It is an index society uses as an eligibility or selection mechanism for access to public resources and, consequently, an index that triggers potential benefits of stimulation gained by attendance in school. Kindergarten teachers identify age as a factor that figures prominently in definitions and beliefs about readiness for kindergarten, and age is often used as a post hoc explanation for decisions to retain children in kindergarten ( National Center for Education Statistics, 1993a).Īge of entry to school is also of considerable policy importance (Meisels, 1992, 1999). When parents are surveyed about their children’s school readiness and enrollment, one of the most frequent questions noted is whether their child is too young to enroll (e.g., West, Hauske, & Collins, 1993). Perhaps no other issue appears so frequently and dominantly in parents’ discussions of school readiness or school districts’ readiness policies as that of the age at which children are eligible (or required) to start kindergarten. Age of entry proved unrelated to socioemotional functioning. Furthermore, children who entered kindergarten at older ages evinced greater increases over time on 4 W-J subtests (i.e., Letter-Word Recognition, Applied Problems, Memory for Sentences, Picture Vocabulary) and outperformed children who started kindergarten at younger ages on 2 W-J subtests in 3rd grade (i.e., Applied Problems, Picture Vocabulary). With family background factors and experience in child care in the first 54 months of life controlled, hierarchical linear modeling (growth curve) analysis revealed that children who entered kindergarten at younger ages had higher (estimated) scores in kindergarten on the Woodcock-Johnson (W-J) Letter-Word Recognition subtest but received lower ratings from kindergarten teachers on Language and Literacy and Mathematical Thinking scales. Children’s academic achievement and socioemotional development were measured repeatedly from the age of 54 months through 3rd grade. ![]() Data on more than 900 children participating in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care were analyzed to examine the effect of age of entry to kindergarten on children’s functioning in early elementary school.
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