English language learners and kindergarten entry age: Achievement and social-emotional effects

Kindergarten Redshirting: Implications for Children with Disabilities

“…Four of these studies looked more closely at short-term impacts, focusing on the child's first three years of school [22,25,26,34], while the other six focused on longer-term effects on academic achievement [27,28,[37][38][39][40]. National survey data such as ECLS-Kindergarten (ECLS-K;1998-2004) and National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS; 1988) were used in five of these different studies in comparing educational outcomes of children redshirted in kindergarten with those who began kindergarten on time [27,28,[37][38][39]. Gottfried and colleagues [38], for example, used ECLS-K data to look specifically at the impact of redshirting on English language learners.…”

“…National survey data such as ECLS-Kindergarten (ECLS-K;1998-2004) and National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS; 1988) were used in five of these different studies in comparing educational outcomes of children redshirted in kindergarten with those who began kindergarten on time [27,28,[37][38][39]. Gottfried and colleagues [38], for example, used ECLS-K data to look specifically at the impact of redshirting on English language learners. Mendez and colleagues [40] compared the achievement of those children that were redshirted and those that were not using 13 years of archived data for children in a large school district in Florida, as they progressed from kindergarten to grade 12.…”

“…Of the six studies that examined the long-term effects of kindergarten redshirting on the academic achievement of students with and without disabilities, five found little relations between redshirting and greater long-term academic achievement when compared to their peers who were not delayed at entry [27,28,38,39,41]. Nevertheless, Lincove and Painter [39] found that redshirted children had slightly lower test scores on 8th grade and 10th grade achievement tests when compared to their non-delayed peers.…”

“…Along with the direction to use evidence-based practices, US education policy uses language that more clearly recognizes the importance of children's positive social emotional development, as well as academic skills [41]. While many families choose to redshirt their child in hopes that he or she will mature or further develop their social emotional skills [22], there has been a very limited number of studies that have investigated the connection between redshirting and behavioral outcomes [38][39][40]42] and no studies specific to children with disabilities were found. As mentioned previously, Gottfried and colleagues [38] used ECLS-K data to look specifically at the impact of redshirting on English language learners' academic achievement as well as problem behavior and social skills.…”

Is Redshirting Beneficial for Reading Acquisition Success?

“…Regardless of the type of educational system, the controversy around the practice of academic redshirting continues to receive attention in the popular press (e.g., Lin et al, 2009;Safer, 2012;Moyer, 2013;Ashbrook, 2014;Schanzenbach and Larson, 2017) and in the academic field (e.g., Mendez et al, 2014;Huang, 2015;Barnadr-Brak and Albright, 2017;Fortner and Jenkins, 2018). A few studies have demonstrated some short-term benefits of academic redshirting (e.g., Datar, 2006;Bedard and Dhuey, 2006;Pong, 2009), although the majority of studies have shown no particular lasting advantages for redshirting students (e.g., Graue and Diperna, 2000;Gladwell, 2008;Cascio and Schanzenbach, 2016;Gottfried et al, 2016;Attar and Cohen-Zada, 2018).…”