Experts in early childhood education are calling for the abandonment of Common Core standards in kindergarten and their replacement by developmentally appropriate, research-based practice.
Defending the Early Years (DEY), in conjunction with the Alliance for Childhood, released a new report “Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose.”
Early childhood experts could find no solid research showing long-term educational gains for children who are taught to read in kindergarten, yet this is what the Common Core Standards require. The pressure of implementing the CC reading standard is leading many kindergarten teachers to resort to inappropriate drilling on specific skills and excessive testing. Teacher-led direct instruction in kindergarten has almost entirely replaced the active, play-based experiential learning that we know children need.
Defending the Early Years and Alliance for Childhood are calling for the withdrawal of the kindergarten standards from the Common Core so they can be rethought along developmental lines. You can read the full report and watch a video, along with calls to action on the DEY website:
Find the full report at: http://www.DEYproject.org .
The video: http://youtu.be/DVVln1WMz0g
If you want to tweet your support, use this hashtag:
#2much2soon
Here are some suggested tweets:
#EarlyEd experts @dey_project @4childhood conclude #CCSS Kinder reading requirement is #2much2soon http://youtu.be/DVVln1WMz0g
and
Why @dey_project @4childhood call for withdrawal of kinder standards from #CCSS http://youtu.be/DVVln1WMz0g
Diane Ravitch's blog 
While I do worry about the pressure being wrongfully put on many Kindergarten students, I also know that for many other students, Kindergarten ended up being a lost year, one that was more focused on how to navigate school policies than any actual skills or knowledge. Having no standards for this or any grade level won’t be the key to improving the children’s experience.
I also find it interesting that many people who are against CCSS seem to be simultaneously writing about their dumbing down the high-school curriculum and pushing too fast on the lower elementary curriculum (both of which are potentially true), but there’s little being written on how the other elementary and middle grades are to help students get to the heralded 3rd grade literacy benchmarks for vocabulary and other things as well as make sensible progress towards a capacity for the more rigorous high-school courses that people want.
I have to think that although CCSS isn’t perfect, it’s hope for a linear progression of skills and knowledge acquisition makes sense. I’d be much more interested in reading about other ways to scale excellence for all students than I am to read people picking about aspects of CCSS. We can’t keep thinking that repealing this is going to lead us to a great place. I’d have to think, for example, that Kindergarten wasn’t working for all kids before CCSS came around.
Kindergarten isn’t about “actual skills or knowledge” (as least not as you’re conceptualizing those terms). Translated literally it means children’s garden. There’s a reason it’s not considered a “grade”. The “work” of children is play – it’s how they learn, through their own experience and senses. They experiment with, for instance, making a block tower. The first tower falls down and they try again, tweaking a few things. They build until that falls down and they try again, tweaking a few more things. Each attempt they learn slightly more, not only about block towers, but about the principles of physics, all in a safe space where “failure” is not a bad thing. At the same time, they’re learning to work with other kids – sharing, taking turns, listening to and acting on each other’s ideas and inspirations. Through music, movement, art, play and social interaction, they learn the skills they need to understand their world and their relation to it, all of which is far more valuable than learning to read, add or subtract (which most children are not developmentally ready for anyway).
BTW, despite our fondest hopes, there really isn’t a “linear progression” from kindergarten to high school. Math, perhaps, is somewhat linear in that, for instance, you need to understand addition before you can understand multiplication, both of which are pretty darn helpful for algebra and so on. But even within math there are different subject areas and paradigms and ways of looking at the world that are not necessarily linear and cumulative.
But when it comes to something like reading/language, all bets are off. Does one need to understand nouns before once can understand prepositions? Do you have to understand either or both before you can write a sentence or a paragraph? Is grammar necessary to understand literature? Do you have to understand plot before symbolism? Should you read Shakepeare first or Faulkner? Good luck.
For scaling excellence, look at the schools that are being attended by the children of Bill Gates and President Obama, or look at the school in Hawaii attended by Obama, and so on.
Not sure this is about “scaling excellence,” but it is about kindergarten. Vivian Paley was a kindergarten teacher for many years at the U. of C. Lab Schools (where Obama’s children went when they lived in Chicago). Her work is all about the centrality of play in child development: http://illinoisearlylearning.org/interviews/paley.htm
Exactly. Vivian Paley is a treasure and what she provided at the Lab School is the exact opposite of what other people’s children are getting from Obama’s education policies. I strongly recommend all of her books.
