As a Blue Valley District kindergarten teacher, Tracy Austen* did all the right things to get her son ready for his first year of school. His May birthday was well within the cutoff date for kindergarten entry in Kansas (August 31). “I worked with him at home, I read to him, I did everything I was supposed to do,” says Austen. But in the end, son Logan just wasn’t ready. He went to kindergarten at age six.
The Austens’ situation is hardly unusual. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 6 to 9 percent of American kindergartners enter school at age six. Parents embrace the idea of choosing when to send their children to school, and many think 5-year-olds are too young for the rigors of kindergarten.
“What was a first-grade curriculum five years ago is now a kindergarten curriculum,” Austen says, and other teachers agree. Susan Lonergan, principal at Blue Valley’s Liberty View Elementary, says kindergartners today are expected to arrive ready to learn. “The experience is much more academically focused” than it was when Lonergan began her career over 30 years ago, she reports.
Deciding to Wait
Tracy Austen calls it giving kids “a growth year”—more time to mature and gain the skills needed for today’s kindergarten. Carla Whitman of Overland Park asked dozens of friends for advice about giving daughter Brooke a growth year back in 1998. She thought Brooke, with her mid-August birthday, just wasn’t ready to settle down and learn. Eleven years later, Whitman says that waiting “was the best thing we could’ve done.” Now a freshman, Brooke plays junior varsity sports and excels in honors classes.
Austen says her son Logan, now a fourth-grader, is successful as well. “He fits in right where he needs to be,” she says, noting that he neither excels beyond his grade level nor lags behind. But Janice Kyle, another Blue Valley mom, wonders if her son really benefitted from the growth year. Sam’s late-June birthday prompted his parents to hold him. “In the long run, I think he would’ve been fine,” Kyle says, noting that the high-schooler is by far the tallest in his class and tends to make friends with much older boys.
Deciding to Go
Is Logan Austen’s success truly due to waiting an extra year? His mom admits that teachers accommodate struggling kids. “It’s the school’s responsibility to take kids where they are,” says Olathe principal Melanie DeMoss. “Kindergarten is a great time to learn and to explore,” says DeMoss, and for the child who’s kept out, “the disadvantage is that sometimes you miss out on that extra foundation that they might be getting earlier.”
Researchers tend to agree with DeMoss. An NCES study shows that gains kindergartners achieve by starting later are largely leveled out by fourth grade. Additionally, delaying entry will also delay identifying learning disabilities or other areas of concern. “If there are some services we can provide to that child, they can get that additional help early.”
Often, however, it’s those very delays that cause parents to hesitate at kindergarten roundup time. Pat Neely, an Olathe special education teacher, sent her son at age five despite her misgivings. “Right away we started noticing some delays, and eventually he was diagnosed with a learning disability” as well as an attention-deficit disorder, says Neely. Now she wishes “he’d have had another year to mature a little.” And while her son has made great strides, she sees this more as a function of his medication than early interventions at school. With her own students, Neely sees a difference in the kids that waited, even those with special needs. “They can handle the routine and structure of school much better.”
Additionally, says Tracy Austen, schools hesitate having children repeat kindergarten, even if they don’t seem ready for first grade. “It doesn’t happen very often because of the interventions we put in place.” Typically teachers do the best they can. “Just because they’re not ready at the moment doesn’t mean you can’t catch them up to speed in that year,” Austen admits, but Neely thinks that’s unfair to other children. “They’re taking away the teacher’s time. They require extra effort.”
Marge Clark of Overland Park is another mom who says, “I should have listened to my gut,” when deciding to send her April-born son at age five. He ended up repeating kindergarten, a consequence that could have been avoided had he waited another year.
Are They Ready?
Age five is no magic milestone. Children develop individually, and experts agree that differences are greatest in the primary years. Parents have a unique opportunity at school entry to help direct the early education years. Ask your child’s preschool teacher specific questions: How well does she pay attention? Does he frustrate easily? Can she follow directions? Is he well socialized with other kids? “We need to educate children in several areas,” says Melanie DeMoss. “We need to look at the emotional competence and the social competence, and cognitive and physical skills as well as getting them ready for math. It’s all those things in a package” that creates kindergarten readiness.
Above all, says principal Susan Lonergan, you know your child best. She sent one of her children to school at five; the other she held back. It was the right decision in both cases. Usually parents have a gut feeling about their child’s readiness. Lonergan insists that parents often regret sending their five-year-olds to school: “I’d love to have a dollar for every time a parent has said to me, ‘I wish I’d held him back.’ Because I’ve never had a parent say ‘I held them back, and I shouldn’t have.’ Not one time.” And that’s peace of mind you can’t buy—or teach.
-Claire Caterer is a freelance writer and former teacher’s aide in the Shawnee Mission School District.