In Kindergarten, Sometimes Older Is Better : Experts Cite Developmental Differences Among Children

It was the first day of kindergarten when little Molly’s parents noticed something was drastically wrong. Their daughter had a very short attention span. She didn’t participate in activities. She wasn’t interacting with other children.

At 4 years and 10 months, Molly was the youngest child in her class (although California law allows children to be as young as 4 years and 9 months when they start kindergarten in September). That meant that sitting in Molly’s class--either because they missed the cutoff by a few weeks or because of parental preference--were children a year or more older. After hours of anguish, Molly’s parents made a difficult decision: At the end of the week, they withdrew her from school.

Eventual Success

Molly’s story is one of success. A year later and more mature, a more outgoing Molly entered kindergarten. Her positive kindergarten experience launched an outstanding academic career. Today at 15, a freshman at Sacramento’s Rio Americano High School, Molly participates in a program for gifted and talented students and is a star soccer player.

Molly is the daughter of State Assemblyman Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton) and his wife, Diane. “I can’t remember anything in either of our daughter’s lives we agonized over more than that decision,” the legislator said. “My own mother thought we were wrong,” he added.

It is spring. In California, about 380,000 parents of preschoolers are choosing kindergartens for September. Few parents realize, however, that kindergarten is one of the most crucial decisions to be made in a child’s educational future. Moreover, a growing number of experts agree that the single most important determinant of academic success may not be which school or what program, but rather, as in Molly Johnson’s case, the age and readiness of the child entering kindergarten.

“Kindergarten is a critical time in a child’s life, with lifelong kickbacks. If we mess up and start children before they are ready, we are really doing damage to a lot of kids,” said David Elkind, professor of child study at Tufts University’s Lincoln Filene Center in Medford, Mass.

In the last 20 years, changes in society have altered the face of kindergarten. Parents who remember an idyllic experience of playing with clay, singing “Old MacDonald,” eating graham crackers and napping may be shocked to learn the old days have vanished. Today, many kindergartens look more like what first grade used to be, with children expected to sit, write their names, learn to read and fill out work sheets.

Despite the trend toward academics, many states, California included, haven’t significantly changed minimum-age entrance requirements. Noting that six months makes a marked difference in a young child’s development, some educators favor raising the school entrance requirement. But last year, a bill authored by state Assemblyman Jack O’Connell (D-Santa Barbara), that would have changed the minimum age to 5 years, died in the Ways and Means Committee.

The question of who is ready for school has become a hot topic. Recently, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig convened a Task Force on School Readiness to recommend guidelines.

Although some younger children may be ready for the more rigorous curriculum, educators worry that most are not.

Age Is Important

Research is confirming what teachers have long noticed: Many younger children don’t do as well in the more academic setting as their older classmates. “I can walk into a classroom, without knowing birth dates, and I can tell you who is younger,” said Ann Tell, a kindergarten teacher at Arlington Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles.

Younger children who aren’t ready are more likely to fail. When studying an elementary school, James K. Uphoff, professor of education at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, found that 23% of the children with birthdays between June and October comprised 75% of the school’s failure population. Uphoff concluded that not only were the unready younger children more likely to fail at least one grade, but that they had academic problems often lasting throughout school careers and sometimes into adulthood.

At issue is how young children learn. Siegfried Englemann, professor of education at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and author of “Give Your Child a Superior Mind,” believes in formal instruction in reading, basic language, arithmetic and logical reasoning in preschool and kindergarten. “There is a great deal of data to suggest that structured academic work does produce gains and these gains are potentially retained over a long period of time,” he said.

Many early childhood experts oppose that notion. Noting that young children are naturally curious, the National Assn. for the Education of Young Children, a Washington professional organization, thinks kindergarten should be a time of spontaneous, self-directed learning fostered by activities such as building with blocks, listening to stories, planting a garden and working puzzles.

“What you are really trying to accomplish is to make learning exciting and teach children how to raise questions and find answers on their own,” said Marilyn Smith, the association’s executive director.

