Student:
Lauren Ann Shaw
Is it beneficial for children to enter school earlier or later than the required government age?
Year Group:
B. Ed. 4
College:
Centre for Creative Education
Due Date:
29 July 2005
Proofreader:
Annita Du Plessis
Contents
Introduction – pg 1
Planning and Gathering of Information – pg 2
Chapter 1
Theoretical Background and Findings AGAINST Early School Entry – pg 3
Chapter 2
Theoretical Background and Findings FOR Early School Entry – pg 6
Chapter 3
The Child as an Individual – pg 9
Chapter 4
Factors Affecting School Readiness – pg 17
Chapter 5
FindingsFromCollectedData – pg 19
Conclusion – pg 20
Acknowledgments – pg 22
Appendix I – Children’s Results – pg 23
Appendix II– Teacher Interviews – pg 27
Bibliography – pg 31
References – pg 33
Introduction
For my fourth year dissertation I chose to explore the subject of the school entry age. My idea came about while I was on a month long teaching practical. I noticed that so many children were at different stages of cognitive development. Some children stayed behind to remain in the grade 2 classes for another year and some children were working on grade 3 work in class. This brought on my thoughts about the different ages of the children and whether or not the age of the child made a difference to the level of ability and achievement in class.
My aim is to establish whether or not it would valuable for a child to start school earlier than the required governmental age of six, turning seven, which tends to be the trend in South Africa lately amongst not only parents, but schools as well.
Many schools allow entry to Grade 1 when learners are five and half now. Evidence from research implies that this might be too early as discussed in Chapter 3 under the subheading of Developmental Norms.
One would assume that for a child to start school at an early age it would benefit him, as the more exposure a child has the easier or quicker he picks up on things. But on the other hand, a child could perform better at school, when he is more mature and his skills are more established. The research should, in the end, point us in the direction of the better alternative - whether or not a child is better off going to school at an earlier age, or whether it would be more advantageous for him to attend school when slightly older.
Planning and Gathering of Information
Considering that I have only been given five months to complete my thesis, during which I had to complete a two-month teaching practical session, a one month exam session and a three week session to complete 7 smaller assignments, I am aware that the research is limited to that of the learners in three classes at three different schools. There would be more believable results, had our group of students been given the normal period of time for completing a thesis.
I gathered information from three classes in three different schools.
- School A (class of 26 children) is a government school and has children from many mixed backgrounds, all of who attended Grade R.
- School B (class of 32 children) is a Non Profit Organisation that caters for underprivileged children – none of these children attended Grade R.
- School C (class of 13 children) is a private school where less than half of the children attended Grade R.
At each school I gave my class teacher a questionnaire to fill in – It states their ideas on school readiness. With input from the teacher we tracked children’s achievement for part of the year and rated their achievements on a separate questionnaire.
- Questionnaires on school readiness:
Three teachers were given a questionnaire to fill in, which clarifies their thoughts and opinions about whether it is beneficial to send a child to school before he turns seven.
- Questionnaires on children’s achievements:
The same teacher’s input was needed in order to list and fill in relevant information about the children and their achievements thus far throughout the year.
I also frequented the Teacher’s Resource Library to source literature that would support and substantiate my findings.
Chapter 1
Theoretical Background and Findings
AGAINST Early School Entry
“Although a difference in intellectual ability may not be apparent, entering school at a younger-than-usual age may have disadvantages in other aspects of life. Careful screening for social stability and physical maturity as well as intellectual ability is strongly recommended when considering early admission” (Moore: 1979).
Because of improved research in the area of early childhood development, evidence is growing that suggests younger children may not be as developmentally ready as their chronologically older peers in order to learn in a formal school environment. It has also been found that older students tend to be more socially, intellectually and developmentally advanced than their younger counterparts, and are therefore often better equipped to handle the stress and demand that a formal academic setting places upon them (PEI Education Department: 2002).