How is Kindergarten “not working”? Kindergarten isn’t even mandated here in NYS, but yet *reformers* want to require that those little 5 yo slackers to be taught to read and then test the bejeebus out of them. That scenario all but guarantees that K will be a big, giant fail for many, if not all, kids.
I agree. There are skills that can be scaffolded vertically for ELA classes, but it’s much more difficult to consider, and often leads to misses in curriculum writing. Reading is the most difficult to consider. I guess I’d love to see a middle path all along. Standards that establish guidelines without hard-lined expectations, grade levels that are flexible, assessments that give meaningful information to students, families, and educators.
If this pendulum swings, I’m just hoping it doesn’t revert all the way back.
The people who make the rules are clueless about cognitive development.
When my sons were 3 & 4, they went to a community nursery, where patents participated one a week. Over several years I watched the mission of the school, which was to develop both the cognitive skills appropriate for that age, and the social skills that all children need.
I saw kids LEARN TO PLAY together, to cooperate and to listen attentively at appropriate times, TO TRY ON ROLES IN IMAGINATIVE PLAY; I watched as they explored the centers, where there were building blocks and tools (real hammers and screw drivers with a parent on duty, paints and art materials, and imaginative dress-up centers where they could play different roles; there were dolls, stuffed animals, and play kitchens, trucks and cars and toy garages, farm materials and centers were seeds an plants were tended… and there were many books, laid out in groups. The teacher read to them everyday, and the questions she asked were those that developed cognitive skills like analysis and comparison, as well as prediction and hypothesis ! THOSE are the skills that underlies the making of meaning from text.
Sure, They did some basic phonics and letter recognition. BUT… No parent expected their child to learn to read, in those days.
Yes, in my home there tons of books and reading was ever-present, but I did not teach them to read, although both could do some basic sight words by the time they entered school.
Both went to top colleges. One is a cardiologist the other an IT security specialist and CEO of is own company.
I also had a unique experience with a child, my grandson William, who began to read when he was 2, and could read all my 2nd grade books by the time he was three. He taught himself. Surrounded by books and people who read to him frequently ( no screens or tv in that house) and by second grade he was able to read college level text ( although he preferred age appropriate stories. This grandchild had a genetic ability and it developed naturally.
The caveat is this…what if he was not surrounded by books and readers, and instead played video games and watched tv.
I developed a page on my old site,
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/_ABOUT_ME__A_TEACHER_OF_LITERACY.html
with photos of my grandkids reading at home, because it is the exposure to text, and the critical thinking that accompanies reading text, that precedes reading. (Listening, speaking, reading writing is the process of literacy.)
Note the yellow sign (instructions of the smoke pellets in his new train set) that William holds up.
NO ONE TAUGHT HIM TO WRITE OR to spell the word ENOUGH. I have told this story before here: when I asked him how he knew to spell ‘enough’ the way he did, his answer was: “isn’t that the way it was spelled?”
That says it all! Reading leads to writing, and early literacy, like all early skills relies not on instruction but on practice!!!!
I am very sad when I read the nonsense that is being pushed these days.
AMEN. NONSENSE is right. This is really child abuse disguised as promoting high standards. The standards are not even developmentally appropriate.
Absolutely rescind CC Standards for kindergarten!!!!!! No drilling in K!!!! Associations, manipulations, role playing, interactive activities but no taxing of their memory of meaningless isolated facts. The alphabet and sight words are meaningless at this stage. Implement Marie Clay’s Reading Recovery- no pressure; use children’s words; relate all new concepts to their background and experiences; present a challenge that can be met; friendly unthreatening environment; give children all the support they need so they can’t make a mistake. Nothing succeeds like success. Sure some can decode in kindergarten on a very advanced level but not necessarily relate to what they are able to decode and therefore no comprehension. The gifted we always have but few. We must meet the needs of all: advanced, average, and at risk.
Instead of throwing the yoke of CC on their shoulders motivate the parents to read every night to their children.
” “The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. ” Commission on Reading in a Nation of Readers
“You do not have to read every night – just on the nights you eat.”
