Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Delaying Kindergarten

Looking for thoughts/research re: delaying admission to Kindergarten for DS3. His older brother, DS7, is HG. All signs point to DS3 being gifted although possibly 2E (anxiety). DS3 has a late June birthday and Dad wants to hold him back a year from beginning Kindergarten in Fall 2016 as he will have just turned 5. I'm not convinced this is the right path as we may then just be facing the school wanting to accelerate him. The research I have found supports holding back kids with a summer birthday and indicates test scores, math achievement and reading outcomes are significantly better for summer birthday kids that did not start kindergarten until age 6. I also found 1 article that indicated that gifted kids with a summer birthday often go unidentified due to being overlooked by teachers because they are young. All signs are pointing to my husband being right on this one, which is okay with me, but my gut thinks it's a mistake. Thoughts?

I could be wrong (in which case someone will correct me!), but the research I've seen recently points to good early/worse late (i.e., high school) results for kids who are held back. I'll see if I can find the link.

If you suspect giftedness, I'm not sure that you would see better test scores, reading outcomes, etc. -- he may already be ahead of age peers by K.

FWIW, we did not even consider holding back ODS (PG, though we didn't "know" it then) despite a very late summer birthday. It made absolutely no sense to us to consider it given his intellectual development. Nor will we hold back his May birthday sibling, who isn't yet at that level of academic progress (that ODS was at by this age) but whose preschool teachers say is more than ready.

You'll have a better idea where your child is at by this time next year. Is there a reason to worry now?

Here's the most recent link I've seen on this topic.
https://today.duke.edu/2015/03/birthdaysandcrime

Now, this does specifically address drop-out rates, which may not be as much of a concern... or then again, they may be given that boredom can create all sorts of issues.

Another one:
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/news/coverStories/pros_cons_holding_out.php

Worried now because we're trying to make decisions about preschool. Want to send him 3 days a week, Dad wants to wait until Fall 2016. I've registered him, but we haven't paid yet. As an MSW in the behavioral health field, my clinical judgment indicates a year at preschool could help with the budding social anxiety/performance anxiety he's been displaying. Of course, Dad doesn't want to hear any of that mumbo jumbo

Actually, the newest research seems to show the opposite of what your husband believes.

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/youngest-kid-smartest-kid

There's also a school of thought that suggests children who are unchallenged in elementary school lose important opportunities to develop executive function skills.

http://nurturingwisdom.com/is-executive-functioning-the-missing-link-for-many-gifted-students/

Anecdotally, my twins are June birthday boys with a September cutoff. They were not redshirted and there was only one other boy younger than them in their elementary school--the rest were redshirted, so it's very common in our area.

My observation of the redshirted boys in their grade were that they were uncomfortable because they were much bigger than other kids, they weren't any more advanced, and I know from one family who red shirted their kids-- the children felt dumb because they had been held back.

In one case, the kids were going to be tall anyway, but when they were redshirted, they were literally more than a foot taller than their classmates by 3rd grade and were at least a year older. They might have been awkward no matter their grade, but they had a hard time fitting in with grade peers who were younger and much smaller. But the additional issue was that they weren't doing any better academically, so it wasn't as if redshirting gave them an academic edge.

Ah, that makes sense. Given what you say about him, it seems that preschool now would be beneficial! We did send both our children at that age -- they enjoyed it and it did seem to help their development. Doesn't seem it would hurt anything (other than the cost, of course!).

BTW, your question got me thinking about this again and I did some searching. This article has some good links.

http://parentsware.com/delaying-kindergarten-facts-academic-redshirting

Thank you so much for the helpful articles. This is just what I needed to support my gut!!

I used to think red-shirting was a good idea until I had an actual living breathing kid who was going nuts spending a whole week on the letter "A" in preschool.

We started school early and so far so good.

Again, I think you have to be careful applying research based on average kids to an outlier kid. While that "gift" of an extra year might help kids of an average or lower ability, high ability kids don't need that advantage since they will likely already be at the top.

I would also consider where you live. A kid who will turn 7 at the end of K (in June) would still be an anomaly in many many places with strong school systems. I don't believe that hitting 19 by the time you graduate is consider "normal" in Pennsylvania. Your DS would encounter many kids who are around one full year younger, which can be detrimental to his self-concept. Letting your DS start school at the proper year will result in him being among the youngest quarter of kids but holding him back may result in embarrassing questions about grade retention by the time he hit upper elementary.