Teachers say children who are more mature in their year are better equipped, more independent and more able to deal with school expectations. Tom Hardy, president of the Queensland Association of State School Principals, believes that we are putting children into school at too young an age. He is of the opinion that “you’re five; it’s time to go to preschool” is a misfortune because some children are just not ready to go. Hardy states that life in our times is much more challenging and is of the opinion that we live at a much faster pace than in previous times, and says that children should be helped to be as ready as possible to attend school (Milburn: 1998).
In Moore’s book entitled School Can Wait, she writes that children who are sent to school early should be placed into an environment that takes into account the development of the child’s brain, vision, hearing, perceptions, emotions, social abilities, family and school relations, as well as physical growth. Taking into account all of these factors that pertain to that of a normal child (one that functions between the abilities of average to gifted), he will reach school maturity at around the ages 8 –10, some children even as late as age ten or eleven (Moore: 1979).
The thought behind this statement is that most normal children reach a stage where all levels of development come together in an integrated manner and enable the child to perform cooperatively with a certain degree of maturity and also more understanding of the world around him. Once all the child’s skills are ‘cooperating’ effectively, this will enable him to function effectively in a structured environment. The stage at which all these developmental areas, such as the emotional, perceptual, cognitive, and motor development areas, begin working together at an optimum level for the child’s age is called the Integrated Maturity Level (IML) as mentioned by Raymond and Moore in their book Better Late then Early (1975).
Typically when children are sent to school earlier than their peers, they experience a period of adjustment whereby they have to overcome ‘younger’ behaviours that other children do not display anymore. The younger children tend to be less serious and cannot concentrate as well as their peers, and as a result of them being so young and living in a ‘concrete age’ they will also struggle to conceptualise the many abstract thoughts that children are expected to do in primary schools.
The arguments above could be the reason behind the Education Department’s decision to make the school entry age in South Africa age six turning seven. As we see in Chapter 2, clause 3(1) of the South African Schools Act of 1996, children have to attend a formal school in the year that they turn seven. The minister of education does, however, have the power to approve early entry, or delay entry into a formal school for children who are this age, but who have special needs.
But now we must consider the study done by Graue and associates, which found that although children who were kept back and sent to school a year later had a slight academic advantage over their younger peers, but this advantage was only temporary. By the time the children reached the third grade they were achieving close on the average of their younger peers(Graue: 2003).
Here we can also consider the Waldorf principles of child development. Rudolf Steiner (1966) made a big impact on the education world when he stated that children, up till the time they turn seven, are in a state of ‘sleep’. This state of ‘sleep’ is based on the fact that children are egotistic throughout these ages, whereby they are unconsciously only concerned with themselves and their well being. Steiner felt that during this stage children would learn through imitation and begin to develop their physical, emotional, and intellectual beings through imaginary play. He goes on to say that children are not fully conscious of the world around them and the greatness thereof up till about the age of seven, when they begin their ‘dreamlike’ state. This ‘dreamlike’ state is when children are in awe and wonder of the fantasy world, when they begin realising that the world is bigger than what they first thought, and that there are many more facets to themselves that they never knew about. The children start to explore the world through conscious imagination (Edwards: 2002). Steiner was of the opinion that children begin to ‘awaken’ during this period to their full consciousness. By the time a child reaches age 14, he enters the ‘thinking’ state. This is the time where children really take part in thinking and realising what is happening around them. They become more aware of the greater world and the processes behind what happens everyday. For instance, one knows there is a president of a country, but getting to know and understanding the processes behind becoming a president is more understandable and becomes clearer to the child during this phase.
One has to wonder whether this theory of Steiner’s has some relevance to it. The fact that children who attend Waldorf schools begin to read when they’re older than seven only might have some relevance. If the child is not fully aware of the world around him and only comes to start thinking about this during the ‘dreamlike’ phase, could this not be the better time to start educating our children?
Chapter 2
Theoretical Background and Findings
FOR Early School Entry
There is new evidence from studies that reveal that the early years of growth from conception to age six, especially the years from age one through to age three, are the years that set the tone and foundation for the child’s ability to gain coping skills, which will relate to his learning, behaviour and health throughout life (McCain & Mustard: 1998).
