To Go or Not To Go...to kindergarten

DELAYED DEBUT: NO ACADEMIC EDGE

No real advantage to starting kindergarten later, study finds

SARAH BOESVELD

August 26, 2008

You want your child to be smarter, faster and stronger than the rest in the big, bad sandbox that is kindergarten. For some parents, holding them back at home an extra year may seem like a good idea.

But waiting to send Junior to school won't give him much of a boost in the long run - at least not academically - according to findings from a recent study.

Researchers from the University of Illinois found that while older kindergarten students naturally do better on academic tests, that edge wears off over time and virtually disappears by Grade 8.

A child's delayed debut into the education system also means he or she will get a job later in life and retire later, putting pressure on the work force and the already-suffering economy, says study co-author Todd Elder, now a professor at Michigan State University.

 "They've in some sense lost a year of their life. They're going to graduate college at 23 and 22. There doesn't seem to be much benefit," he says of the findings, to be printed in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Human Resources.

"The problem is, now people are maybe pushing it a little far and you can imagine people continuing to push it until you have eight-year-old kindergartners and it sort of doesn't matter how smart he actually is."

These kids are also learning a lot more before entering kindergarten, making them much more advanced than their peers, he says.

Using data from national academic surveys that tested kindergartners on their math and reading abilities, Dr. Elder and study co-author Darren Lubotsky, an economics professor at the University of Illinois, tracked the academic performance of kids from kindergarten to Grade 8. They saw that older kids were performing much better than younger students initially, but they eventually merged with their peers through elementary and middle school.

Dr. Elder hopes lawmakers will take notice of his findings - more U.S. states are ramping up the age requirement for students starting kindergarten. In 2002, nearly 21 per cent of five-year-olds were not yet enrolled in kindergarten, a boost from 10 per cent in 1980, the study says.

"If you're basically holding a kid out of school early on, if the cost of that is you have to work more later, that really resonates with people," he said.

The study also found teachers are more likely to diagnose younger kids with behavioural problems such as ADHD because they appear less mature beside the older kids.

"The youngest kids are getting diagnosed with ADHD; they're getting medicated, and that, I think, is really scary to a lot of people," he said, pointing to studies that link diagnoses of behavioural disorders with a child's age. "I think there's this notion that disorders like that are somewhat more subjective than other things."

Robert Cooper, founder of the AD/HD Foundation of Canada, says these kinds of misdiagnoses happen all the time.

"If you're at an age where you haven't matured yet, and being compared, then obviously there's going to be an appearance of ADHD which might go away in six months," he said.

Sarah Ingalls of Saint John, N.B., waited a year to send her son Parker, now 8 - not to give him that extra edge, but because she felt he wasn't ready. Small for his age, Parker was eventually diagnosed with a learning disability, but he fitted in just fine with his younger peers.

"I can't see people holding their child back, though, without a reason. I know when we moved to New Brunswick [from Prince Edward Island], people were astounded we would hold him back a year," she said. "It came to a point where he was saying, 'Hi, my name is Parker, I'm 5 and I don't go to school.' "

But the mother of three doesn't regret her decision to wait.

"You never regret holding them back, but you may regret sending them when they aren't ready."