What Role Does Age Play in Academic Success?

by Miss Mona

Reading, talking, and exploring with your kids can help them become the successful individuals you want them to be.

Two kids: a fourth grader and a fifth grader. The fifth grader is “smarter” and more academically successful than the fourth grader.

But the reason doesn’t necessarily have to do with the age difference. The smartest kids aren’t smarter because they’re older; instead, it has to do with the family they were born in, and how well their parents prepared them.

And your kids are no different. If you prepare your children very well by enrolling them in preschool, day care, and take care and nurture them in the home environment, your kids will be academically successful.

According to Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, authors of Nurture Shock
The older kids are “doing better because more of them are born to mothers who are affluent, college-educated, married, and white.”

Socioeconomic status and race are contributing factors, not age. So don’t keep your child from advancing to the next grade just because you want him or her to be the smartest kid in class.

What you can do as a parent is read, talk, explore, play with your kids. It may not sound like much, but you would be preparing them for school if you prepare them in this way.

Do you find that the oldest kids in the class are the smartest?

What Role Does Age Play in Academic Success? [Tumblon]

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Graham January 30, 2010 at 5:55 pm

The single greatest predictor of a child’s academic achievement is parent involvement – greater than income, maternal education or class. That is what distinguishes the old kids and the young kids in each class.

And thanks for hat tip!

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