| Another important issue in the transition to kindergarten is age of entry. There are certain researchers and educators who believe that school readiness is based on biology, and that children have inner clocks for development. Based on this reasoning, if children are too immature for school at age five, they simply need to be held out for a year—a practice called redshirting. Redshirting has been quite common, even among parents who hold their children out of kindergarten for a year simply to give them an edge over other children. The practice has been found to lead to the acceleration of expectations in kindergarten, creating classrooms that are developmentally inappropriate for the 5-year-olds they are supposed to serve (May & Kundert, 1997). The necessity of redshirting is not supported by the evidence. Gullo and Burton (1992) compared older and younger kindergarten students and found that there is no difference in children’s development or readiness for first grade at the end of kindergarten based on age. The finding suggests that any differences between children that are present at the beginning of kindergarten can be alleviated by the end of the year. |