I would NOT hold back, especially with the strong possibility he might be gifted (or even HG+). I have two who are relatively young for grade, who both started on time. Best decision we ever made. Both are currently underchallenged in school, so we are struggling to keep them learning.

I wouldn't hold back a child unless I seriously thought that child had learning difficulties, and I 100% definitely would not hold back a child who's likely gifted. There's a lot of recent research that suggests it's better in the long run to be young for grade, though there are plenty of people clinging to the old "common sense wisdom" of holding back.

My DS was born in October and will be almost 6 when he's "supposed" to go to Kindergarten next year. I have been trying all year to figure out how I can get the school to admit him to 1st instead. He will totally be the most immature 1st grader in the short run, but in the long run I think it would be worse to have him sitting around bored. Because he WILL entertain himself and nobody wants him to be having to make his own entertainment. (After having had to try to differentiate for DD9 all this year, her teacher is now all on board with this idea, too.)

As far as preschool, I will say that both my children started preschool at the age of 22 months, attending a 4-hours-per-week program through Early Intervention. (DD qualified for EI services, but I enrolled DS as a community peer simply because I loved the program.) They both attended other preschool programs after aging out of the EI preschool (2.5 years of part-day Montessori for DD; 1.5 years of full-time daycare center/preschool for DS followed by 1 year of part-day Montessori). They both love preschool.

We had the opportunity at age 5 for my son to either enroll in a second year of preschool or enroll in Kindergarten. We opted for another year of preschool based on the notion that he really loved his preschool and, as a result, thrived and blossomed tremendously the second year.

Of course, we have since discovered that he is HG... so we have it a bit harder for ourselves now, as he is 6 in Kindergarten this year and definitely lacking challenge. What's worse is that the school does not want to accelerate him because he is supposedly "not the brightest kid in the classroom" (according to his teacher).

I don't regret our decision for a second year of pre-school, though, even knowing what I know now. So I think it just depends on the kid and the pre-school. We didn't want to change a good thing.

Schools don't want to accelerate so being younger is as close as you will get to a grade skip.

National Association of School Psychs white paper on retention:

http://www.nasponline.org/about_nasp/positionpapers/whitepaper_graderetentionandsocialpromotion.pdf

Executive summary: data supports a small positive effect in the short term, and a negligible-to-non-existent effect long-term, with conflicting evidence for slight positive or slight negative effects on achievement and social-emotional functioning. The main anticipated negative outcome is increased risk of dropout.

The vast majority of the research is on low- and typically-performing students.

My first thoughts are dad wants to hold his child back, a child who is probably not only ready for K but probably well ahead of game, so his child can be bigger for sports. Football? Basketball? These are organized usually by grade and not age...that is my initial thought. Don't hold your kids back. Let them plow ahead on their own and thrive.

Having gifted kids who are young for grade is actually a great boon. Combined with a high achieving school system (the kind where other parents redshirt!) it means that there is a chance you can make things work in elementary until gifted programming or other meaningful acceleration options which do not depend on grade skips, like accelerated classes in middle school, roll around. With a regular or old for grade kid, chances are much higher that it's grade skip or go nuts, and in some school systems (and with some kids) a grade skip is simply not a feasible option - and even a grade skip that is supported by the school and works well for the child socially simply means the child is placed with regular peers a year older, not with true intellectual peers the way a gifted program (hopefully) works.
Just like PPs have said, forget the research, it was performed with regular and low performing kids for whom the additional year might give a much needed boost from the lower performing to the higher performing cohort in the classroom. Kids who are already beyond the curriculum do not need to be boosted even further out. It's making sure these kids are younger to make the classroom a better fit that works, and the research on accelerating gifted kids show that for them, accelerating is very beneficial.

redshirting is all the rage in los angeles... and at mirman there is a range of 18-22 months between the kids. i know that most if not all private schools here want them older in K, not younger... even if you are beyond what they are teaching. i think it's more a behavior issue than anything. we have friends who's son was 5 on the 2nd of october and every school asked them to apply the next year as they felt he was too young for the class. everything here is older. my dd has a birthday at the end of feb. and she is one of the youngest in her class. they started turning 6 in her kinder. right in the beginning of school. even though mirman's kinder. teaches 1st grade material, i would say about 1/2 already had a public kinder before they got to mirman. weird right? i say, whatever is the norm where you are, just go with the flow.

