NEW RESEARCH REPORT FROM THE US ALLIANCE FOR CHILDHOOD

Our International Association has been active in the Alliance for Childhood in both Europe and North America since its founding in the late 1990’s. The Alliance has recently released a new report – “Crisis in the Kindergarten” – the result of three impressive research projects in the USA.

This report provides valuable research for those who are working for the protection of childhood against the growing trend toward the introduction of formal instruction and academic learning at younger and younger ages worldwide.  A few excerpts from the report are below:

“Kindergarten has changed radically in the last two decades. Children now spend far more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to standardized tests. In an increasing number of kindergartens, teachers must follow scripts from which they may not deviate. These practices, which are not well grounded in research, violate long-established principles of child development and good teaching. It is increasingly clear that they are compromising both children’s health and their long-term prospects for success in school.”

“The latest research indicates that, on a typical day,     children in all-day kindergartens spend four to six times as much time in literacy and math instruction and taking or preparing for tests (about two to three hours per day) as in free play or “choice time (30 minutes or less).”

“….Kindergarten is in crisis.”

Research comparing 50 play-based classes with 50 early-learning centers found that by age ten the    children who had played excelled over the others in a host of ways. They were more advanced in reading and mathematics and they were better adjusted    socially and emotionally in school. They excelled in creativity and intelligence, oral expression, and “industry.”

“New evidence from research shows that didactic instruction and testing are pushing play out of kindergarten.

Kindergartners are now under intense pressure to meet inappropriate expectations, including academic standards that until recently were reserved for first or second grade. These expectations and the policies that result from them have greatly reduced and in some cases obliterated opportunities for imaginative, child-initiated play in      kindergarten.”

“Research shows that children who engage in complex forms of socio-dramatic play have greater language skills than nonplayers, better social skills, more empathy, more imagination, and more of the subtle capacity to know what others mean. They are less aggressive and show more self-control and higher levels of thinking.

Animal research suggests that they have larger brains with more complex neurological structures than nonplayers.”

Susan Howard

CRISIS IN THE KINDERGARTEN  is available through the website of the Alliance for Childhood at www.allianceforchildhood.org