Poster #181 - Delayed Kindergarten Entry Among Ethnically Diverse, Low-Income Students: Prevalence, Predictors, and Selection Patterns

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

School readiness is a significant concern for parents when deciding whether/when to enroll their children in kindergarten. Increased rigor/accountability standards in kindergarten may push parents to delay their child’s entry into school, known as “academic redshirting” (Graue, 2009). Current estimates suggest that 3 to 7% of students delay kindergarten entry in the US (Bassok & Reardon, 2013). Prior research suggests that delayed entrants are more likely to be White, boys, and from higher-SES families (Bassok & Reardon, 2013). Further, many delayed entrants have developmental delays or disabilities prior to school entry (called “negative selection”), while others do not have these concerns and may be held back simply to gain a competitive edge over peers (“positive selection” Fortner & Jenkins, 2017). Less is known about selection patterns among ethnically diverse, low-income populations, but given the economic burden of delayed school entry, positive selection is likely rare among those in poverty.
The current project examined prevalence, predictors, and selection patterns of academic redshirting among a large, ethnically and linguistically diverse sample (n = 30,973; 57.8% Latino, 35.5% Black, 6.7% White/other) in pre-K that was prospectively followed into Kindergarten. School readiness was assessed directly at age 4 with the Learning Accomplishment Profile-Diagnostic, and parents and preschool teachers reported on social and behavioral skills with the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment. Overall, delayed kindergarten entry was rare in this low-income sample—only 310 (1%) students entered kindergarten a year later than their age eligibility. Consistent with prior research, gender was a factor in that boys were almost twice as likely to delay entry (see Table 1). Non-ELL students were more likely to delay entry compared to ELLs. Age was significant—delayed entrants were slightly younger than their on-time peers. Contrary to prior studies, we found that students in poverty (those on free/reduced lunch) delayed entry more compared to more affluent peers, and Black students were more likely to delay entry. Delayed entry students had poorer preschool cognitive, language, fine motor, and social/behavioral skills, on average, than those who entered on time.
Multivariate logistic regression results predicting delayed entry with all variables included are found in Table 2. When only demographic variables were considered, boys, younger children, and children in poverty were more likely to delay entry. However, after including school readiness, SES and gender became nonsignificant, suggesting that low-income students and boys are more likely to delay kindergarten entry because of poorer school readiness. Age, lower cognitive skills and higher teacher-rated behavior problems continued to predict delayed entry with all other variables included.
Finally, we examined ‘positive’ vs. ‘negative’ selection by flagging redshirted students who scored particularly low on school readiness indicators using standardized cutoffs (1.5 SD below the mean). As expected, many redshirted students had red flags on the preacademic (cognitive/language/fine motor; 43.7%), teacher-rated social/behavioral (25.7%), and parent-rated social/behavioral (51.9%) readiness assessments. However, a small subset of redshirted students (34.1%) did not have any of these flags, suggesting some evidence for positive selection into delayed entry even among ethnically diverse, low-income students.

Authors

• Jordan Greenburg, George Mason University
  Presenting Author

• Adam Winsler, George Mason University
  Non-Presenting Author