Parents and educators, convinced that kindergartners must learn to read, might purchase unproven commercial online reading programs during the pandemic. The best solution for kindergartners currently is for school librarians and teachers to get interesting picture books and reading material into the hands of young children.
Standardized testing made pushing children to read in kindergarten part of the curriculum. No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards contributed to remaking kindergarten. Now this harmful practice is interwoven into the kindergarten curriculum.
During a pandemic, it would seem like these harsh kindergarten requirements could be dropped. Instead, mandatory reading goals still highlight kindergarten.
A report by Christina A. Samuels in Education Week “Will Kindergartens Be Empty this Fall?” illustrates the problem. The report describes difficulties school leaders face getting parents to register their kindergartners for school this fall. But it doesn’t take long before they describe a push for academics.
Kindergarten readiness assessments are mandatory in more than half the states, with the idea that they can help teachers better understand their students’ needs. Other states and communities have programs intended to help children get off to a strong academic start by smoothing the transition between home and formal schooling.
Most troubling is the comment referring to the article above.
Unfortunately, laws and public policy have not kept up with changing educational standards. Kindergarten is now the grade where children learn to read. Where I teach, they must learn to decode all regular short vowel words, some long vowels, especially “silent e,” and at least 60 sight words. Children who enter first grade without these skills are already behind, and catching them up is usually limited to small group time by administrative fiat.
This commenter is convinced that such expectations are right. They add:
Still, kindergarten is treated as optional, both by parents who weren’t taught to read until first grade, and by legislators. That has to change.
Why? Who’s the wizard behind the screen demanding that four and five-year-old students read before first grade?
Comments like this place unnecessary pressure on parents, working with their children at home during the pandemic. If kindergartners are not able to read when they’re four or five, parents might believe they have failed. They might think their child is slow or has a learning disability.
Teachers are often blamed for not teaching the right reading program, by those selling unproven online commercial programs. Or teachers are set up to teach bland decoding exercises that young children will not find interesting.
According to Defending the Early Years, there’s no research to show that pushing children to learn to read in kindergarten is helpful long-term. In Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose, the authors document several studies that show it could be harmful.
The kindergarten reading push has become so engrained in the curriculum, it has been called the new first grade. It could set a child up for reading problems.
Some parents, realizing how difficult kindergarten has become, might hold their child back a year, especially during the pandemic, before allowing them to start school, a process called redshirting.
Those who accept reading standards as law, who continue to imply that kindergarten is a time children must learn to read, disregard the disservice they’re doing to children. Or they pretend that kindergarten pressure doesn’t exist.
Some imply that children are different today than they were years ago, that they are able to learn earlier. There’s no proof of this.
Here are some better suggestions.
- Ask children to express their interests. Get them books that reflect those interests.
- Introduce children to books about their cultural heritage and that of their peers. Books help curious children learn about the world around them.
- Present children with picture books, easy-reading chapter books, and reading material like comic books. Let them choose the books they’d like to read.
- If a child wishes to hear a picture book read to them over and over, do it! Children are learning the sounds and the words.
- Read rhyming books, and poetry like Shel Silverstein. Children love humor! More than ever they need to laugh during this serious time.
- Many wonderfully illustrated magazines will capture a child’s interest. One favorite is Highlights for Children.
- Let children tell stories about a book or whatever they make up. Focus on speech and language. Listen.
- Don’t forget the importance of letting children play.
We will get through Covid-19, and the most important thing to do to help children learn at this age, is to present them with many books that matter to them, read to them, and let them talk.
Make reading pleasurable. Contact your community library or your school and find out the best and safest way to get books to your child.
Kindergarten reading should not be forced. Reading should be fun.
P.S. Google is getting books to children by way of drone in Virginia. That might be exciting, if children are more excited to read the books they drop.
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Here are several resource pages under Curriculum from my website. It’s a Hodge podge of resources. I am continually adding to it. Let me know of anything you believe is helpful and I will add.
As a school practitioner who was an elementary principal for 12 years I find this perspective spot on. What our “reading first” focus has done is created more stress in young children along with less motivation to learn. I also saw this in my own kids. The focus should be socialization and exploration for young children. This naturally builds curiosity, empathy, and motivation to learn. Kindergarteners should not only be provided picture books, but opportunities to use their hands and play. the education establishment is guilty of making reading and math the ends leaving too many students grasping for purpose brought about by limited experience. As far as policy in the area of curriculum, this may be the most critical change that needs to happen.
ABSOLUTELY! Play is critical! Thank you!
Decoding is not the foundation of reading. That’s where so many get it wrong. The foundation of reading is thinking like a reader. That’s best developed through read alouds, think alouds, and through talking about books and stories. We need to get kids to want to read as much as they want snack time or recess. Those kids will easily conquer the tasks related to decoding.
I agree. Thank you, Dave!
Whole language reading programs are the reason we are now a nation of poor readers. Orton-Gillingham reading approach is 100 years old going strong. Reading programs like I-Ready fails almost half the children forced to learn how to read. In Manatee County School Board they use I-Ready. Chair of the MCSB, Gina Messenger, a school board member Manatee CSB stated at a Tea Party debate, I-Ready only teaches 53% of the students to grade level and it is a known fact it does not teach reading to children with dyslexia and neurological disabilities.
Your statement about whole language is not proven by the I-Ready complaint. I don’t know anyone who would see I-Ready as whole language. I also don’t know any parent or teacher who likes that program. It’s an online program that focuses on Common Core that is profiting well in places like the State of Florida, as you say.
Why not coordinate parents and ask your board to restore instruction to the teachers? Who’s making your district use that program?
Also, I do not accept money for my blog, and I choose not to advertise programs that aren’t backed by proof, or ones that make blanket attacks on teachers. While I have nothing against OG, there’s no research after about 80 years to say it works. It may or may not be effective but it isn’t a cure all for every child with reading problems. Implying that teachers don’t know how to teach reading is insulting.
My two granddaughters attend a public Montessori magnet school. When the oldest was in first grade, it wasn’t until the middle of first grade when she turned 7 in January, with a little extra reading support, that the reading lightbulb went off. Her progress after that was rapid. She just finished second grade and her oral reading is terrific. She reads with such expression and ease. She was never pushed. I must admit, though, as a retired teacher who spent most of my career teaching third and fourth grade, I was a bit concerned that she wasn’t really reading by Christmas of first grade. It just supports so much what you are saying. Children will read when they are ready!
It is important to make sure they’re making progress and aren’t getting frustrated, but the kindergarten standards are inappropriate. First grade has always been when schools started formal reading instruction.
I am happy your daughter is reading well now. Thanks for sharing, Kathy.
I’m confident my daughter’s pre-K kids will master the reading skills required of them in Kindergarten but I am concerned about the impact of the stress of doing so at that age and if that just leads to sustained anxiety and behavioral problems. Also, due to the wide disparity of achievement likely seen in these Kindergarten reading programs is there will be both a false sense of inferiority by those children who struggle at that age but also, and in some ways worse, a false sense of high-achievement by children and parent. This can lead to future problems when other kids catch up developmentally with their dear little Einstein’s, rendering them merely average to just above average.
Viewing early education as a competitive race between children, schools, states and nations is toxic and disgusting.
Excellent point, Patrick. Most children catch up to the early readers later. If early readers were pushed to learn early, they may wind up disliking reading even if they know how to do it.
Thank you!