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Kindergarten began with children "playing" at learning in the dramatic play area, the kitchen area, the painting area, perhaps a balance beam, project-based learning, and the block-building area; singing songs, nursery rhymes and fingerplays together; beginning to learn letters, shapes and colors with some ready for reading; doing crafts with scissors, glue and bric-brac.
Unfortunately, about 20 to 30 years ago, policy makers who did not understand that behind what appeared to just be fun and games, the teachers were actually teaching literacy and math skills while developing a curiosity for new ideas and a love of learning. Thus began the days of kindergarteners sitting at desks most of the day except recess, doing worksheets and academics most were not ready for; not so much a child's garden.
Is it best for kindergarten-age children?
The resounding answer is "no," it has never been best for kindergarten-age children. These misguided "improvements" took away the parts of learning that made it effective. They literally undermined the very goals they hoped to achieve as stress replaced happiness.
Around the same time, the glut of teachers meant lay-offs and moving some teachers to grades they hadn't chosen -- from third grade to kindergarten. Training in elementary education is different; kindergarten is part of early childhood education. The needs of these children are markedly different from the needs of elementary school children even though the kindergarten is in the elementary school (some of the same issues are surfacing as pre-schools are moved into the elementary school).
What was the purpose of "play" areas in the kindergarten room? Children made decisions about their interests; they explored different ways to express themselves; they discovered relationships, measurements, expressions; they developed interpersonal skills as they shared with others and negotiated about their needs; they learned compassion and friendship and balance. They experimented with what it was like to be in a job or a home. They saw the relationships in the world.
Play is a child's work supporting young children to grow up to be independent, responsible, successful, and happy adults.
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states, "Play promotes joyful learning that fosters self-regulation, language, cognitive and social competencies as well as content knowledge across disciplines. Play is essential for all children, birth through age 8 … Play (e.g., self-directed, guided, solitary, parallel, social, cooperative, onlooker, object, fantasy, physical, constructive, and games with rules) is the central teaching practice that facilitates young children's development and learning. Play develops young children's symbolic and imaginative thinking, peer relationships, language (English and/or additional languages), physical development, and problem-solving skills. All young children need daily, sustained opportunities for play, both indoors and outdoors. Play helps children develop large-motor and fine-motor physical competence, explore and make sense of their world, interact with others, express and control their emotions, develop symbolic and problem-solving abilities, and practice emerging skills. Consistently, studies find clear links between play and foundational capacities such as working memory, self-regulation, oral language abilities, social skills, and success in school."
What replaced all that age-appropriate curriculum?
Reading and math worksheets, spelling tests, disjointed subjects.
Would we try to teach a 7-month-old to walk? Of course not because their leg muscles haven't developed sufficiently; we can see that.
For most 5- and even 6-year-olds, studies have shown that their ability to read hasn't been sufficiently developed; we just can't see it. Most are ready by traditional first-grade age; some are not ready until second grade!
If we wait until the children are ready to read, they will have a love and joy of reading. If we try too early, they feel failure, and when they might have actually been ready, their fear of failure overwhelms their desire to continue trying. When we ask children who are not even reading yet to spell words correctly, this passes into irrationality. When sight words are on a spelling test, it defies purpose; they are sight words because they are not broken down into parts. Spelling tests should not exist until the child is comfortably reading at a first-grade level.
NAEYC further states that "(early-childhood) educators (need to) organize the daily and weekly schedules to provide children with extended blocks of time in which to engage in sustained investigation, exploration, interaction, and play. Children are encouraged to freely interact with peers, and collaborative learning opportunities with peers are frequently used. Adults offer questions to stimulate children's thinking, introduce related vocabulary, and provide specific suggestions to scaffold children's thinking … To strengthen children's sense of competence and confidence as learners, motivation to persist, and willingness to take risks, educators provide experiences that build on a child's funds of knowledge, are culturally and linguistically responsive, and are designed for each child to be challenged and genuinely successful."
Clearly tests do not fall into that category. About the same time kindergarten dropped the play areas and moved to reading and math lessons, parents started holding their boys back "to give them an advantage." Soon after, parents started holding their girls back a year. Now there are children turning 7 during kindergarten -- just like they used to in first grade with this curriculum.
There's an added problem. While many parents are holding their children out to go to kindergarten at traditional first-grade age, poor families cannot afford an extra year of childcare or preschool. Head Start children are no longer eligible once they are able to start kindergarten. So the students who are least prepared with the least safeguards and academic help go to kindergarten at 5 years old, while the children of the wealthiest parents with the highest levels of education and the best support systems are a full year or more older.
This is a recipe for disaster.
Ultimately, as NAEYC states, the best educators "take care to provide each child with opportunities to be successful and to engage in joyful learning. They work to avoid children having frustrating or discouraging experiences that lead to a negative association with schooling."
It's time we get back to traditional kindergarten, let children develop normally and joyfully, and not show them failure at an early age. We need kindergarten teachers trained in early childhood education instead of or in addition to elementary education. Let's get the paints back out (expression), the sand table (measuring), the blocks (physics and perseverance), the dramatic play centers (discovery), the finger plays (rhyming) and the singing back out while laying the foundation of math and literacy skills -- and with it the compassion and understanding of what it means to be a 5- or 6-year-old.
Janet Cohen of Williamsport has taught kindergarten and preschool and has a bachelor of science degree in child development and family relations from the University of Rhode Island.