The belief that additional time allows children to become more ready for school has affected public policy and individual practices. Prior studies estimated either associations between school entry age and academic growth or causal effects on achievement measured at one or two points. This article contributes novel causal evidence for the impacts…

Setting the age for starting elementary students at 60 months old has been a hotly debated topic in Turkey since the Grand National Assembly passed an education reform bill as Law No. 6287, known to the public as the "4+4+4 regulation." At the outset of its implementation, students who started first grade in school year 2012-2013 had an…

This study aims to make a comparison of various lessons' mean exam scores achieved at the first, second, third and fourth grade by students who started elementary school at 60-66 months and those who started at or above 69 months as these students started the elementary school at the same time after an amendment in elementary education law in…

This study examined relationships between specific data on students referred for and placed in the exceptional children's program. The context is a rural North Carolina county and included 206 records of K-6th graders spanning academic years 2007-08, 08-09 and 09-10. The kindergarten entrance ages of students were divided into categories of on…

Although it is well established that Black male students are underrepresented in gifted educational programs in the United States, due to a scarcity of longitudinal prospective research, little is known about the protective factors at the child, family, and school level that increase the probability of Black male students being identified as…

In 1978, the Montgomery County (Maryland) public schools initiated an early admission (EA) pilot program that allowed 5-year olds to enter first grade. Two approaches were utilized: Under Plan I, a small number of 5-year olds entered regular grade 1 classes; under Plan II entire classes of 5-year olds attended school the full day, with the…

Some parents have chosen to delay their children's enrollment in kindergarten by a year because of individual differences in the pace and pattern of children's development. In other situations, some schools recommend delaying a child's school entry based on "readiness" testing or require that some kindergartners attend kindergarten for a…

This study investigated outcome data obtained from six samples of primary school students, four of which consisted of at-risk students. Participants were: (1) 46 students from a transitional first-grade, developmental, regular education school readiness program (SRP) for at-risk kindergartners; (2) 20 nonplaced kindergartners who were recommended…

There is continuing controversy about the optimal or appropriate age at which children should start school. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between age and achievement. It is an attempt to evaluate the hypothesis that older students fare better academically than their younger classmates. Findings indicate that on average…