In our rural public school almost all five-year-olds with spring and summer birthdays are redshirted. It did not matter that my son could already read at a 5th grade level when he started kindergarten at 5. It did not make any difference that he could easily read and follow the instructions on a third grade language arts worksheet and do mental math or that he really wanted to learn something new. None of that mattered.
If kids are not redshirted at 5, teachers recommend putting them in T1 after finishing kindergarten. T1 is a year in between kindergarten and first grade. It does not matter if they make what would normally be a passing grade on an end of year first grade test when they just finished kindergarten like my son did when he took the test to see if he could skip first grade.
I have heard that kids are redshirted so that they will be better able to compete in sports. Sports is everything here.
My son did look small compared to some of the boys in his kindergarten class who were a year and a half older, and he was bullied by some of them, but now that he is 13 he looks the same age as his 16 year old friend. He is also taller than his friend.
