Article about red-shirting in the NYTimes

Re: Article about red-shirting in the NYTimes

• BritanyV

  September 2011

  Interesting article, since there are so many these days holding their kids back a year.

  My son will be one of the youngest when he goes to K because he has a July birthday but I definitely have no problems sending him when it's time.   He is already bored at MDO because he knows everything they are learning in class and some of it he has known for over a year.  

   They are learning a letter a week at school and the second week of school, he was upset on a Thursday that they didn't go to the letter C, since they had learned the letter B on Tuesday.   We had to tell him that they would only change letters once a week and he seems ok with it right now, although he was asking if they could start the number 3 since they have been on 1 and 2 for a month now. 

  We are moving at the end of the week so the last few weeks have been hectic but once we move I will probably start working more with him on numbers (he can only successfully count to 11..he makes stuff up after that, even though he can recognize most of the number between 11 and 20) and probably beginning to prepare him to learn to read.   
  

   
  

  

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• rayskit10 member

  September 2011

  This whole issue makes me so glad we're in a Montessori program, making it a non-issue.

  

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• KKMMex

  September 2011

  Thank you for this great article.  My summer birthday girl is in her 6th week of kinder and has settled in nicely. 

  I have to say that entering public school was a much bigger leap than I'd anticipated, for all of us.  The need for independence and the expectations are much greater than they were in preschool.  It took a good 2 weeks for the dust to settle and for her to figure out how to behave in the classroom. I can see that she'll be successful in her new environment, thank goodness, but OH!  What a difference from preschool!

  My favorite quote from the article:  "Learning is maximized not by getting all the answers right, but by making errors and correcting them quickly. In this respect, children benefit from being close to the limits of their ability."

   

   

  

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• KT120106

  September 2011

  I think it is important to consider that this is an opinion piece, not an article. Some studies are cited, but there are other studies which could be cited to support the opinion of someone who feels differently. I am by no means an expert, but as an elementary teacher in a private school, I find that it really depends on the individual child. "Red-shirting," as it has come to be called by those who wish associate a negative connotation with the practice, actually can do a world of good for children who might be on target academically but need a lot more emotional and social development to be successful in school. For other children, it does not necessarily make a huge difference. I will say that quite often, it is remarkably easy to pick out the "young" children, and it has nothing to do with how smart they are, or what they know. It does eventually even out, but often it takes to the very end of elementary school. I guess it bothers me that such a negative connotation has been associated with this practice since in some cases, it really is a good thing. It just depends on the individual child.
  

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