Academic discourse fails to reach agreement on children’s “ideal” school enrollment age. Compared with other European countries, Germany has a relatively high school enrollment age (Dollase, 2009). In Germany, compulsory schooling is defined by law and starts from a specific reference date on. Depending on the federal state, this date can be any day in June to December. From that date on, every six-year-old child is required to attend school. However, individual variations are possible both ways (early or delayed enrollment) (Kluczniok, 2009). Using data from PISA 2000, it has been shown that students enrolled early perform worse later on than students enrolled on time or behind time (Hagemeister, 2007). From other studies, it is further known that students who started school earlier often repeat one or two school years (Bellenberg, 1996). The analyses to be presented use data from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) from the year 2011 in Germany (Bos, Tarelli, Bremerich- Vos & Schwippert, 2012; Bos, Wendt, Köller & Selter, 2012). The main research question is whether the academic success differs according to school enrollment age. In our analyses we will compare the three student groups (regular, late and early school enrollment) with regard to their family background (e.g., SES, immigrant background) and academic success (e.g., reading, mathematics and science achievement, repeating and skipping grades). Using the method of propensity score matching we will also take family background into account (Rosenbaum & Rubin, 1983, 1985). In line with theory, preliminary descriptive analyses indicate that the average SES differs between the three groups. In further analyses we expect to provide empirical evidence for the question whether early school enrollment is an advantage for students with regard to their achievement.

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