This is most likely to be the reasoning behind most educators’ views concerning the issue of the age of school entry. Some educators believe that children would be better off in a formal schooling environment from age 5½ onwards, as found in the interviews done with teachers from different schools. One out of three educators interviewed believed that it would be better for children to attend formal school at an early age, with the proviso that they’d been part of an informal schooling system previously (Appendix: Interviews 2005). Informally, this educator went on to explain that children’s brains are more flexible and open to learning and assimilating new concepts and ideas and also said to me “The more synapses in the brain are stimulated, the more connections are made, and the more children understand in future.”
Susan Reid, from the Human Resources Development Centre in Canada agrees with the fact that children will benefit by earlier learning as she goes on to state that strong brain development in the earlier years of life are the building blocks for the child’s future (HRDC: 2003). Many researchers agree with this statement and go on to say that if the child is given the correct support when younger, in the general areas of cognitive functioning, language development, motor skills, adaptation skills, and social and emotional functions, the child is more likely to succeed in school and become a contributing member of society. It has also been found that children who are part of good educational programmes, have better communication skills, learning strategies and numeracy abilities whether or not they come from a disadvantaged family or not(Coffey: 2003).
In addition to the above statements, individuals argue that an early start provides an opportunity for children from less advantaged backgrounds to make up the deficit in their academic skills.
When it comes to abilities and levels of achievement with correlation to age of entry into formal school, the research is not much to go on, as there have been lots of contradictions. In general, studies show that children who are younger in the class may score slightly below or on par with their older peers. The differences in achievements tend to be minor and may even be because of transitional factors within a classroom. So, with this information, it is safe to say that children can enter school earlier than the required age and still attain the same level of cognition as their older peers.
Caroline Sharp (2002), in her report on the starting age for formal school, states that the younger child is capable of learning the more prescribed skills that are ‘hidden’ in the school curriculum, and that starting school early enables children to get a head start in learning. Part of her report also states that the reasons she found for children to enter school so early in the United Kingdom were related to issues of child protection from exploitation and unhealthy home conditions. She also raised the issue that if children go to school early, they leave earlier and become a functional part of the workforce. Her findings seem to indicate that some reasons for entering school early are not based on educational facts.
Sharp also noted in her research paper, that the results of the research done by Kavkler (et al), was fundamental as he selected groups of children from England and Slovenia, where the school starting age is five and seven respectively. Through a series of numeracy tests, the researchers found that the Slovenian children were scoring well above the international mean, and that the English children scored at the international mean.
Sharp also comments on Grover Whitehurst’s arguments where he states that children should be taught basic principles of reading at least by age 4. Whitehurst believes, through reflections on his own research, that children aged 4 are able to gain knowledge and understand simple concepts of print, phonological awareness and basic concepts of writing. According to Whitehurst, in Sharp’s article, the children’s abilities by the time they turn five would be a good indicator of their performance levels by the time they turn seven. Therefore both Sharp, and Whitehurst believe it is important to give the skills to children as early as four years old.
It is at this point in time that we can look at the findings of the High/ Scope Perry Preschool Study in Michigan in the United States of America. During this study, the researchers observed 123 children from poverty stricken families whom they thought would have a high risk of failing at school. At the beginning of the study, the children were divided into two groups. One group was to receive an academic based pre- school programme that started at ages three and four, and the other group (control group) received no programme before Grade 1 at all. Almost all of the participants in the research were interviewed later on in life at age 27. The findings were as such:
- The group that went to the pre-school programme had a much higher achievement score at age 14 and much higher literacy scores by age 19, than the control group did.
- Almost a third more of the children that attended the academic pre-school programme completed their full years at a regular high school, when compared to the children from the control group (Coffey: 2003).
From the above research above, it seems that it would be better to send children to school earlier than the required age of seven. My argument against this is that children would be placed in Grade 1 classes that are far too formalised for their development. I believe that children would flourish in a class situation that still encourages playfulness, but within the academic limits. Children learn through play. So, my opinion is that educators should play in class: educational games, reading games and number games. The more children enjoy school, the more they will want to know. It’s in a child’s nature to play, but all children learn and develop at their own rate, and it would be unfair of us as educators to lump children together and expect them to all achieve at the same speed.
Chapter 3