Too Much, Too Soon

     With SO much being said about the importance of play and what is learned through play, I decided to share my thoughts, as well as some research:
     The changes that seem the most troubling are more around the HOW kids are learning, not the WHAT that kids should be learning.  In one study, from the University of Virginia, researchers chose to compare teachers’ responses from two years, 1998 and 2010. 1998? The federal No Child Left Behind law had not yet changed the school expectations with its testing and emphasis on the achievement gap.  Here is a part of what they found:

• Currently, it is the expectation of kindergarten teachers that students should know the alphabet and how to hold a pencil before beginning kindergarten.  (How to we reach incoming families to let them know the importance of PreK?  What can we do if they are unable to afford PreK?  No one can answer that and it's typically the students who need it the most that are not reached, leading those children to already start behind the proverbial eight ball.)
• 31%  of teachers, in 1998,  believed their students should learn to read during the kindergarten year. In 2010, that jumped to 80%.  (Consideration for students being developmentally ready to read and have the tools that they need to be a successful reader were not taken into consideration.)
• And then there's the increase in testing. In 2010, 73% of kindergartners took some kind of standardized test. 1/3 took tests at least once a month. In 1998, kindergarten students did not take standardized tests at all! But the first-grade teachers in 1998 reported giving fewer tests than the kindergarten teachers did in 2010.  (Now, it's even higher.)
• Decrease in daily music and art.  Why?  More emphasis on "testable" academic content.  (Let's look back at songs and nursery rhymes for a sec.  Don't they teach patterning and rhyming, as well as a host of other skills?)
• A drop in engaging, interesting science instruction, such as dinosaurs and outer space, which children find interesting and engaging.
• There were HUGE decreases in the percentage of teachers who said their classrooms had areas for dress-up, a water or sand table, an art area or a science/nature area.  (Again, skills learned in center-like activities are not tested. Never mind the language and social skills that are learned in these activities...)
• Teachers who offered a minimum of an hour a day of student-driven activities dropped from 54 to 40 percent. During the same time, whole-class, teacher-led instruction rose along with the use of textbooks and worksheets.
• Even though there is a rise in childhood obesity, time for recess has decreased. 
•    This report raises important questions about how we are teaching our youngest learners.  The changes that seem the most troubling are more around HOW kids are learning, not WHAT kids should be learning.  These trends are even stronger in high-poverty classrooms and in schools with more nonwhite children.

     Another study from American University in Washington, D.C., shows a direct link between the amount of physical activity elementary students get and a dramatic increase in their math scores.  This was not just noted in wealthier neighborhoods, but throughout the greater D.C. area.
     How can teachers hold all children to the same standards when they are not all the same? They learn differently, mature differently – they just are not all the same especially at the age of 4-6.  Teachers can have a whole year age difference, or more, between students, primarily due to the increase in "red-shirting" (or holding children out for a year).  GET THIS!!  A 2011 nationwide study by the Gesell Institute for Child Development found that the ages at which children reach developmental milestones have not changed in 100 years.  100 YEARS!!  The manner in which children develop has not changed, yet we are asking our students to do things that they are not developmentally ready to do!! Here's an example:   The average child cannot perceive an oblique line in a triangle until age 5½. This skill is a prerequisite to recognizing, understanding and writing certain letters.  Key to understanding concepts such as subtraction and addition is “number conservation.” A child may be able to count five objects separately, but not understand that together they make the number five. The average child does not conserve enough numbers to understand subtraction and addition until 5½ or 6.  They might be able to memorize the skills. If they are unable to learn and understand the skills, their academic performance will suffer as they get older.  Child development experts understand that children can only learn what their brains are ready to absorb. Kindergarten is supposed to set the stage for learning and exposure to academic content when they are older. If they are going to push our kindergarten children to move faster, what will that mean for the push for educating” Pre-K?
     Play is vastly important in kindergarten!  Through play, children build literacy skills they need to be successful readers. By speaking to each other in socio-dramatic play, children use the language they heard adults read to them or say. This process enables children to find the meaning in those words.
     In kindergarten, there is a wide range of developmental skills.  A good kindergarten teacher observes and makes note of the various levels and stages of development and adjusts his/her teaching to meet the needs of each and every child assigned to that classroom.
     CHECK THIS OUT:  Two major studies confirmed the value of play vs. teaching reading skills to young children. Both compared children who learned to read at 5 with those who learned at 7 and spent their early years in play-based activities. Those who read at 5 had no advantage. Those who learned to read later had better comprehension by age 11, because their early play experiences improved their language development.  (I would love to give credit.  It was not given in the article I read...)
     The drafters of the Common Core ignored the research on child development. In 2010, 500 child development experts warned the drafters that the standards called for exactly the kind of damaging practices that inhibit learning: direct instruction, inappropriate academic content and testing. These warnings went unheeded.  How sad is THAT!!  Went unheeded.....
     It may satisfy politicians to see children perform inappropriately difficult tasks like trained circus animals. However, if we want our youngest, most precious resource to actually learn, we will demand the return of developmentally appropriate kindergarten!!