Is the dramatic increase in kids made to repeat Kindergarten good or bad?

[Karmadillo]

The linked article makes it sound more than bad. What I know of Piaget (not all that much) suggests the same. In my kindergarten, we played, napped, went out to recess, ate, played, napped, played and pretty much repeated as necessary all year. Why in the world do we want to stigmatize five year olds by holding them back when the empirical evidence would seem to indicate it does more harm than good? Comments from anyone familiar with the kindergarten world who agree or disagree would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/escalating.kinder.p.k12.2.html

The practice of kindergarten retention is increasing dramatically. In some districts, as many as 60% of kindergartners are judged to be unready for first grade. These children are provided with alternative programming: developmental kindergarten (followed by regular kindergarten), transition or pre-first grade, or the repeating of kindergarten.

An extra year before first grade is intended to protect unready children from entering too soon into a demanding academic environment where, it is thought, they will almost surely experience failure. The extra year is meant to be a time when immature children can grow and develop learning readiness skills, and children with deficient prereading skills can strengthen them. When parents are asked to agree to retention or transition placement, they are often told that with an extra year to grow, their children will move to the top of their classes and become leaders.

Advocates of kindergarten retention are undoubtedly well-intentioned. They see retention as a way for the school to respond to children's enormous differences in background, developmental stages, and aptitude. They view retention as a means of preventing failure before it occurs.

What Research Says About Retention

The research on kindergarten retention which we conducted from 1984-88 led to three major findings:

**Kindergarten retention does nothing to boost subsequent academic achievement;

**Regardless of what the extra year may be called, there is a social stigma for children who attend an extra year;

**Retention actually fosters inappropriate academic demands in first grade.

We have located 14 controlled studies that document effects of kindergarten retention. Six were included in Gredler's (1984) major review of research on transition rooms, and eight were newly identified empirical studies. The dominant finding is one of no difference between retained and promoted children. Gredler concluded that at-risk children promoted to first grade performed as well or better than children who spent an extra year in transition rooms. In another study, retained children were matched with promoted children. At the end of first grade, children in the two groups did not differ on standardized math scores or on teacher ratings of reading and math achievement, learner self-concept, social maturity, and attention span (Shepard and Smith, 1985).

more...