Stanford study on delayed school entry

[maize]

I found this quite interesting:

 

https://qz.com/546832/stanford-researchers-show-were-sending-many-children-to-school-way-too-early/

[8filltheheart]

I like the line near the very end.....unstructured, imaginative play. :) My private research study of 8 subjects affirms the value. ;)

[Farrar]

I can only assume that the Danish kids continued a play based preschool or stayed home? The age numbers on American kids entering kindy would probably be useless since nearly every kid entering kindergarten has already been "in school" for at least a year or two or even longer, and most of the preK programs seem to be really academic. I don't know how you would even get numbers on this here because it's so pervasive.

[ebunny]

I hesitate to come to any conclusions based on the article and without reading the whole paper (linked below)

 

 

 

The study has limitations. Kids who delay kindergarten in Denmark have universal access to reasonably good pre-kindergarten, something woefully lacking in the US. If families don’t have access to that, they may benefit from having their children start kindergarten earlier.

 

Secondly, the whole paper tells a slightly different story than the article. From Page 34

 

 

Specifically, we estimated the effect of school starting age on each SDQ measure using our RD design, first, for boys and girls separately and then for respondents who were  
above the sample median values for education, income, and birthweight.Interestingly, these estimates indicate that a school starting age had statistically insignificant effects for boys across all measures and both ages. However, these null findings reflect a considerable loss in precision for boys. In fact, we find that the first-stage effect for boys is smaller (0.07 compared to 0.27 for girls). So, our identifying variation is uniquely relevant for girls. And estimates based only on girls indicates that a high school starting age improves both self regulation and emotional problems. Our remaining results indicate that the mental-health benefits of a higher school starting age are almost exclusively concentrated among socioeconomically advantaged children (i.e., higher parental education, income and birthweight).

 

These results are consistent with the hypothesis that an earlier start to formal schooling confers comparative benefits to disadvantaged children.

 

 

ETA:

FWIW, my DD (now 11) went to a Montessori school, adhering quite well to Maria Montessori's work, from the ages of 3 until 6. The Montessori philosophy is, to put it simply, structured learning.

If anything, it improved her attention span and concentration. But, this is a sample size of n=1, although I am certain there are studies that correlate Montessori method to longer attention span and concentration.

Unstructured and imaginative play need not necessarily = higher levels of self control. Likewise structured learning need not necessarily = ADHD/ low attention span/low self control.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Ebunny