The Science of POOR Kindergarten Reading Instruction

The push to have kindergarteners read through standardized drilling of sounds is one of the main reasons I distrust the Science of Reading. It’s hard to disregard how children develop, their age, and any disabilities they may have. It seems like poor reading instruction. The74 recently gave a good example, even though they likely didn’t mean to.

Read the first several paragraphs and a few sentences throughout the report “Why We Keep Asking the Wrong Question About Kindergarten Readiness,” and one might think respected authors Neuman and Bukzin are questioning whether kindergarteners receive poor instruction in the Science of Reading. It’s vividly on display here, pushing rigor and standardization.

But that’s not what they’re saying. The authors state: The solution is not to retreat from rigor, but to design more coherent pathways to it. 

They had entered a kindergarten classroom to observe a foundational skills lesson.

Here’s how they describe the class:

The children are sitting cross-legged on the rug at the front of the room, eyes forward, hands folded. They are well managed, compliant, and quiet. The lesson is about to begin.

It begins with clapping syllables — to-ma-to, ba-na-na — with the children clapping along. The lesson then shifts to letters. A capital H appears on the whiteboard, followed by a lowercase h. The teacher models the sound. Children skywrite it in the air, then return to their desks to copy the letter across a line. Some do so carefully. Others hesitate, gripping their pencils too tightly, unsure where to begin.

Back to the rug. Now vowels. Him, stretched slowly. Back to desks again — this time to write nap. A few children stare at the page. One reverses the n. Another pauses at the p, pencil hovering.

No questions are asked.

No time is wasted.

Children return to the rug to compare ham and nap. Back to their desks once more to write a phrase: a pan. Back to the rug for flashcards: letter names, letter sounds, key words, then a phrase or two. Some letters have two sounds. Some children guess. Others stay silent. The lesson ends where it began: clapping syllables.

We’re told the children’s pacing is precise, and the script is followed.

This takes 30 minutes. The neighboring classroom (I assume another kindergarten class) does the same. It’s Standardization 101; every child performing similar tasks concurrently, supposedly mastering skills together. Like tiny soldiers.

Nothing gets more one-size-fits-all than this.

The observers realize children follow directions but are puzzled about what they’re supposed to learn. By now, I’m thinking the authors have realized how awful this kind of teaching is for young children, not to mention teachers committed to fidelity to lessons that are beyond the children’s understanding and painstakingly boring.

Instead, they focus on poor alignment between pre-k and kindergarten, that children need better skill sequencing, because Lord knows, preschoolers must march in the same line as kindergarteners performing without mis-stepping.

The authors do imply something’s wrong with this mode of instruction. They seem to say there’s a need to break down reading skills into more incremental steps that children can understand bit by bit. Which might make some sense if the lessons meant better engagement with something that grabs a child’s interest. If they were age appropriate.

While talk of such rigor and greater precision might resonate with the SoR proponents who see measurement as the only way, it doesn’t mean it will make sense to children who are beginning to learn to read earlier than ever before.

Also, the authors mention letter reversals twice like it’s a problem at this age. But up until third grade reversals are common. Even in third grade there are easy ways to fix reversals so that they shouldn’t hinder writing ability.

This push for skill acquisition has been the Modis Operandi for many students for years, since Reading First and even earlier, yet few ask whether THIS could be why test scores aren’t so hot. Instead, what is wrong is made right again, until it is wrong again, over and over.

It’s not like there aren’t some things to be measured when teaching reading or that phonics doesn’t have a place, especially with children who may show difficulty with print. How a child improves words per minute, for example, or how they score on word identification assessments that place them at a grade level, and numerous other pre and post test evaluative exercises.

But pushing the same boring drill on all children, with steps that seem disconnected to what interests children especially at such a young age seems bizarre. Kindergarten never used to push such drill on early learners and for good reason.

Kindergarten assessments are also at an all time high, even in preschool, and if children aren’t reading by third grade they’re marked for life possibly by retention. Think of the pressure on children and their parents!

Most children need some phonics, to help with reading and spelling, and there are many other ways of getting it, that are more interesting than group drill. It would seem like even the worksheets, the kind available at stores like Costco or Staples, would appeal better to children.

It would also seem that if direct instruction were to take place for students with reading difficulties, it would be better received individually or in small groups at short intervals.

Also, with standardization and the push for the Science of Reading, many parents and teachers have been convinced that all children should move along the same, start early, and if a child is learning slower they are deficient.

But students in any given class usually fall on a bell curve. Some children will be ahead, others move slower, and most will learn to be average readers without problems. It’s why professional teachers who understand a child’s development will know how to pace children without holding back those working faster, or degrading those not at grade level, yet.

The authors end by contradicting themselves. They say:

Kindergarten should be the place where reading begins to make sense — where sounds connect, words hold meaning and effort leads to understanding. When instructional systems move too fast, even well-intentioned reforms can work at cross-purposes, asking children to perform before they have had time to learn. The challenge before us is not whether to be ambitious, but whether we are willing to design systems that honor how learning actually unfolds.

But what if kindergarten SoR is too ambitious, the rigor too rigorous, that five year old children still need play and the development of social skills, along with some rudimentary prereading exercises that teachers can evaluate per student?

What they’re asking seems wrong to expect so soon, boring and unproven in kindergarten and preschool, a faulty curriculum claiming a science that isn’t developmentally sound. It’s time to end the rigor and standardization of kindergarten and preschool, all grades, once and for all.