I think more kid suffer from this than we realize.
(H/T Henry Cate at Why Homeschool)
Monday, May 25, 2009
All work and hardly any play in Kindergarten.
According to the Alliance for Childhood Kindergarteners today spend two to three hours in instruction and testing in reading and math, while spending thirty minutes or less on play time. Also, according to an Alliance for Childhood report summary on these statistics, Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why children need to play in school, some children are getting as little as 19 minutes of play. As noted by an article from the New York Times, "Kindergarten Cram", children that advance at an early age academically do better than their counterparts, but by fourth grade these advantages disappear and the playing field levels out.
Excerpt:
Regardless of the cause, Miller says, accelerating kindergarten is unnecessary: any early advantage fades by fourth grade. “It makes a parent proud to see a child learn to read at age 4, but in terms of what’s really best for the kid, it makes no difference.” For at-risk kids, pushing too soon may backfire. The longitudinal High/Scope Preschool Curriculum Comparison Study followed 68 such children, who were divided between instruction- and play-based classrooms. While everyone’s I.Q. scores initially rose, by age 15, the former group’s academic achievement plummeted. They were more likely to exhibit emotional problems and spent more time in special education. “Drill and kill,” indeed.
On a personal level, when I was in Kindergarten, I remember learning the ABCs and growing grass in a hollowed out eggshell that we had painted faces on, and playing Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone? We learned about sharing and colors and getting along. We fingerpainted and pasted (anyone else old enough to remember paste?) and colored. We weren't grilled on our "math facts" or phonemes or letter blends. We weren't made to sit in a chair and color in little circles beside the correct answer.
For more on how to implement play into your day, here is some information from the Alliance for Childhood:
Also see the article Kindergarten Cram for a parent's perspective on the state of today's Kindergarten classrooms.
(H/T Janine Cate at Why Homeschool)
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