Back to Basics

The push for early academics is driven in part by demographics and the back-to-basics movement. With 60% of mothers of preschoolers working, an unprecedented 2.5-million children attend preschools, where they finger-paint, watch shows, learn colors and bake cookies--activities once common in kindergarten.

Many well-meaning parents, worried about an increasingly competitive job market, believe early mastery of subject matter will guarantee later success in life. “We have parents who want their children to read, write and speak two languages before they enter kindergarten,” said Robert Cervantes, director of the California Department of Education’s Child Development Division.

In light of the changing climate, Honig’s Task Force will be challenged by some sobering facts. The state’s school system, beset with financial problems, is overcrowded, with 30 children commonly sharing a kindergarten classroom.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, more than 60% of the kindergarten population is Latino, with many children requiring help with language development and other basic skills. Although Head Start and pre-kindergartens help some children, programs aren’t available for all who need them.

Ann Tell’s experience is instructive. Sixteen years ago, when she began teaching at Arlington Heights, more emphasis was placed on socialized skills, arts and crafts and building with blocks.

Today, Tell’s kindergarten students sit at tables and use pencils. Half of the 28 children don’t speak English. Her curriculum stresses copying and writing letters, language development and phonics, leading to reading by the end of the year.

A Range of Abilities

The disparity in abilities is great, with some children doing well and others seeming lost. “I have children who have never been read to, who have never used crayons, who don’t know colors and have no concept of numbers,” Tell said.

Honig didn’t support last year’s legislative attempt to raise the minimum age for kindergarten to 5 years. “Granted, children have different abilities. But we should make sure kids have some educational experience earlier, rather than late,” he said. Honig would like to see a variety of voluntary programs, including pre-kindergartens stressing readiness skills for 4-year-olds, and all-day kindergartens, with afternoons devoted to language development.

What confuses many parents is that readiness may have little or nothing to do with intelligence. “Your child may know all the phonics and count to 1,000, but if he can’t sit still, follow directions, work independently and solve problems with 29 classmates, he will have trouble in kindergarten,” said Donna Foglia, a mentor teacher with San Jose’s Evergreen School District and an educational consultant who runs workshops on school readiness.

Shyness Is Problem

Research indicates shy children also benefit from being the oldest, rather than the youngest in class. Willard Hartup, a child psychologist at the University of Minnesota, found that playing with younger children increased social activity. “If one has concerns about a child’s social skills, shyness or social withdrawal, my work suggests that the best result is to put the child with younger children,” Hartup said.

Often, parents who decide to wait until their children are older to begin school receive little support. Ellen Mahoney, a San Francisco children’s librarian, holds a Ph.D. in education. Noticing that her son Steven, whose 5th birthday fell on Sept. 26, had few friends in nursery school and never participated verbally in class, Mahoney and her husband, Mark decided to wait another year.

Pressure from other parents was great. “People accused me of over-protecting Steven, of not letting him compete, of being afraid to let him go. They told me he’d be too old in school as a teen-ager. Some parents even told me it was unfair, because Steven’s age would give him a competitive edge over other children,” Mahoney said.

“As a parent, you have to be very strong in your convictions, and not give into yuppies in your neighborhood,” advised Norma D. Feshbach, chairman of UCLA’s Department of Education. Feshbach has a personal as well as professional vantage point. The mother of two gifted children, Feshbach’s older child started college at 16, which she doesn’t recommend. “Kids in our society are much better off if they are older (in class) when confronted with adolescent conflict,” she said.

David Elkind, who also is author of “The Hurried Child,” thinks parents have the greatest impact on a child’s education by intervening early, as the Mahoneys did. “Acting when your child is 5 is extremely important, because once your child is in the system, you don’t have that much choice. Once your child is in the sixth grade, there’s not much you can do,” he said.

Elkind, concerned that society is hurrying children faster than they are ready, is launching his own campaign to liberate kindergarten. “I think we need to liberate kindergarten from the domination of the first, second and third grades. If we don’t teach algebra in the third grade,” he asks, “why should we be teaching elementary curriculum in kindergarten and nursery school?”