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The "lengthening of childhood" is having grim effects on American academic achievement.
That's the message of a new paper by Harvard researchers, who warn that there is a downside to the increasingly common practice of waiting until children are 6 to enroll them in kindergarten.
Known as "redshirting," after the practice of letting college football stars take a year off so that they can start playing for the varsity a year older, bigger, and stronger, the practice is widespread: A parent decides to hold a child back a year before beginning kindergarten, and suddenly kindergartners are taller and faster and first-graders are more literate. Manhattan private schools call the extra year "the gift of time."
The practice has grown substantially: In 1968, 96% of 6-year-olds were enrolled in first grade or above. In 2005, the number had fallen to 84%, according to the paper by the Harvard researchers, part of a series issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Not only are children being held back on an individual basis by ambitious parents hoping to give them a leg up; public schools from Maryland to Arkansas are following suit by legislating that children be older when they enter kindergarten.
[snip]
Even private school children suffer from "redshirting," the paper argues. Though they are at a very low risk of dropping out of high school, entering school a year late means losing one year of work experience and salary.
It also means one fewer year that the children, once they are adults in the workforce, will pay into America's Social Security system.
[snip]
In New York City, children must be enrolled in public school kindergarten if they turn 5 years old by December 31. For the city's private schools, the deadline is September 1. Yet private school administrators and admissions advisers said that Manhattan schools often will not accept a child younger than six. They said the schools are hoping to give students a boost in maturity before starting their formal education.
According to the paper, titled "The Lengthening of Childhood," states have followed parents in pushing up the average age of kindergartners.
In the last 30 years, nearly half of all states have increased the age at which a child can legally enter kindergarten. Maryland and Arkansas have both moved their cutoff dates to September 1 and there is currently a bill in the New York State Assembly to do the same.
Ms. Dynarski said there are several reasons why public schools might be starting children in school at an older age.
One is that high-stakes testing and No Child Left Behind have put pressure on states to drive exam scores higher. When policy makers notice that redshirted children get higher test scores, they propose that their states move the cutoff dates to earlier in the year — usually to September 1.
"The older kids do better," Ms. Dynarski said. "That doesn't mean that the kids doing better are doing so because they entered later. That might be misleading to policy makers."
[snip]
"If you have a summer birthday, private schools will frequently say you're too young, you need to wait a year," the president of the private school admissions firm Abacus Educational Consulting, Emily Glickman, said.
The headmaster at Grace Church School in Greenwich Village, George Davison, estimated that more than a third of his first-graders are 7 years old. He said the older ages are a deliberate choice, made to ensure that the children are "happier and healthier."
[snip]
"Sometimes, developmentally, it makes sense for them to wait a year, particularly for boys," she said. "You're never doing a bad thing by waiting a year."
'Lengthening Childhood' Has A Downside, Study Says
by ANNA PHILLIPS, Special to the Sun | July 21, 2008
The problem here is that we fit the kids to the schools, instead of fitting the schools to the kids.
Somehow, Siegfried Engelmann was able to teach academic content to pre-schoolers without a lot of hoopla about maturity and scores and whatnot.
We need a science of teaching & we need it fast.
34 comments:
Somehow, Siegfried Engelmann was able to teach academic content to pre-schoolers without a lot of hoopla about maturity and scores and whatnot."
That's why I made sure to get his "Give your child a superior mind" which shows how to do this. And without manipulatives, thank you very much.
ari-free
An extra year of maturity may be a "gift" to the 6 year old in kindergarten, but is it a gift to the 19 year old adult who is still in high school? A 17 year old can enlist in the military (with parental consent), an 18 year old can vote...yet in a high school setting, these same individuals cannot select their own courses or sometimes even their own seat within the classroom.
An extra year of maturity may be a "gift" to the 6 year old in kindergarten, but is it a gift to the 19 year old adult who is still in high school?
Right on. It's not true that "[y]ou're never doing a bad thing by waiting a year." These high school juniors and seniors are old enough to drive, vote, enter the military, get married, rent an apartment, sign a contract. There's nowhere some of these 19 year olds would rather *not* be than in high school. Disengagement, lack of motivation, high dropout rates: all are central problems in schools today. Perhaps this practice contributes to them.
Redshirting is certainly good for some kids but definitely not for all, and it does seem to be a reflection of a system that is changing (in a bad way) to promote social skills over academics. It's important not to lose sight of who your child will be at 19, or even at 14. Will you feel the same way about the decision then as now? It's awfully hard to undo.
