More 4-year-olds in North Carolina will soon spend an extra year in preschool, in day care or, some fear, sitting in front of the television watching cartoons.

That's because, beginning in 2009, a new state law will require most children to wait until they are 5 before they start kindergarten in public schools. The proposal won final legislative approval Thursday, and Gov. Mike Easley said he will sign the measure into law.

After years of ignoring the idea, North Carolina lawmakers came around to the thinking of some parents and many education experts: They say it's not a good idea for 4-year-olds to spend their first year in school with 6-year-olds whose parents have held them back a year so they can start at the head of the class.

Under the new law, children will have to turn 5 by Aug. 31 of the school year. The current birthday cutoff is Oct. 16, so children who have their fifth birthdays weeks after school starts can still enroll in kindergarten.

About 15,360 North Carolina students who would have been able to start kindergarten under the current law in 2009 will have to wait a year, according to estimates by legislative analysts. Wake County school officials estimate that the law could lead to 1,000 fewer kindergarten students in 2009, with that growth shifting to the following year.

Rep. Dale Folwell, a Winston-Salem Republican who sponsored the measure, said mixing children ages 4 to 6 in classrooms is hard for teachers and tough on the younger students. It's hard for most 4-year-olds to keep up physically and academically with classmates nearly two years older, he said. And it's challenging for teachers to aim lessons at students with such a range of maturity.

Only a few states have birthday cutoff dates later than North Carolina's.

"Our teachers are teaching to one of the widest cognitive spans in the United States," he said.

Folwell hopes the law will have wide-ranging impact, from higher test scores to lower teacher frustration.

The Senate voted unanimously for the bill Thursday and sent it to Easley. The governor likes the idea, thinks it will improve children's lives, and will sign the bill, said Renee Hoffman, a spokeswoman for Easley.

The prospects of the new law reinforce Suzanne Gifford's inclination to keep her 2-year-old son, Colby, out of kindergarten in 2010 when he turns 5. Although his birthday is just a week after the new cutoff date, his Apex neighborhood is assigned to a year-round school that starts classes in July. Gifford is concerned that her son, being so much younger than the other students, won't be ready.

"I can see why it would be difficult for teachers to have 4-year-olds," Gifford said.

The effect of reserving kindergarten for older children receives mixed reactions from education experts and parents.

A RAND Corp. study in 2004 found that children who start kindergarten at 6 do better on tests than those who start at 5. But decisions about delaying kindergarten need to be balanced with knowledge that parents' child-care costs will rise, the study said.

Patrice Thompson thinks the new law is a bad idea. The Raleigh mother, whose 6-year-old daughter finished kindergarten this year, said the earlier birthday cutoff will cause more families such as hers to spend money on an additional year of child care.

"Paying child care is no joke," Thompson said.

An array of education groups, including those representing teachers and school administrators, support the August cutoff.

Four-year-olds can have a hard time keeping up with older classmates, said Sen. Charlie Dannelly, a Charlotte Democrat. "They can be eight months behind cognitively," he said. "It can cause them to be eight months behind in school."

But Muriel Summers, principal of Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, doesn't see a need to change the law. She said a number of children who were 4 when they started kindergarten at Combs have done well.

"The date doesn't matter as much as how prepared they are for school," Summers said.

Rather than help some students keep up with their classmates, the new law could hurt them, said Donna Bryant, associate director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill. She called the legislation "shortsighted."

Bryant said the law would do the most harm to children from low-income families who have not had proper health care or had limited access to books and other educational tools in their early years. Bryant said school systems need to work with these children as soon as possible. Although more affluent parents will be able to work with their children during the extra year, she said, many other students will be out of luck.

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