that age can sit through seven hours no matter what their ability and maturity level. Either way, I've talked to plenty of teachers - old and new - who all basically said "It can't hurt to hold them out, but it can hurt to put them in too soon."

[MG Metiva]

02:39 PM on 02/09/2011

Redshirting is a bad idea in my opinion because it's bad if you are graduating and turn 19 before the ceremony or 20 in the same year. It puts you behind the eight ball right away when entering the job market.