The choice for Russ and Linda Davison was not an easy one. Their
4-year-old son, Noah, was scheduled to start kindergarten this year. With
an October birthday, though, Noah would be among the very youngest in the
class.
They decided to do something that would potentially transform Noah from a
follower to a leader: They kept him back a year, enrolling him in a
private junior kindergarten instead.
"We didn't want him to be the youngest going into kindergarten," said Russ
Davison, an accountant who lives in North Raleigh. "We felt like one more
year wouldn't hurt him and just felt like he'd be a little bit more
mature."
Studies show that 7 to 9 percent of kindergartners are enrolled a year
later than they are eligible, to give them an edge, a practice known as
"academic redshirting."
In North Carolina, children are eligible to begin public kindergarten if
they will be 5 years old by Oct. 16. Redshirting refers to the college
sports practice of holding a team member out of games to add a year of
eligibility.
Academic redshirting has helped build the private "transitional
kindergarten" market and may be helpful to individual students, but
experts worry that too many redshirters in class will change the dynamics,
widening the gap between the haves and have-nots.
Noah's school, North Raleigh Country Day School, has two classrooms of up
to 20 children each for junior kindergartners. More than half the kids
could have qualified for kindergarten this year. Principal Andee Edelson
developed the program a decade ago after she watched her 4-year-old
struggle .
In Wake County, kindergarten children are expected to be capable of
sitting and listening for at least 15 minutes. They must hold a pencil, or
quickly learn how to, and by the end of year, be able to read.
Kindergarten is not required for children in North Carolina.
Children with late birthdays whose parents thought they would struggle in
kindergarten filled Edelson's classroom. She started a second four years
ago. Similar programs are available throughout the Triangle.
"It's basically designed for children who just make or miss the school
cutoff of Oct. 16, and especially for the children who make the cutoff but
we don't feel they're ready for kindergarten."
T wo ways to go slow
At North Raleigh Country Day, a 4-year-old could be enrolled in any of
three classes. Preschool, where the activities are based in centers and
still very play-oriented; kindergarten, where the focus is on academics
and children spend much of the day learning as a group; and junior
kindergarten, where Noah and his classmates do both.
On Monday, Noah sat with teacher Cathy Arnold to work on his journal. She
showed him a picture of a family walking on a sunny day with a thermos and
a ball.
"What do you see, Noah?" she asked him. Noah gazed at the picture,
punching a fist into the palm of his hand and squirming in his chair. "I
see a dad. I see a kid, a mom. I see a sister."
Arnold wrote Noah's comments in his journal. In preschool, the children
won't do journals until January. In kindergarten, they can already write
words, even if the spelling is somewhat creative.
In all likelihood, said Noah's father, his son would have done fine in
kindergarten. But the Davisons spent last year watching their older son,
Casey, in kindergarten. He was 5 1/2 when he enrolled.
"I was just amazed at the stuff they taught," Davison said. "My son can
read a book cover to cover to me. He couldn't read anything at the
beginning of the year. I was astounded. And just the material they threw
at him -- they're doing math problems, simple addition and subtraction for
5-year-olds. That's pretty heavy stuff."
Waiting to excel
Studies show that boys, who develop slower than girls, are more likely to
be redshirted. Most redshirted students also come from affluent families
that can afford to pay for private school.
Samuel J. Meisels, director of the Erikson Institute in Chicago , a
graduate school in child development, has studied the trend and thinks
it's terrible.
"It used to be that if you wanted to get your kids ahead, you wanted your
kid to skip a grade. Now if you want to get your kid ahead, you hold them
out, or hold them back," Meisels said.
Worse yet, Meisels said, is that children who are held back tend to come
from more affluent families, which gives them an edge over those from
poorer backgrounds. "These are precisely the kids who don't need this
help," Meisels said.
Awkward mix of ages
So far, it appears that apart from a slight advantage in math skills at
year's end, redshirted children do not perform better academically than
their peers who went to school on time.
But because they're older, they stretch the span of skills a kindergarten
teacher normally manages . Typically, that skills range is about 24
months. Adding older children can spread that span to three years.
"What we're creating is a monster" in terms of the demands placed on a
teacher, Meisels said. "I'm talking about how difficult it is to teach a
group that has such a wide range."
Then too, says Richard Clifford, a senior scientist at UNC's Frank Porter
Graham Child Development Institute, if 10 percent of the class is held
back, it may put the youngest at a disadvantage.
"Children who come in later are more prepared for advanced academic
activity, and if a lot of children are doing that, it's going to change
kindergarten," he said. "It will be more like first grade."
Many educators say the problem is that kindergarten already is more like
first grade, as schools continue to emphasize testing.
It's harder than it used to be, and parents, particularly those with sons,
worry that their children will not succeed.
"It's an interesting phenomenon that parents are taking leadership away
from the schools," Meisels said.
"But if they weren't afraid that their children could not take the
curriculum, because it's not an appropriate curriculum, they wouldn't be
doing it."
In Wake County, figures show just 5 percent of kids are redshirted.
But at schools with more affluent parents, the number is higher.
Delay devotees
At Davis Drive Elementary in Cary, 9 percent of this year's kindergartners
were redshirted.
"They do great," said Davis Drive kindergarten teacher Kathy Miller.
"They're more mature socially and emotionally. They can almost be a leader
in the group instead of being a little bit afraid. I think they're much
more ready."
That is exactly what Holly Killian hoped for when she kept Nicholas back
last year at North Raleigh Country Day.
Killian thought her son was just too fidgety to sit through a real school
day.
"He is a kid who can sit and behave in school, and had I sent him to
kindergarten without any of this, I would be having problems right now."
