Re: study of red****rting (late entrance to kndergarten)

Beliavsky wrote:
> On Jul 22, 6:07 pm, Chookie <ehreben...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> In article
>> <8b5cfd78-60fc-4886-a4f8-b55aebc0f...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>>
>> Beliavsky <beliav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>> NBER has a new study on the effects of red****rting. The abstract is
>>> at http://papers.nber.org/papers/w14124and
the full paper at
>>> http://www.nber.org/~dynarski/Deming_Dynarski_Childhood.pdf.
Overall
>>> the authors appear negative about it:
>>
>> <snipped>
>>
>> I'm not surprised. Holding a child back in the hope that they will
>> cope better with Kindergarten is only ever going to help a minority
>> of children -- the ones where the problem IS immaturity, rather than
>> an undiagnosed learning disorder, the results of parental
>> overindulgence or -- the most common thing -- completely normal
>> behaviour that is viewed as pathological.
>
> Kids vary in intelligence, and some will reach a "mental age" of 6
> only at age 7, which corresponds to a ratio IQ of 86. If the first
> grade curriculum in a certain school presumes a mental age of 6, some
> 6-year-olds should not be in first grade, because they are not smart
> enough yet.



I think 2 things here. One it is simplistic to look at "intelligence" as a

linear substance which one has more or less of. A person can have massive 
aptitude in one area and struggle mightlily in another. So having the 
"mental age" of 6 is meaningless in my book.

In my opinion, children should be grouped for the work they are doing
based 
on ... the work that they are doing. I think we should cast of this mental

notion that there is an age at which one should / can do X.