No time for play in kindergarten
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- March
- 20
Most adults old enough to be parents remember kindergarten activities like finger painting, cutting triangles and circles out of colorful construction paper and spending long periods of time on the playground.
Not any more. As most parents known, today it’s full-day kindergarten, with lots of time spent on reading, spelling, even math. Not so much time on the playground.
Educators and advocates for children have also noticed the trend. A group called the “Alliance for Childhood”:http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/home, which describes itself as an advocacy group that” promotes policies and practices that support children’s healthy development, love of learning, and joy in living,” has just released a new report, “Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School”:http://www.allianceforchildhood.org/sites/allianceforchildhood.org/files/file/kindergarten_report.pdf.
The report confirms what many parents have already noticed. Time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing.
Classic play materials like blocks, sand and water tables, and props for dramatic play have largely disappeared from the 268 full-day kindergarten classrooms studied.
The report is based on studies conducted at three universities, including Long Island University and Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.
This entry was posted
on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 9:24 am by Jane Lerner.
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Kids need to be kids and also learn how to play nice together. Kindergarten enforced that along with the beginnings of education.
So answer me this, when are our kids allowed to be kids?
As it is kids are learning so much more in the earlier grades than when I was that age. I think some of the pressures of learning are just escalating.
It’s not just at school – they’re now in organized sports at age 4, and doing karate/ballet/music/gymnastics (pick one) by that time as well.
Kids don’t do ANYTHING spontaneously anymore. What happened to going out in the backyard and catching fireflies or frogs or something? Or going out in the rain and re-directing the water that’s flowing down the street by putting rocks and sticks in the way (remember that?).
It’s disgusting how people push their children now and how some look down upon those who don’t.
yeah. everyone has to be a baby einstein.
you know as Kenny rogers once said:
“there’ll be time enough for counting when the dealings done. ”
you know what middleschool through college shuold be gearing our kids to succeed. The early grades should be a launch pad. The types of exams expecting of these little kids is CRAZY. I went to parochial school back in the day. we had SRA’s etc. but that didnt happen until later grades.
1st and 2nd grade paved the way for higher learning.
I think all these activities etc are put in place so paernts dont have to be parents just chauffuers.
Most kids now a days do 3 years of Pre-school before entering Kindergarten. That’s why the level is so high compared to years ago. My daughter is in Kindergarten and I’m impressed with how much she is learning. She can read, write and do math. She’s only 5! But she was ready for it. I know it’s not the same for all kids, but for the vast majority it’s fine. The method of teaching is thru play. Nadia comes home with tons of math and word games. I think it’s great, she loves school and that to me is the most important thing.
Thanks for all your comments. I’m the co-author of “Crisis in the Kindergarten.” Alicia, you’re right-
the most important thing is that your child loves school. And that is what’s so alarming-that large numbers of children, especially boys, are actually failing kindergarten because they can’t meet unrealistic standards or pass tests that have little validity for young children. It’s good that your daughter has learned to read. But parents need to know that there is no evidence that early readers end up doing better in school than those who learn to read at age 6 or 7. In Finland, children are not taught reading in school until age 7. By age 10, they are tops in all the international comparisons.Ed Miller
New York City