Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 26, 1990 TAG: 9005250093
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GINA FEROLINO SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But "Johnnie" can't sit still for very long. He can't be away from his mother for 30 minutes to take a screening test for kindergarten entrance. His level of maturity is below average.
Should "Johnnie" go to school this fall or wait until next year?
Many parents agonize over this decision each year, particularly if their children have birthdays that fall between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31.
And while many parents choose to keep their children back, the latest research shows that retention in the elementary grades provides no clear benefits.
Virginia law allows a parent to request that a child enter kindergarten as long as that child turns 5 by Dec. 31. A parent also may request that a child be held out of school for one year, even if the child turns 5 by Sept. 30.
But the 1990 General Assembly passed a bill to roll back the kindergarten entrance age, a month at a time, over a three-year period, starting next fall.
Researchers have said that if a parent is going to retain a child, doing so prior to entering school is better than waiting until the child is already enrolled.
In Montgomery County, school officials offer consultation and a screening test to parents of preschoolers whose children are approaching kindergarten entrance age.
"If you put a child in school who is not developmentally ready, school becomes stressful," said Doris McElfresh, director of elementary education for the county schools. "That is what we would like to avoid."
For children whose birthdays fall between September and December, Montgomery County administrators use the Kindergarten Inventory of Developmental Skills (KIDS) examination, one of several screening tests approved by the state to score abilities in number concepts, auditory skills, paper and pencil skills, language concepts, visual skills and fine and gross motor development.
"Much of the exam is oral," McElfresh said. "The teacher might show the child a picture and have the child tell about it. A child that age might respond in two words or six sentences."
Recognition of coins is part of the counting skills, and recognition of similar sounds is part of the auditory skills portion of the examination.
The test is usually given by kindergarten teachers during the summer months preceding the academic year that the child could enter kindergarten.
"I meet with each parent individually to go over the test results," McElfresh said. "It's a big decision. It's one of the most difficult ones to make."
Some parents may believe that their children aren't ready for school and the screening test results will support that belief. In such cases, McElfresh said the parents are relieved after the screening and consultation.
In other cases parents view the results as a failure. McElfresh said such a view might be unfounded, particularly if the problem is matter of immaturity or related to physical growth, such as large-muscle coordination.
Deborah Rhea of Christiansburg said she and her husband Andrew decided to hold their son, Anthony, out of kindergarten "to make sure he was ready in every way."
Anthony, who has a November birthday, "obviously wouldn't be able to compete [in sports, for example] with children almost a year older," Rhea said, even though he appeared to be ready academically.
"It was an agonizing decision. We sat up nights discussing it," Rhea said. "We wanted to do what was best for Anthony - for the long term as well as the short term.
"We can already see a big change in his ability to concentrate. In just a few months he has developed a longer attention span. You can tell he's a lot more confident."
As of next year, parents of preschoolers with birthdays that fall between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 won't have to deliberate over whether to enroll their children in kindergarten. The General Assembly voted earlier this year to roll back the kindergarten entrance age, one month at a time, over a three-year period.
Teresa Harris, early childhood supervisor for the Virginia Department of Education, said the 1991-92 academic year will have an entrance age cutoff of Nov. 30.
By the fall of 1993 no children with birthdays in the October through December months will be able to enter kindergarten unless they live in divisions that offer two-tiered (pre-kindergarten or junior kindergarten) programs and are evaluated first.
Parents still will have the option of holding their children out of school for one year.
Harris said a parent must assess the kindergarten programs and decide whether the child is prepared for them in order to make such a decision.
"But when you look at [pre-kindergarten] retention from the broader perspective of policy, holding children out of kindergarten widens the age span that exists in kindergarten so that instead of a one-year span, there is as much as two years. It makes the job of offering instruction for individual differences more difficult."
Retention in the early elementary grades, Harris said, has a more negative impact than some of the alternatives - flexible grading and grouping of students, for example.
"You have to look at the curricula and instruction practices to see that they meet the needs of young children," Harris said. "There is no research to suggest that retention is beneficial."
Lorrie A. Shepard and Mary Lee Smith, nationally renowned researchers on retention, have written: "Contrary to popular beliefs, repeating a grade does not help students gain ground academically and has a negative impact on social adjustment and self-esteem."
Furthermore: "Advocates of kindergarten retention are likely to dismiss the negative findings of non-promotion research because an extra year of kindergarten is intended to prevent failure before it occurs. . . . In four studies the transition-room children were no better off after an extra year than the `potential first grade failures' who were placed in the regular first grade."
Shepard and Smith have concluded that changing the school entrance age will not solve the problems of age differences in grade levels because "a new youngest group will emerge and will suffer the same harm in schools with inflexible and overly demanding curricula as did the previous youngest group.
"Requiring that children be older to start school is also bad policy because it delays access to public education. The burden of this disenfranchisement falls most heavily on poor and minority children."
And finally, Shepard and Smith have concluded that no screening test can measure accurately the readiness of a child to progress from one grade level to the next.
Janet Sawyers, director of Virginia Tech's Child Development Laboratories and a professor of child development, said researchers are finding that retention can lead to higher dropout rates later on, particularly if a child views retention as a failure and develops low self-esteem in the following years.
Rather than hold children back at a grade level, Sawyers said she supports individualized instruction.
"We need to take children where they are [developmentally] and modify our programs to accommodate their individual levels, rather than make them fit into the existing programs," Sawyers said.
In preparing children for school, she said parents must "take cues from the child and expand on their interests." Also, parents must recognize that there are varying levels of development in any given age group.
"Society stresses that the earlier we begin to prepare our children for school, the better. But we're seeing more stress in young children," Sawyers said.
"By kindergarten age they've been inundated with TV and preschool programs. Some are already burned out on ABCs."
Teachers who consider the individual interests of children in their classes and work those interests into their teaching activities will find that their jobs become easier because they can maintain higher interest and motivational levels, Sawyers said.
"Children learn through those interests. Teachers can introduce mathematical concepts through art, for example, by combining patterns in vegetable printing."
Retaining children for accountability, she said, "has led to some abuse and overuse."
The extra-year programs such as junior kindergarten and transitional first grade programs have resulted in 9-year-olds who are just entering first grade.
Ultimately, parents have the right to object to teachers' and administrators' recommendations to retain their children, Sawyers said.
"And many teachers do not want to practice the way they are practicing. They are grateful for parents' support."
Sawyers said that parents, teachers and administrators theoretically have the same goal - to do what is in the child's best interest.
By working together and keeping up-to-date on the latest research findings, policies can be formulated toward achieving that goal.
by CNB