Dr.Carmelita Williams former president of the NRA
My daughter who has a background in theater read to her four children every night. There was a threat: if they didn’t behave there would be no reading that night. She brought the stories alive as she read. Her daughter now in a gifted program, read almost all of Harry Potter’s books when she was in fourth grade. Another daughter in third loves to write fiction and poetry even though that hasn’t much value under the CC. She started writing before she went to K – scribbling but it had a message for her. Her boys are achieving well, also, inspire of the competition of sports.
I keep asking a grandson what story his teacher read to the class that day. He usually can’t remember. I have my suspicions that reading to the children in kindergarten isn’t a priority. He has a keen memory for all the other activities. They watch a movie in bad weather when they can’t go out. How about a story teller or reader capturing their attention followed by a little role play or impromptu? Instead of a movie let children pair off and read stories together and then illustrate the stories. Instead of memorizing meaningless facts, expose them to good literature that tickle their funny bone, puts them in awe and entices them to want to read independently. There are a thousand and one activities children can engage in that would support reading and learning in lieu of wasting time memorizing letters, names, sounds, and sight words.
“Wrong to the Core
Eliminate the Common Core
For kindergarten kids?
I’ll tell you what is now in store
With such a plan as this:
The kids will not read close
Or even read at all
Instead they’ll prolly post
A drawing on the wall!
Or even (gasp!!) a painting
Of fingers and a hand
That’s worthy of a fainting
And really should be banned
Or even (gasp!!) a painting
Of fingers and a hand
That’s worthy of a fainting
And really should be banned…
and if you use red finger paint on white paper, and if the little ones are concentraing and have lost all sense of time, then all of a sudden you will hear from around the room… why does my paint now look GREEN????.. it is supposed to be RED!!!!
So if you want to TEST for normal “aftermage” response, just get out the red fingerpaint, don the big-daddy shirts that are better than aprons, and let the kids go for it.
A big YES on all counts, except the actual colors mentioned. Green doesn’t come from the primary color red. When kids ask, green is a secondary color that results from mixing together the other two primary colors, yellow and blue. If you “get out the red,” they can make these other secondary colors: orange, by mixing red with yellow, and purple, by mixing red with blue. (Sorry, I am destined to never stop being a teacher.)
Even China, known for brutal tests, doesn’t do this with children that young. The first major test comes near the end of 6th grade, I think.
Readers may even be interested in what China is doing about testing today.
The Washington Post ran a piece about this by Yong Zhao back in October 2013.
“Earlier this year China began a major education reform initiative designed to increase student engagement and end student boredom and anxiety. Curbing standardized testing was one aim.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/30/chinas-10-new-school-reform-rules-reduce-standardized-testing-homework/
I’m an expert in Early Childhood Education (ECE), with formal training, multiple degrees and experience teaching students from birth through college, and, during my 47 year career in education, I was a Kindergarten teacher for 12 years.
When I first started teaching (all day) Kindergarten, I had already been teaching in ECE for a couple decades. Initially, I was pressured by my administration to get Kindergartners reading and writing, because some other schools in my area were doing that. However, I observed that there was a wide spread of developmental levels in my Kindergarten class and many children were just not ready to read and write. I felt awful because I could see that the pressure to do so was a brutal experience for them, turning kids off to school and negatively impacting their self-worth.
I looked into the matter and found research which confirmed what I was seeing. According to research on Kindergarten, “6. Developmental differences… abound in any given classroom. The developmental age range could span from age 3 to age 8” (Gesell Institute of Child Development, n.d.)
That spread in development was exactly what I was experiencing, so I took the data to my principal. Subsequently, I was able to dramatically alter my approach to teaching Kindergarten. I had to be very resourceful and creative to accomplish that, since I had up to 30 kids with no assistant, but I wanted to differentiate, to reach all kids, as well as make learning fun.
I had the skills to do that and, fortunately, I was given a lot of autonomy. I was able to implement a wide variety of methods, such as project-based learning, play-based learning, intentional teaching that involved children in a lot of games, and many activities where the focus was on what was meaningful to kids. I had the laterality to help my students find success without subjecting them to didactic drill and kill –which is what typically happens when.those in power expect every child to be on the same page on the same day of their lives.
