Does Kindergarten Readiness Matter?
Let’s talk about kindergarten readiness.
First off, what the heck is it? We hear the buzz phrase all the time. We think we understand the importance of “kindergarten readiness,” but what does it mean? Can you define it?
Since it seems to be so important to American educational culture, I’ve scoured online resources trying to find some sort of definition for this phrase that’s referenced so much. The best I could find is a list of “Essential Domains of School Readiness” as defined by the U.S. Department of Education. These domains, according to this governing body, are as follows:
language and literacy
cognition and general knowledge (including early mathematics and early scientific development)
approaches toward learning
physical well-being and motor development
social and emotional development
No matter how hard I searched, though, I couldn’t seem to find any literature defining or supporting which stages of development within each of these domains constitutes the level of competency that demonstrates “readiness” for school entry. So, we’re being told that children have to have motor development of some sort, but aren’t being told what kind. Just motor development. (Okay? Doesn’t everyone have motor development? What are we supposed to get from that?)
In California, educators use an assessment matrix developed by the CA Department of Education called the DRDP (Desired Results Developmental Profile). It’s super complicated and daunting and is intended to observe every area of development humanly possible without the use of standardized tests. Its developers claim that the DRDP “fully addresses the five domains of school readiness.” This is all great, but like we asked before, at what point in the development of a child within each of these domains is “school readiness” reached?
So, what we have here are our governing educational systems declaring the importance of “kindergarten readiness,” but not telling us what it is. Coining the phrase, but not defining it. Parents and teachers are stuck in a tizzy over this logical fallacy of circular reasoning, as we’re simply being told, “School readiness is important because children need to be ready for school entry.”
Since this undefined idea of “readiness” is made to be so important, we’re now left with unqualified people trying to fill in the blanks and define it for us:
First, let’s take a look at our current K-12 educational standards in the U.S. Rather than conducting and reviewing research on brain development and academic “readiness” in the early years, the Common Core Standards were written by first developing 12th grade learning goals, and then fitting the prerequisites into the younger grades from there. Doesn’t this sound backwards? Shouldn’t we begin with children’s natural competencies and curiosities and build on them toward more sustainable success? Sadly, it was done that way because not one of the 135 individuals who developed the Common Core Standards was an Early Childhood professional. Not even a single kindergarten, first, second, or third grade teacher was included in the writing or reviewing of Common Core. U.S. Kindergarten has been designed by a collection of committees of people who know nothing about young children, and that’s part of the reason we’re seeing a painful academic pushdown.
Next, let’s take a look at who’s defining what it takes to be ready for this kindergarten. We see authorities coining the readiness phrase but not defining it, and so inevitably, people are going to try to define it. We’ve got states and districts making arbitrary lists of what children need to have learned before they’re considered ready to learn. If you’re a parent Googling kindergarten readiness in preparation for school entry, you’ll find lots of official-looking checklists like this one made by the National Center for Learning Disabilities that encourages rote literacy processes like, “recognizes ten alphabet letter names by pointing to requested letter,” and “matches three letters with the sounds they make,” and trivial math concepts such as, “matches a numeral (0-5) to a group with that number of objects,” and “counts in sequence 1-10.”
There is no research supporting the teaching of these concepts to our young children. What the research is saying is that pushing academics on children who are this young is actually harmful to long-term development. We see study after study suggesting that a more natural, child-led form of exploration and learning sets children up for later success, and that children who miss out on this in favor of early academics consistently stop showing any signs of academic advantage around third or fourth grade, and often begin to fall behind. With this in mind, these “kindergarten readiness” checklists and strict academics in the early grades are actually encouraging parents to facilitate a devastating developmental disservice to their children.
When you think about it, the concept of kindergarten readiness is antithetical to a child-centered and developmentally appropriate educational model.
Not every person is the same and education should be individualized. The idea of readiness goes against this perspective entirely. Deborah Stipek from the Stanford Graduate School of Education explains this with a compelling example:
If an English-language learner enters an English-only kindergarten and fails to meet all of the kindergarten standards, but makes considerable progress in all skills, has she failed? If a child enters kindergarten having already met most of the kindergarten standards, but then doesn’t surpass them at the end of the year, has she succeeded? One could say the former was not “ready” for kindergarten and the latter was. But it was the former who benefited the most from the kindergarten experience.
If we’re supporting the idea of kindergarten readiness, we’re clearly readying our children for school rather than readying schools for our children. Tell me, what exactly is the role of the teacher if it’s not to teach each child and meet their individual needs? If every classroom and every education is to look identical and children are to be readied for it, what special skills does a teacher need to have? We should be holding our teachers accountable and busting the doors down on this idea of kindergarten readiness.
“But why does that matter?
We can’t change these standards. We can’t change the expectations of educators by their administrators.”
But we can change our expectations of our children. Know that pushing academic concepts on children in Early Childhood does more harm than good. If your child or student doesn’t meet “kindergarten readiness standards,” that’s just fine. Leave room for them to develop naturally. Let them play. Let them build a stronger foundation before piling academics on top of it, or it won’t hold. Who cares if a child isn’t meeting “standards” at their kindergarten entry if you know that they’ll find much stronger success later because of it? They don’t need to be reciting letters or numbers - it’s taking up valuable space and time that should be saved for more foundational development.
Forget kindergarten readiness and focus on what matters.
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References
Black, S. (n.d.). The Marcon Study « Ooey Gooey, Inc.. [online] Ooeygooey.com. Available at: https://www.ooeygooey.com/the-marcon-study/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
Desiredresults.us. (2019). DRDP Forms | Desired Results for Children and Families. [online] Available at: https://www.desiredresults.us/drdp-forms [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
Ed.gov. (2019). Definitions | U.S. Department of Education. [online] Available at: https://www.ed.gov/early-learning/elc-draft-summary/definitions [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
Gray, P. (2015). Early Academic Training Produces Long-Term Harm. [online] Psychology Today. Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201505/early-academic-training-produces-long-term-harm [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
Stipek, D. (2019). Should Children Be Ready for Kindergarten—Or Should Kindergarten Be Ready for Children?. [online] Education Week. Available at: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2019/03/26/should-children-be-ready-for-kindergarten--or-should.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mrss [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].
Strauss, V. (2015). Report: Requiring kindergartners to read — as Common Core does — may harm some. [online] The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/01/13/report-requiring-kindergartners-to-read-as-common-core-does-may-harm-some/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2019].