Tough Question for Parents: When to Begin Kindergarten?

If a 5-year-old can’t hop on one foot, does that mean kindergarten is a bad bet?

That ability--along with identifying colors, repeating numbers and drawing pictures--is among those measured in privately-administered tests that claim to gauge a child’s readiness for kindergarten.

May can be a stressful month as the deadline for kindergarten registration looms. And as two bills that could markedly change the entire process wend their way through the state Legislature, parents throughout Orange County--especially those with children born in the second half of the year--are struggling with the confusing arguments over when children should start their 13-plus years in schools.

The debate--along with parents’ worries--has given birth to a cottage industry of kindergarten readiness testing at $35 or more a pop, testing that some experts scoff at as unscientific and virtually worthless.

“This is a fad. People are inventing this worry,” said Lorrie Shepard, a researcher in early childhood education at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“The differences between a 4 1/2-year-old and a 5-year-old are very significant,” countered Bonnie Bruce, the owner of a Huntington Beach testing service. “Those few months in between are very crucial in helping them mature and develop.”

Because kindergarten is optional in California, parents can choose to wait a year to enroll their children. And as many kindergartens become more focused on academics--cookies and milk have given way to reading and math instruction--the issue of when children are ready for school can be a wrenching one.

If parents hold the child back, will he be ahead of the pack when he enters the next year, or just a kid who’s a year older? If they put a 4 1/2-year-old in school now, when she still finds it hard to hold a pencil, will she turn into a pint-sized stress case?

As parents seek expert advice, the education establishment offers little guidance; kindergarten readiness is one of the most hotly debated topics in early academia, right up there with phonics vs. literature-based reading.

Bruce stoutly defends the practice of holding back children who seem unready for school, and applying tests to determine their state of readiness. For one thing, she said, California is one of four states that has a December-birthday kindergarten cutoff date, rather than the more common September-birthday cutoff. That means more California children are starting school before they are ready, she said.

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According to Dr. Stanley Walters, a Villa park child psychologist, the answers parents are given often depend on who profits.

Preschools make money when a child stays in their programs for another year. School districts gain state funding for every child enrolled in their schools.

Walters, who also offers readiness testing at $45, advises parents to give a critical eye to how tests are being administered and who’s staking their case. In addition, he says, the rising and unregulated business of readiness screening means that many relatively unqualified people are offering the tests.

“There are a lot of mythologies out there,” said Walters, who charges $45 for a readiness test. “There also are a lot of amateurs out there who are damaging children.”

State education officials take the issue a step further. Kindergarten readiness tests in general are unscientific, because of the very nature of the young children tested, they argue.

“Those tests are as accurate as flipping a coin,” said Ada Hand, a consultant with the state Department of Education’s child development division. “No research has proven that holding back a child is beneficial.”

Hand says the tests are biased and fail to measure a child’s capacity to learn. Many of the tests ask the child to identify objects and pictures that they child may never have experienced. What is the likelihood of a child from a low-income family recognizing a picture of a diamond?

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And she and other researchers point out that children develop at such a rapid and irregular pace that one who seems unready in May might have caught up or passed the pack by December.

Psychologist Walters responds that high-quality testing by qualified clinicians looks at important factors such as physiological and psychological development through games and verbal instructions. Having a child catch a ball or cut along a wavy line checks his muscle skills and abilities to hold a pencil and learn to write. When a child is asked to draw a circle or identify objects, her visual and language skills are being measured. More important, testers look for learning style and capacity to be with other children.

“If we ask him to draw a tiny person and he draws an image of Casper the ghost, that’s a sign of depression. If they zip off a circle, that means they are temperamental,” he said. “These images are scaled with ages on them, showing temperament, angst, signals of their psychological state.”

But researcher Shepard argued that hyperactivity, mood swings and other traits are facts of early childhood life.

Differences among kindergartners diminish in time, she said, especially because children are more likely to speed forward in their development if they are stimulated by learning.

Some children with special developmental difficulties need extra attention, she said, but for the most part, children who went through preschool, come from healthy families and have involved parents will fare fine in school.

The state’s position is that schools should be ready for all children, not the other way around. Education officials say teachers should be able to tackle the challenge of addressing the various needs of all students.

Aiming to quell some parents’ anxiety, Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster) proposed a bill that would shift the kindergarten entrance date from December to September, so that children born late in the year would start kindergarten later. The Education Committee is reviewing that legislation (AB85). Separate legislation by Sen. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) would make kindergarten mandatory. That bill (SB893), sponsored by the California Teachers Assn., contends that it is more advantageous for children to begin their education early.

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Student Skills

What testers look for in judging a child’s readiness for kindergarten:

* Gross motor: Throws ball, skips, jumps rope, catches ball, balances on one foot.

* Visual: Matches colors, shapes, numbers, letters, words; compares sizes.

* Auditory: Identifies sounds, links sounds with pictures, matches rhyming words.

* Language: Understands nouns, names common objects, knows body parts, knows right from left.

* Comprehension: Understands basic math concepts, makes comparisons, recognizes cause and effect.

* Fine motor: Strings beads, copies circles, traces, ties shoes; copies numbers, letters, words.

* Memory: Recalls pictures, repeats sentences, builds block models, produces design from memory.

* Social/emotional: Shows feelings, interacts with other children, demonstrates responsibility.

Source: Chancy and Bruce Educational Resources Inc.; Researched by TINA NGUYEN / Los Angeles Times