Zróżnicowanie umiejętności początkowych w klasie pierwszej a efekt względnego wieku w klasie trzeciej
Differentiation of initial skills in grade 1 and birthdate effect in grade 3

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims at the verification of two hypotheses. The first states that differentiation of initial grade 1 pupil skills is negatively correlated with age at entry to school. This was tested according to findings from the IBE study Six and seven year olds at the start of school. The variation of reading and writing scores of 1164 pupils aged 5.9–7.9 who were beginning grade 1 decreased in subsequent age quartiles. The second hypothesis – that classroom differentiation of pupils’ initial skills in grade 1 is positively correlated with the birthdate effect in grade 3 – was carried on data of 4838 pupils from 254 classrooms drawn from the PIRLS and TIMSS 2011 study in Poland. Skills were evaluated on the basis of parental reports. Hierarchical linear analysis (gender, SES and school location controlled) showed that the greater the differentiation of language skills in grade 1, the greater the birthdate effect in mathematics in grade 3. This result suggests that school entry age is of lesser importance than the methods used to reduce differences in children’s school readiness at the onset of education.

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