An extra year of maturity may be a "gift" to the 6 year old in kindergarten, but is it a gift to the 19 year old adult who is still in high school?"
It is a gift if he would otherwise have been prescribed Ritalin to keep him compliant in class. In our small circle of friends, we know too many boys on ADHD medication. I know one who has developed severe side effects. As a culture, we seem to have forgotten that it is normal for small boys to be wiggly and easily distracted. Yes, some boys do have attentional disorders, but most children who receive ADD medication have never seen a specialist. There aren't enough specialists to go around!
I wonder what the rate of ADD diagnoses is in Norway, with the school entry age set at 7?
That's why I made sure to get his "Give your child a superior mind" which shows how to do this. And without manipulatives, thank you very much.
I love it!
An extra year of maturity may be a "gift" to the 6 year old in kindergarten, but is it a gift to the 19 year old adult who is still in high school?
Well, that's just it.
If our schools are so Whatever that boys need "the gift of time," then the schools are doing something wrong. I include private schools in that category.
We've stuffed the curriculum down to lower grades - what used to be taught in 1st grade is now taught in kindergarten - then keep children out of school longer so they're older and ready to deal with the curriculum when they get there.
Disengagement, lack of motivation, high dropout rates: all are central problems in schools today. Perhaps this practice contributes to them.
You have to wonder.
I had no idea the practice had grown as much as it has.
I wonder what the rate of ADD diagnoses is in Norway, with the school entry age set at 7?
You know, that is a very interesting question.
We've stuffed the curriculum down to lower grades - what used to be taught in 1st grade is now taught in kindergarten
Oh gosh, you just reminded me
My sister-in-law, a first grade teacher in IL (now a reading specialist) told me they were supposed to have their KINDERGARTNERS writing paragraphs.
What is the consensus? That we should be teaching preschoolers simultaneous linear equations, or that it is terrible that kindergarteners have to deal with so much academic content?
My sister-in-law, a first grade teacher in IL (now a reading specialist) told me they were supposed to have their KINDERGARTNERS writing paragraphs.
This is actually appalling and yet I'm not altogether shocked having just gotten through public school kindergarten with my youngest.
I was just listening to Susan Wise Bauer CD where she speaks about writing (Writing Without Fear)and have also read much of what she's written on the topic of teaching writing. She clearly states that young children K, 1 and even 2nd grade aren't ready to write yet. They need to develop so many crucial component parts first (motor skills, content, grammar, vocabulary, etc.).
She points out that while we're expecting children to write at a more and more young age, the end result is children who still aren't very good at it and who in the process learn to hate writing altogether.
Assuming there is a consensus here -- and I think there may be -- it would probably be that we should teach linear equations BUT do so step-by-step & incrementally, never giving the child more than he can manage.
I don't know whether you've ever read any of the KUMON material, but it's quite interesting. The man who created KUMON (was his name Kumon?? can't remember) originally wrote the worksheets for his son, who wasn't doing well in math. The philosophy of KUMON is to never get ahead of the student (though I'd say from experience that's not necessarily true of the fraction sheets...)
Kids move through those sheets so quickly they get to calculus in 6th grade, iirc.
However, that's not because they've been overwhelmed with material. They spend 10 to 15 minutes a day on the worksheets, no more.
With "direct instruction"-type programs the idea is to accelerate learning by breaking tasks into their component parts and teaching each part. When kids learn small, manageable parts of a task or concept and then build up, they can move quite rapidly.
What my sister-in-law was saying, I'm sure, is that there's no way to get a Kindergarten child to write a paragraph when he or she hasn't been taught how to write a word or a sentence.
It's "wholeism" again: the kids are supposed to start at the top, with paragraphs.
I'm guessing this is a fair interpretation of K9Sasha's position.
(I'm joking about linear equations, btw...but only because you wouldn't get to linear equations in Kindergarten taking things step by step. But you could get to them by 3rd grade, I believe. 3rd or 4th)
no, wait
you said "simultaneous linear equations"
I'm trying to think ..... I should check my KUMON literature.
Don't know when he gets to them, but it's early -- and it's not "hard" or "challenging."
Slow and steady wins the race. That's the philosophy.
Concerned -- You're going to have to write something about the Hake series.
I'm blown away by your daughter's writing (I'm so blown away I haven't sent you the page I have of C's last personal narrative....though I probably will...)
