All day kindergarten and reading

Some one posted a comment asking "....what do you think of this article about all day kindergarten, in which the early reading ability is stressed?"


First, I think all day kindergarten is a bad, bad idea regardless of what they are doing there. When it comes to curriculum, a one size fits all philosophy is bad for children. Some will do well reading early while other will fail miserably and learn to hate reading.

I saw a study that showed that children who did academics in preschool and kindergarten did test better until about 4th grade. At that point, you could see no difference between the early academics group and the “play” group. However, in 5th to 12th grade you could see a difference. The early academics group got further and further behind because the children learned to hate “learning.” They simply burned out. A coercive program is going to have this effect. You can force a young child to do something, but eventually the child will push back.

Children who do well in early academics are children who are developmentally ready. My next door neighbor’s son taught himself to read at 4 years old. Now at 6 he is reading Harry Potter and his 11 year old brother’s text books. Of course, he would be bored in a “reading intensive” kindergarten. His parents chose a developmental kindergarten, so he goes to school for a half day to play.

I’ve outline my children’s reading history in another post.

Somehow they've gotten stuck on the idea that early is better. I wonder how those coming up with these recommendations could be so ignorant of basic child development or common sense. Many of the greatest minds, like Albert Einstein, were late readers.


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