It's Monday night, which means it is finally time for me to read the Sunday paper. And what do I find in the Sunday magazine that accompanies The New York Times but an article on the very issue I addressed Saturday night: Holding a child back before kindergarten.

I had, ironically, opened up the magazine to read a piece called "Boys Gone Mild", about grownups now having to teach children how to play in the dirt and unsupervised. (Don't laugh: The book on this is near the top of the best-seller charts.)

Back to kindergarten. Soon after I took over the Russia Adoption blog, I wrote that I had pushed my younger son, adopted from Sakhalin just short of his fifth birthday in 2005, into kindergarten because the preschool he had been attending was not an appropriate environment. He was the right age to go to kindergarten, since my school district mandates that a child turns five before October 1 of the school year (my state is now moving toward a September 1 cutoff). But I wrote Saturday night that, while my little guy had made enormous strides in kindergarten, he needed another year of the same kind of education before he moved on to first grade.

In "When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten?", the Times looks at the growing move by parents to delay their child's entrance into school. I was worried, when I glanced at the story, that the Times was putting its heart on its sleeve before the reader ever got to the opening word. The photo that illustrates the story features five children: four small, minority-looking kids and one white child a head taller than the rest. And the Times dressed the tall child in a red shirt, just like the phrase that describes a promising athlete held out of competitive play for a year.

But the article turned out to be a well-balanced look at the evolution of kindergarten and the pressures on children to be in school and learn things that used to be saved for first grade--or beyond. And it clearly hit a chord, because today, it shows up as the most e-mailed story on the Times' Web site.

The author, Elizabeth Weil, gives each of the schools of thought about delayed kindergarten its due, but doesn't come off as sharply favoring one over the other. She notes, however, that delayed kindergarten might not help those kids most at risk of an inappropriate education: Poor children who don't have access to a low-cost, quality pre-school. She doesn't speak specifically to the issue of adopted children, but it's easy to see how the phonics-heavy curriculum she describes and the emphasis on social and motor skills could be a problem for children who had spent their early years in an orphanage.

It’s an interesting piece, and one well worth reading. And, as I noted in my post there is no globally right, or wrong, answer. My little guy has gained enormously from the challenge of kindergarten, and he will cement those gains when he goes through the curriculum again.