Advertisement

More Parents Delay School for Children : Education: Research shows that not all 5-year-olds are ready emotionally or socially for structured classrooms. Some experts dispute those conclusions.

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITER

An increasing number of Ventura County parents are delaying the beginning of academics for their children, parents and educators say.

Some parents of kindergarten and first-grade students are holding their children back, often placing them in developmental or transitional programs.

Although for most schoolchildren there is a stigma to being held back by the teacher, in these cases the parents are making the choice. The practice is not new, but it appears to be gaining popularity.

Advertisement

“We have more and more parents doing that because they’ve read the research,” said Candra Shiney-Norris, a psychologist in Camarillo’s Pleasant Valley Elementary School District. “I think the more educated the parent, the more they have read and looked into whether or not their child is ready.”

Some research suggests that just being old enough to go to school does not mean that a child is socially or emotionally mature enough to cope with the often highly structured atmosphere of kindergarten. The child also may not be ready to compete for a teacher’s attention in a class of 30 or more students.

Jean Scott, a parent and kindergarten teacher, said those conclusions held true in the case of her son, Craig.

When he turned 5, he started kindergarten along with the other kids his age. His teacher said he was an attentive, well-behaved student who followed instructions well.

But at home it was a different story.

“We could just tell things weren’t working right,” said Scott, who teaches in the Pleasant Valley district. “At home he was not his usual self. He would attack his older sister, freak out, lose all control. He was storing all that stress.”

Scott removed Craig from the class and put him in a developmental kindergarten, with a less structured atmosphere and a less academic curriculum than regular kindergarten.

Advertisement

Now in the eighth grade, “he excels academically and he excels in sports,” Scott said. Craig is a spelling champion who participates in soccer, track and basketball. Without the program, she said, “I’m not sure he would have done as well.”

For Fran Schillinger’s son, Marc, shyness was the problem.

“Our little guy happened to be really bright, but emotionally he wasn’t ready,” said Schillinger, of Thousand Oaks. So the Schillingers held off on kindergarten for a year, and that decision is paying off.

Although Marc is now one of the older students in his third-grade class, his reading and math skills are well above average and his self-esteem has soared, his mother said.

Both Scott and Schillinger said the extra year allowed their children to stay ahead academically, rather than just keep up.

Some parents and teachers say keeping a child out of school an extra year is beneficial to children who are shy, smaller than average, have a hard time paying attention and following instructions, or who can’t keep still.

Readiness “is not just the ability to say the alphabet,” said Ellen Smith, coordinator of special projects for the Moorpark Unified School District. “A child has to have social skills, and to be able to follow a task through and hear the directions in the midst of 29 other potential distractions.”

Advertisement

In California, a child must be 5 years old by Dec. 2 to enroll in kindergarten. In Ventura County, many districts begin enrolling kindergarten students this month.

Some parents and educators contend that the closer a child’s 5th birthday is to the Dec. 2 cutoff, the greater the chances that the child--especially boys--may not be ready for kindergarten.

“Very rarely is an October-November child ready for the social and emotional adjustment to that larger group,” said Cathy Channels, director of the Mt. Cross Lutheran Child Development Center in Camarillo, which runs a developmental kindergarten program.

“A year gives them time to grow and develop in other areas rather than academic,” Channels said. “They have the chance for being in the top group, to be a leader, rather than struggling.”

However, many educators dispute that theory, including Deborah Stipek, a UCLA professor of education.

“There is not a lot of research, but the research that exists suggests that it does not make a whole lot of difference, and that the gains of retaining or holding back a child are very minimal,” Stipek said.

Advertisement

“Some kids probably benefit from being retained, but across the board, the research that exists does not show clear advantages.”

Finances are also an issue, Stipek said. Many parents can’t pay for an extra year of private child care, and so the option is usually open only to middle-class parents, she said.

“An extra year out of school means another year of preschool or day care or keeping a child at home,” Stipek said. “It is a luxury in some respects, and it can cost.”

And Marian White, manager of curriculum development in the Oxnard Elementary School District, said that by third grade, many children who were developmentally behind have caught up with their classmates.

In 1988, the state Department of Education published a report called “Here They Come: Ready or Not!” that discussed how to determine whether a child is ready for school.

Instead of keeping children out of school for a year, the report recommends changing how 4- to 6-year-olds are taught. It advocates more active, hands-on learning methods, rather than passive, rote techniques; preschool programs for children as young as 3 years and 9 months; and expansion of half-day kindergarten programs to a full day.

Advertisement

The general thrust of the report--to adapt curriculum to meet the needs of children--is also espoused by many educators, as well as the National Assn. for the Education of Young Children, an influential, Washington-based children’s education organization.

About 19% of all districts statewide have developmental kindergarten programs, and about 22% have pre-first-grade programs, state officials said.

In Ventura County, a number of private and church-affiliated preschools and day-care centers offer developmental or transitional programs.

They are also offered by several public schools. The Conejo Valley Unified School District offers a pre-kindergarten class at the former Horizon Hills Elementary School. The class began three years ago as part of an adult school program for parents, said Principal David Woodruff.

“When we first started, 18 of the 19 parents had already signed up at a private preschool because they were looking for this kind of experience,” Woodruff said. “I thought, ‘Here we are in the public sector and we’re not meeting the needs of our students.’ ”

The Conejo program has since expanded from one class to three, each with 15 to 18 students, and usually has a waiting list, Woodruff said. Each class has three or four parent volunteers who assist teachers.

Advertisement

The Moorpark Unified and Ventura Unified districts offer pre-first or transitional programs, for students between kindergarten and first grade.

However, many school districts are beginning to look beyond such programs, and instead are trying to adjust kindergarten and first-grade curricula to the children, said Susan Thompson, an administrator with the state Department of Education.

“We say fit your school to the child, don’t try to fit the child to the way your school operates,” Thompson said.

But Stephanie Ochsner, who teaches a transitional first-grade class at Ventura’s Montalvo Elementary School, said that although a school may make changes to its curriculum to better accommodate children, such adjustments may overlook a crucial element--that some children just need more time.

“I agree with the task force that we do need to adjust the curriculum to the children, but it’s still not addressing the child,” Ochsner said.

Montalvo’s transitional class is one of three in Ventura schools, including Juanamaria and Sheridan Way, for children between kindergarten and first grade, said Ochsner, a mentor teacher for the program.

Advertisement

Kindergarten teachers must recommend a child for the class, and parents must agree, Ochsner said.

Children in the program are classified as having been retained in kindergarten, Ochsner said. But in the classes, each limited to 23 students, teachers make sure that there is no stigma attached to being placed in the program, she said.

“Children do not feel like failures, because they have a different classroom, a different teacher, a different curriculum” than during their kindergarten year, Ochsner said.

Ochsner said her own research on Ventura’s program shows that 80% of students who went through it were at or above reading level by the time they reached second grade, while 55% of students who were recommended for the program but did not go were at or above second-grade reading level.

Parent Karen Fore of Ventura said her son Matthew, 7, flourished after a year in Ochsner’s class.

“At first I think he was a little bit disappointed about not going to first grade,” Fore said. “But we told him not everybody gets to go to transitional and only really bright kids get invited. . . . He’s real outgoing now. I think the extra time helped.”

Advertisement
Advertisement