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MYTH: 'My child needs to start school as soon as he can so that he gets a head start.'
REALITY: Delaying entry may be better - especially for those born late in the year and not ready for school.
HOUSEWIFE and former bank executive Khoo Lay Kim, 42, could not understand why her seven-year old son was lagging behind his peers.
He was ranked 29th among 30 children in his Primary 1 class. At the suggestion of his teachers, she took him to an educational psychologist to assess him for learning difficulties.
Madam Khoo was told that her son had no problems, but that his December birthday could be the reason he was falling behind.
Surprised, she did some research of her own and found out that there was a lot to support the psychologist's claim.
Studies both overseas and in Singapore show that children born earlier in the year perform better than those born later in the year.
What Madam Khoo uncovered is something most Singaporean parents seem unaware of.
This is evident from the fact that parents with babies born on Jan 1 usually take up the option of having them attend primary school a year earlier than their peers born in the same year.
Last year, 80 parents chose to enrol their Jan 1-born children a year earlier, with only 20 opting to delay schooling.
 WHAT RESEARCH SHOWS
THE Ministry of Education conducted a study in the mid-1990s which showed that babies born in January perform better academically than those born in December. The study compared the year-end results of the 1993 cohort of Primary 4 and 6 pupils against their birth dates.
It found that among Primary 4 pupils, January babies outscored December babies by, on average, four marks in English, five in a second language and six in Maths.
Pupils born in the earlier months of the year were nearly twice as likely to qualify for the EM1 stream, which was for the academically strong pupils. In 1993, 15 per cent of Primary 4 pupils born in January were eligible for EM1, compared to only 8 per cent of those born in December.
Among both top performers and under-performers, early babies scored higher in the Primary School Leaving Examination. But the difference among the bulk of pupils, those born in the middle months, was not significant.
When it came to streaming, 30 per cent of those born in January went to the Normal stream, compared to 35 per cent of those born in December.
Ministry officials said these findings were similar to those overseas. In Western countries where the school term begins in September, summer babies tend to fare worse than those born in winter.
Although the majority of studies show that these birthday-related academic advantages disappear after the first few years, a 2006 study of more than 200,000 children in 19 countries by American labour economists Kelly Bedard and Elizabeth Dhuey provides evidence that these initial differences have long-lasting effects on student performance.
Their data on children from Canada and the United States shows that the youngest members of each cohort are less likely to go to university.
WHAT PARENTS CAN DO
IN THE US and Britain, more parents are delaying their children's entry to school to give them a head start. This practice is known as 'academic red-shirting', after the practice of letting college football stars take a year off so that when they start playing for the university, they are a year older, bigger and stronger. A Harvard University study found that in 1968, 96 per cent of six-year-olds in the US were enrolled in the first grade or above. By 2005, the number had fallen to 84 per cent.
Despite the research evidence suggesting that delayed entry may be advantageous to December-born children, most educational psychologists still advise 'on-time entry' because, they claim, differences level out after a few years.
For their social and emotional growth, it is also said to be better for children to mix with their own-age peers.
Parents with children who are lagging behind to a significant extent should seek professional advice from their preschool teachers or an educational psychologist before they delay their start.
The general advice is that if a child is lagging behind and he has the capacity to catch up, it is better to enrol him in school on time.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on February 07, 2009.
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