I should see if I posted some of the KUMON material on the old site. Apparently Mr. Kumon took a lot of heat for accelerating kids so far. People thought it was wrong and stressful to having kids doing calculus in 6th grade.
His point was that they'd gotten there step by step, bit by bit.
They weren't stressed.
She clearly states that young children K, 1 and even 2nd grade aren't ready to write yet. They need to develop so many crucial component parts first
I agree absolutely.
I'm also discovering that the high school variant of that philosophy is that you have kids write LOTS of short things, instead of ONE big long thing.
My friend Cindy, in LA, said that her son had to write one one-page paper a week for his high school history course.
It could only be one page. That was it. If the kids went over a page, they were docked.
C has several summer writing assignments, each one paragraph long.
That's exactly what a summer assignment should be.
PLUS what makes me crazy about all this is that summarizing material is one of the most advanced analytic skills there is.
Students are getting no experience writing summaries at all these days; it's just assumed anyone can summarize something.
That was the point of the book on teaching summaries I've mentioned from time to time (and never finished reading...)
The teacher who wrote it talks about having to defy her entire school in order to teach summary-writing -- and then not being able to find any materials or help in figuring out what a summary actually is & how to teach it.
Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Retelling: Skills for Better Reading, Writing, and Test Taking by Emily Kissner
I think the intro may be posted online at the publisher (not sure)
I listened to some more of the Writing Without Fear CD in my car just now. I thought of you when she said, "Most writing programs are designed for girls. Be kind to your boys."
Susan Wise Bauer spent quite a bit of time talking about what 1-4 graders should be doing when it comes to writing. It's nothing like what I've seen happening in our elementary school. In fact, it's quite the opposite.
Her prescription for the early elementary grades is copywork, narration, and grammar instruction. It's very basic but it's about modeling proper usage until it becomes internalized much as a foreign language would be over time and with constant practice.
You add dictation to the mix around grades 3/4. She stresses that you should allow your child to write creatively if they enjoy it, otherwise she recommends throwing that journal away and focus on building the component skills to write properly by modeling proper writing.
As you move to the middle grades, you move away from copywork and teach the child to outline using good sources of writing. Once the student masters outlining, you have them write short summaries using their outlines as a guide. You then compare the student's summary to the author's original. Grammar instruction intensifies with sentence diagramming becoming the cornerstone of instruction. Dictation comes from more and more complex sources.
By high school, the child should be taught how to formulate a thesis statement and support an argument. Again, grammar instruction continues until no stone is left unturned. Wise Bauer's actually not a big fan of assigning many huge research papers. She prefers having the student to one page papers daily(rotating through different subjects) and developing the skills of argument and logic at this stage.
How to put together a proper research paper must be taught once the other component skills have come together and not before. In other words, the fifth grade research paper should be an aberration.
*Catherine, I've been thinking that I need to write something about Hake too. My daughter's writing has come quite a long way since we began. Most importantly, she has confidence in her ability to write that was seriously deteriorated after dealing with writer's workshop and a constant barage of creative writing assignments and research reports that she wasn't ready to take on in any significant capacity.
In many ways, she has the same problem with writing many boys do. When it comes to creative writing she's not particularly motivated and becomes easily ovewhelmed by it. She hates journaling about her feelings and hasn't even been very keen of keeping a diary. She would much rather write about history or science or some interesting person. Hake Grammar fits her very well.
Does she say anything about memorization??
I think memorization is another lost essential, along with syllables.
My mom knew tons of poems by heart; she used to recite them to us kids.
At one point, she advised me to have C. memorize some poems, to help his writing, I think.
I researched poetry books and found some great ones, but never worked up the energy or resolve to insist on poetry reading & memorization...
I'm interested in this partly because a colleague of Ed's told him that the reason people wrote so beautifully in the 19th century was that they had "memorized chunks" inside their minds...I think his point was that they were assembling elegant turns of phrase the way we assemble individual words.
C. is actually having to do copywork this summer -- Analyze, Organize, Write requires students to copy over the short essay they've just reconstructed.
As you move to the middle grades, you move away from copywork and teach the child to outline using good sources of writing.
The student is outlining someone else's work -- right?
Perfect.
Essential.
Has she written about this? Or is it only on her CD?
Also, I wonder how she would feel about remediating kids who can't write.
Would she recommend taking them back to the beginning, with copywork?
Wise Bauer's actually not a big fan of assigning many huge research papers. She prefers having the student to one page papers daily(rotating through different subjects) and developing the skills of argument and logic at this stage.
