Assessment of the early starting primary school of 60-66 months old children in 4 + 4 + 4 education system

Primary school education is an important part of education starting from the prenatal period and covering the whole of human life. Primary school education permanently continues in the form of 4 + 4 + 4 with the application in 2012. According to this system, children aged of 60 months can start primary school. It is an issue of curiosity of how starting primary schools of children at this age has influenced their academic achievements. Academic achievement, which can be expressed as the realization of educational goals, can be influenced by the child's cognitive, social and emotional development. The purpose of this study is to reveal how the child's early start to school affects his/her academic success. For this purpose, the study group was designated as 364 fourth-grade students who had started their first-grade in 2012 and graduated in 2016 from 5 primary schools in Afsin district of Kahramanmaraş province. The data were obtained from the e-school system with taking permission from the Provincial Directorate of National Education. The content of this study, which was a quantitative study, was analyzed by using the SPSS program. According to the results of the research; it has been found that academic achievements of the children started primary school at the age of 60-66 months were lower compared with the children started primary school at the age of 67-72 months. Based upon these results, since school readiness and school maturity have not been completed, early start to primary school of the children at the age of 60-66 months is considered as a disadvantage.