Is Your Child Ready for Kindergarten?

My son will be 5 on July 1. He has just taken the kindergarten entrance test and scored slightly below the cutoff point. How relevant do you feel these tests are? The school wants him to wait a year before starting kindergarten. If I hold him back, he will be more than 6 years old when he starts kindergarten. Do you have any suggestions? - Decision Time
Answer: Your son's score on the entrance test is definitely one red flag that you must consider when deciding whether or not to enroll him in kindergarten. His test score, however, might not be very reliable for a variety of reasons, including young children are often poor test takers. Plus, at this age, children change so rapidly that your child might have the skills necessary to do well on this test several months from now. In any case, one test score should not be the sole criterion for kindergarten admission.
Nowadays, close to 10 percent of the parents of young children postpone entrance into kindergarten of age-eligible children, especially boys, to allow extra time for socioemotional, intellectual or physical growth. Most of these children have birthdays close to cutoff dates for admission and are likely to be among the youngest in their class. This practice, known as redshirting, might be in response to a demand for a higher level of school readiness and a more academic kindergarten curriculum.
Because the research is inconclusive about the effects of redshirting, and few school districts prohibit it, parents are usually the ones who have to decide whether to keep their child out of kindergarten for an extra year. Here are some points to think about in making your decision:
* Think about the specific characteristics that make you uncertain about your son's readiness for kindergarten. Don't delay his entrance just because he is likely to be among the youngest in the class.
* Be assertive about finding out the skills that the school expects entering kindergarteners to have.
* Solicit the view of your child's preschool teachers about his readiness for kindergarten.
* Find out more about the nature of the kindergarten program. Is it organized primarily around formal instruction or more around informal learning centers?