The children in my classes who were ready to read and write learned to do so. Those who were not ready were exposed to enriching experiences but they weren’t pressured. They were encouraged to grow at their own pace, and they developed emergent literacy skills. Over the years, many of my students returned to visit me and/or contacted me by other means and all talked about their wonderful memories of Kindergarten, as well as their subsequent school successes.
Unfortunately, Kindergarten teachers today still have to deal with that wide range of developmental levels, but they do not have the autonomy that I had which would enable them to meet their students’ diverse needs. Many have reported that blocks, dramatic play equipment and other developmentally appropriate materials have been removed from their classrooms and replaced with workbooks and scripted lessons. Sadly, there is a domino effect to this, as many of us have seen the same things happening in Preschool classrooms as well, ostensibly to get them ready for Kindergarten.
In ECE. we address the whole child, because young children have needs that must be met in all areas of their development, including the physical, cognitive, social and emotional domains. The authors of the Common Core and the first commenter here act as if Kindergartners have only academic needs, and none of them are ECE experts. (Click the commenter’s name and Google him. He’s an assistant principal whose LinkedIn page indicates his background is in high school English and administration, No formal training or experience in ECE are listed.)
Skilled ECE teachers know how to reach their students, but when policy demands are not developmentally appropriate and dictate a one-size fits all approach to education, their hands are tied. It’s time our nation listened to skilled educators, including the ECE experts who are involved in Defending the Early Years. Veteran teachers must be trusted and given the autonomy they need in their classrooms to be able to teach effectively. Imposters posing as educational leaders in areas where they have no expertise should be disregarded and disempowered.
References
Gesell Institute of Child Development (n.d.).Ten Facts about Kindergarten that Parents Need to Know. http://www.gesellinstitute.org/5-16-14-ten-facts-kindergarten-parents-need-know/
Common Core is the Concorde fallacy, also called the sunk cost fallacy. There is an aversion to realistic evaluation of outcomes, once a sizeable investment has been made.
The fallacy “operates chiefly in those who feel personally responsible for the investment.” In this case it is Bill Gates. He inflates the probability estimates of future success.
Without skewed thinking, the failure of C.C. for kindergartners would lead to a reassessment of the entire program. For example, people witnessing a cardboard boat sink within 500 ft. of shore, would select different materials for the next try. But, the first guy is wedded to his failure. Watch Gates double down on his investment.
Linda, Being wedded to “sunk costs” is a big idea. I hear it all the time. We have spent so much on X, we can’t afford to stop now. So too for the idea of estimating great future benefits based on a hunch. Hanushek says our economy will grow by trillions if we fire 5% of teachers every year.
We’ve paid hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for this big bottle of test-and-punish snake oil. Tastes bad and doesn’t work, but let’s try to get our money’s worth.
Yep, neoliberals are all about $$$$$. No matter what. Even when that means destroying young children’s love of learning when they are at the starting gate of their formal education.
If corporate “reformers” really cared about children, and had an iota of expertise in K-12 teaching and learning, they would have included at least ONE expert in child development and Early Childhood Education on the Common Core team. There were none.
Don’t forget that the neo-conservatives are all about $$$$ too, and they are pushing for corporate Charters to replace public schools.
neo-liberals are a group in the Democratic Party
neo-conservatives are a group in the GOP
But the neo-conservatives were once in the Democratic Party and many of them crossed over to the GOP during the Reagan and 1st Bush era. Is it possible that the neo-liberals are the neo-conservatives who stayed behind in the Democratic Party and did not cross over?
What is it about the “neo” prefix that is so destructive to reality?
There was only one teacher “negotiator”, out of 18 appointments, for the Overhaul Report (Ed. Week, Dec. 30, 2012). The report is published at the Federal Register, “Teacher Prep Issues”. A link has been added to view the 1500+ comments, almost all of which are negative. The teacher appointment resulted from a nomination through association with the Data Quality Campaign, a Gates/Walton-funded organization. The teacher replied about her involvement, “I have not received anything or gotten much information from ED since these negotiations.” Is there a record of the negotiators’ input to the process?
If there is a journalistic firewall at Ed. Week, an interview with the teacher, about the process that led to recommendations, would be an ideal follow-up, in light of public disdain for the work product.
