I'm am one of those parents facing the dilemma of when to have my child start kindergarten.....
The question I have for all of you is: Is it ok to start kindergarten very young or is it better to wait a year? As a starting point, I am basing the "cut off" on my local state standard.
According to the Illinois School Code, children who will be 5 years old on or before September 1 may begin school. Based upon an assessment of a child's school readiness, a school district may choose to permit a child to attend school prior to that date, or it may choose not to do so. In a school district operating on a year-round school basis, children who will be age 5 within 30 days after a term starts may begin to attend school that term. (http://illinoisearlylearning.org/faqs/kinderentryage.htm)
Currently my daughter goes to a private preschool/daycare that serves children ages 3-5 years old. About half of my daughters current preschool class will be going on to kindergarten at various schools (this is a private church based school so the children will most likely go to several different schools since they all live in different areas of the town) and the other half will attend the preschool/day care program again next year. She would know no difference if she attended again vs going on to kindergarten since they mix up the classes every year.
My daughters birthday is right on there at the cut off and
I know she is smart enough to handle kindergarten but my concern is with the social and emotional ramifications down the road. What happens when she is has just turned 15 and many of her classmates are going 16 or 16+.
The differences in the physical and metal pressures that a child faces in today world are rather daunting. I know this for a fact. I have spent the last 10 years working daily with Jr high and high school students. I know what they talk about, I know what they do, and it can be rather scary sometimes.
So back to my question:
Is it better to be the youngest in ones class or the oldest. Not necessarily worried about her being academically ready, she's a smart little lady.
What about jr. high and high school? Emotional and social ramifications?
I scoured the web looking for research and found lots of info related to the early academic abilities of children who where or were not held back for a year before beginning kindergarten. During my research I learned that waiting a year for your child to start kindergarten has its own term,
redshirting. There are tons of interesting studies out there. So many studies talked about academic success in elementary school, performance in early elementary school, behaviors and ramifications in early elementary school based on preschool and kindergarten enrollment. There were also a lot of studies about children being held back in kindergarten after they were not ready to advance to first grade.
The problem I came across was that there were not many articles that talked about long term emotional and social affect of being the youngest or oldest in your high school class. I'm not worked about her academic success. I'm concerned about the peer pressures she will face as the youngest in her class vs being older.
Can anyone point me in a direction of some research? Can you share your thoughts or your experiences?
Thanks!
Link to another mom asking the same question:
http://www.urbanmamas.com/urbanmamas/2010/03/and-what-about-starting-kindergarten-early-or-young.html
Resources:
http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx?ArticleID=282
http://www.edutopia.org/does-entering-kindergarten-late-improve-performanchttp://www.lapetite.com/parent-resources/blog/2012/02/redshirt-greenshirt-%E2%80%93-the-surprising-pros-and-cons-of-starting-kindergarten-a-year-late/e'
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18331132