DS7 (PG), is a late October birthday with a Sept. 1st school cutoff. Like someone said, all subjects are still way too easy for him even being accelerated a year, so it is not helping much. The important thing is if the school is willing to subject accelerate. Ours is which is the only way it is working for him in school.

BUT , another thing you might want to think about is that highly gifted children usually have a more advanced way of thinking about everything. My son complains that he feels so much older than the kids in his class even though he is a good year younger than a lot of them. There is not much mental interaction with his friends, he does like the playing on the playground though. But this is pretty much the only thing he has in common with the kids in class. I can't even imagine what it would be like if you were in the class he is supposed to be in.

Your older son is highly gifted, chances are you're younger will be in that range as well. I would definitely go ahead and start him and not hold back. It will be easy to keep up with the academics and he will probably feel more like he is with kids who are somewhat peers to him.

We have done the same thing with our 5 year old son. He is even younger, a late November birthday. Academics, especially math is still way too easy. And I can tell that the maturity level is not a match either. He is in a young class though. About four of the children are May /June birthdays. I really don't think it is going to be a good match for your son if you hold him back. Not on any level.

My son complains that he feels so much older than the kids in his class even though he is a good year younger than a lot of them.

This.


This is going to be true for a long, long, long time with a HG+ child.

Mine is still living this as a 15yo college freshman, fwiw.

Here's another perspective. Think hard about why he wants to red shirt him. Our son is 4 and likely HG+. We are skipping preschool altogether. He can read. He is happy doing 2nd grade math. Our son has excellent social skills with peers (older kids and adults he respects). He can tolerate adults he doesn't respect in limited doses for a limited time period (I.e. 2 hours, not 6). His coping skills get better every month as he matures.

That being said, he is extremely active and doesn't tolerate forced boredom well. I think sending our son to school at this age would leave him with a negative impression of school we'd never shake.

We are taking it year by year, but with his learning curve, we are thinking we'll probably homeschool. There is an excellent and welcoming homeschooling community here that has provided a wonderful multi-age set of peers for socialization. I have no doubt he's thriving at home in a way that he wouldn't be able to in school at this stage. Your mileage may vary, but keep in mind grade is just a number until you put him in the school system.

As the forum mercenary :), let me mention a consideration that is rarely mentioned in discussions of redshirting and acceleration but which I think is important.

If a child is accelerated by a year, that may lengthen his or her career by 1 year. A ballpark estimate of earnings of gifted adults is $100,000. When in doubt, grab the $100K. If finishing school a year early meant an extra year of arduous manual labor, parents could decide that they want their children to enjoy another year of school before entering the "real world". Gifted children are lucky in that for most of them, their jobs will not be more unpleasant than school. We have accelerated two of our three children by one year, and they are both doing well.

-- and to add to Bostonian's post above (though it should be stated that I am something like anti-mercenary);

consider the additional college costs incurred by red-shirting.

With annual increases in the 5-10% range, and CURRENT college costs upwards of 50K at elite schools, this is not exactly pocket change for parents.

Even if you plan to have your child rely upon aid, that is seldom going to be enough to avoid borrowing (which such institutions now see as a perfectly valid means of "meeting student financial need" by the way).

Please note that I am in no way suggesting that this is a compelling reason to PUSH children to accelerate if that is not (already) the right thing to do for them developmentally.

But it's darned sure a good reason to consider NOT red-shirting.

Saw some of the research re: increased salaries for kiddos who weren't redshirted, but the college costs never occurred to me. What a great argument for sending him to school, especially for my fiscally conservative husband!!

The problem for my DD is that she isn't all that subtle about how she feels about other children her age. She refers to them as "the younger children" in a rather condescending tone. When I remind her that some of them are older than she is by a few months, she responds "fine then, the YOUNG children."

She then turns around and literally starts screaming about spilled ice cream.

Haha! Yeah, good point. My 7 year old certainly doesn't look like the one who should be saying he feels older than his class mates when he, himself, is rolling around on the floor throwing a fit like a 2 year old...:-) Ahhhhh, the asynchrony....