Lloyd, I think you are confusing neoliberalism with politics. Neoliberalism is an economics term, not a political term, which refers to free markets. Neoliberal economic policies are about deregulation to enable free trade, privatization, etc., i.e., getting government out of the way of economic enterprise. –It’s all about money.
Neoliberal economic policies were first adopted in the Republican party due to GOP economist Milton Friedman, as well as conservative Margaret Thatcher’s anti-socialist stance in the UK and influence on Reagan. Neoliberal economic policies were later adopted by the Democratic party as well, when Clinton turned the party hard right to capture the Southern vote, hence welfare reform, NAFTA etc. under Clinton.
In contrast, neoconservatism IS a political term and neoconservatives include disillusioned former liberals who turned conservative in the GOP. Since Clinton’s “New Democrats” include similarly disillusioned folks, I think it’s easy to understand why people are confused by these terms.
Noam Chomsky nailed it in 1999 in his book, “Profit Over People: Neoliberalism and Global Order.”
Even if it was changed, there would still be stringent standards. We don’t have common core and still have those requirements. Everything has been pushed down because the theory is the sooner you teach it the sooner they will learn it. We no longer teach patters, but teach money in Kinder now, even though it’s a very abstract concept and very few students learn it. I’m afraid if we go back to lower standards the kids will not be prepared to move on to 1st Grade where now they have higher promotion standards as well.
Texas Teacher,
Standards in kindergarten need not refer to academic skills. My own children went to a school where kindergarten was focused play, learning to play with others, building villages out of blocks, being read to, and lots of activities. The highest standard was learning to love learning.
Dear Dr. Ravitch: Just want to bring to your attention more concerns. Will anyone ever listen to the experts in the field? WNBC news this morning reported how some schools in Florida have cancelled recess so they have more time to teach to the test. Fair Test in their report lists other states that have taken away recess. No Time for Recess, No Need for Nap http://fairtest.org/no-time-recess-no-need-nap
Someone commented on your posting of “Experts: Eliminate CC Kindergarten Standards” stating that K isn’t part of the CCSS. However, as I observe three schools in three different districts it is obvious that the children are held to inappropriate standards. I observed that Pearson Book Company publishes all the text that the my grandchildren use. Pearson has bought up all the major book companies so even though the books may state that they were printed under another name, it is a company that most likely has been purchased by the Pearson Co. Consequently, Pearson Co. is forcing the standards on the kindergarten and pre kindergarten.
Also, the Gesell Institute lists among other guidelines, that kindergarten children should not be given homework. Every night my grandchildren in kindergarten are given homework – including pen and pencil homework. It is more drill. The people in charge of the material issued in schools have no background in how a child learns. It just doesn’t register how important the teaching of new concepts need to be taught in context of the child’s experience and background. There is no place for workbooks or ditto sheets with the same tasks, in kindergarten especially not in pre-school. Common sense tells you that you can’t have one workbook for every kindergarten child around the country. We must start with what the child knows and connect the teaching of new concepts to that information. We must constantly make associations if we expect the children to retrieve meaningful information and build on it.
Peace, Mary DeFalco
Mary, Kindergarten is definitely included in the Common Core. PreK is not included per se, but it looks like that’s just around the corner because PreK IS included in Race to the Top – The Early Learning Challenge. That required states to develop their own PreK standards which are aligned with Common Core. Since letting states create their own standards first was how NCLB morphed into RttT and national standards for K12, I think that Common Core aligned state standards for PreK is the starting point for ultimately imposing national standards on PreK as well.
Oh I agree. But what I was saying is that the standards have increased for all the grades. Here in Texas they will tell you that the math curriculum literally went a grade up for every grade this year. In 5th grade they are doing what used to be 7th Grade math standards. So if they are not reading when they enter 1st Grade today-they will end up failing. I’m not saying it’s the best way for kids to learn, by any means. Believe me I still sneak in blocks and play. I was just saying that if you lower Kinder standards again, you will have to lower the rest of them as well-it’s just too rigorous the way it stands now.
Texas Teacher, what is Texas doing using the CCSS standards? Texas governor and four other governors never signed on to CCSS standards. Where are the unions? Where are your fighters? Don’t give up your freedom; keep your old standards.