YES!!!!
YES! YES! YES!
Absolutely.
As far as I can tell, this may actually be a "recipe" in Catholic schools.
My friend said that when her son got to college (Occidental) he was amazed at how poorly everyone wrote.
She hates journaling about her feelings and hasn't even been very keen of keeping a diary.
I've NEVER been able to keep a diary or a journal, and I'm a writer.
I enjoy writing about my life in short comic bursts, which is perfect for a blog, obviously; I do like writing something about the kids from time to time (I wish I hadn't gotten derailed on Xmas letters...)
But that's it.
Personal writing has only been motivating to me as part of a conversation, via letters or email. I wonder whether that may be true of nonfiction writers ---
Would it be too invasive of your daughter's privacy to post her essay??
It would sure be a service -- people could see what's possible at a very young age and without stress, trauma, and parental reteaching.
Memorization is huge! Particularly in the early years. I'll be doing lots of that with my first and third grader this year since we're using First Language Lessons.
__________
You can certainly post the essay, with the caveat that it wasn't done in one sitting. It was edited and culled and polished. The beauty is, as you well know, that is was done "without stress, trauma, and parental reteaching." Funny how teaching something by breaking it down into component parts, having an appropriate assingment with a template to build upon, a strong foundation in grammar, and generally not having the child have to be a sage or mind-reader to figure out what to do can result in something very good.
Back to memorization. Your mom was right! Susan Wise Bauer explains that the key to writing is learning how to hold an idea in your head long enough to be able to write it down. That takes time and practice. Memorizing poems helps stretch the amount of ideas you can hold before your brain explodes. You start out short and they should grow progressively longer. Dictation serves this purpose for older students.
Did you ever see the movie, History Boys? Those boys were able to recite amazing works of literature and somehow relate it to a seemingly unrelated subject such as history. They would do this seamlessly. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
My sister-in-law, a first grade teacher in IL (now a reading specialist) told me they were supposed to have their KINDERGARTNERS writing paragraphs.
And yet the progressivists claim that the traditionalists are the ones who require developmentally inappropriate work! Amazing!!!
Has she written about this? Or is it only on her CD?
She deals with this at length in The Well Trained Mind. That book is a gem.
Also, I wonder how she would feel about remediating kids who can't write. Would she recommend taking them back to the beginning, with copywork?
That's precisely what she recommends. She suggests picking copywork that is age appropriate, well written, and of some interest to the student. When your student does copywork she actually wants you to sit right next to them and catch the mistakes immediately as they happen. You do them in pencil so the child can correct it right there on the spot. You want to avoid bad habits forming by nipping them in the bud. You also want to begin with shorter copywork and move on to longer and more complex pieces. It's really brilliant.
The student is outlining someone else's work -- right?
This is how the Institute for Excellence in Writing approaches writing. One of these days I really do need to listen to the CDs from them that I purchased a couple years ago to find out exactly how they do it.
As far as I can tell, this may actually be a "recipe" in Catholic schools.
My guess would be that Catholic High Schools, for the most part, are modeled after the final phase of the Trivium/Classical Education. You will likely find it to be very compatible with what C. will experience at his new school.
I wonder what the rate of ADD diagnoses is in Norway, with the school entry age set at 7?
According to the Norwegian Wiki entry, it's around 5% of the population of children. (http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADHD)
wow - lots of interesting things here -
You know, you may be right about Catholic high schools. I don't know the history (as usual) but Ed and a friend of his told me the other night that the Jesuits were influenced by Erasmus, who goes back to the 16th century....
Back to memorization. Your mom was right! Susan Wise Bauer explains that the key to writing is learning how to hold an idea in your head long enough to be able to write it down. That takes time and practice. Memorizing poems helps stretch the amount of ideas you can hold before your brain explodes.
Interesting.
I just read something fascinating in the introduction to The Odyssey, having to do with the oral poetry tradition.
I should type that up and post.
It had to do with oral poetry being a form of improvisation where the poet has big, long chunks of poetic text in memory.
He puts together these long chunks --- not just words, but chunks.
("Chunks" isn't a great term for this ---- )
A colleague of Ed's says this is why 19th century writers produced such beautiful, complex prose.
He says they had long, memorized phrases (& perhaps even full sentences? I don't know) that they combined to create novel passages.
What's our rate of ADHD diagnosis???
Hmm---I just bought Thomas Brown's book -- I wonder if it's in there.
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