I found this interesting as it is supportive of play based learning for younger kids in place of more formal schooling:-
Starting school later not earlier
Very interesting indeed. I'd love to see more about the New Zealand study he cites.
The trend toward making preschool and kindergarten more academic is a negative one in my opinion.
The trend toward making preschool and kindergarten more academic is a negative one in my opinion.
I agree. This "trend" has been going on a long time now. I remember reading/debating about this when my DD was going into K and she is at university now.
This also jives nicely with the notion that child-led academics aren't necessarily detrimental to young GT children, as the child initiates the play and perceives the material as fun/play. Interesting!
Yes! Yes! Play is very important, just as important if not more for GT kids.
Our twins have a fall birthday, a couple of months past the kindy cutoff. We considered petitioning for them to start preschool a year early, before their 5th birthday. They had been reading since ages 2 and 3, respectively, and could have handled even a 1st or 2nd grade curriculum with relative ease, academically speaking. We also would have saved on the private preschool tuition for 2 kids.
We decided not to pursue early kindy, in large part because we liked their play-based, child-led preschool and didn't want them to miss out on that. This is an Reggio Emilia based preschool, and a big project their class did that "extra" year was to create and put on a play based on a personal story their teacher had shared. It was awesome - my dd made a program to hand out to the audience, ads and all, that was hilarious.
Our kids are now 14yo, and we have no regrets about waiting. No doubt early K would have worked out fine too. Even now in 8th grade, we are protective of time for their independent creative "play" pursuits.
The trend toward making preschool and kindergarten more academic is a negative one in my opinion.
This is contrary to the research cited in the thread
Study Finds That Kindergarten is Too Easy
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/184376/1.html ,
not that a single study settles anything.
Interesting.
DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.
Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.
Interesting.
DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.
Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.
Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.
I've written a number of posts in this thread in which I champion the value of free play in child development, in every domain, including cognitive. But do we have to turn it into yet another false dichotomy? Can't children have academics AND play?
As bad as it was for my DD to pretend not to know how to write an "M" in K when she was 5, could you imagine how torturous it would be when she's 7, and consuming chapter books in her free time?
I can understand why the study would have showed benefits for underprivileged children, because that's a group that often lives in understimulating environments, and whose parents often have neither the luxury of time nor the energy to play with their children.
Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.
Totally agree. Many educators are wrong.
What brings the two edges together is simply the idea that play and exploration is central to learning. With those as the pillars of education philosophy rather than starting from the factory, you get some interesting effects.
Exploration: Discovering new things... learning happens at the bounds of exploration. Repetition is counter to this; skill-level-matched challenges enforces this (i.e. accelerations should happen.)
Play: Simulating, trying, interaction with other people, being creative, having fun. We learn more when engaged, being engaged is a key part of play. Creativity slowly dissolves through schooling with a rigid supression of instincts and innovations. Team and project-based work, problem solving, social experimentation are all natural to play. Pure repetition is rare in play; typically signficant variations exist from cycle to cycle.
So you see the factory stuff now starting to wiggle towards play on a feature level without the spirit of it. Even the complained about spiral curriculums resemble play where kids will pick-up new skills integrate them into their play cycle and slowly retire older ways as competence with the new increases.
This also crossed my desk today:
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/615204/?sc=c15As someone who reads a lot in this area, this is is all rather controversial and not by any means settled. It's important to realize that you can teach, and teach advanced concepts, without it being a case of sitting at desks doing worksheets.
Interesting.
DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.
Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.
Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.
Agreed.
Fluid ability grouping with regular shifts in placement to accommodate different learning modes, readiness levels, and rate of progress. Nothing wrong with that except in the practical implementation, which is complicated in a classroom with 25 individual, unique students.
I like a lot of what Zenscanner said here. IMO, it is not the age when schooling starts that is an issue but rather what school is. If school is about treating all children as the same and a process to get all children to a certain level by a certain arbitrary date, then it is a bad idea no matter how old a child is. On the contrary, if school is a place where you are recognized for your unique strengths, taught in a manner that fits your learning style, and allowed to explore your interests to a greater depth, then age of entry does not matter. It just becomes a natural extension of what many of the parents on this board do anyway at home for their children. Alas, schools only have so much money and resources so we get more of the former and very little of the latter approach.
Interesting.
DD would have preferred more academic challenge in kindergarten. However, I know she would have much preferred to play with the many toys they had in the room, or play outside, or read books, or do arts-and-crafts, than sit and listen to the teacher go over the alphabet for the Nth time. Because at least she would have been exercising her imagination and social skills.
Formal academics (in my mind, at least) usually involves sitting still, being quiet, and listening for longer periods of time. Five year olds are often not ready for this. They need to move and talk and explore, not sit and listen all day.
Maybe the answer is that only a fraction of KG should be academic, but that the academic fraction should be at the right level for the children. There is no point in drilling a fluent reader in the alphabet or teaching a child who can count to 100 how to count to 10. This suggests readiness grouping even in KG, which is contrary to the philosophy of many educators.
Agreed.
Fluid ability grouping with regular shifts in placement to accommodate different learning modes, readiness levels, and rate of progress. Nothing wrong with that except in the practical implementation, which is complicated in a classroom with 25 individual, unique students.
This, exactly. I actually think many educators would like to provide more differentiation, but the practical difficulty in actually doing so in a real classroom makes it nearly impossible. I really believe many of the problems in schools today are brought on in large part by the political madness over testing, and linking teacher pay to testing, the often high number of students in a single classroom with a single teacher, and the fact that we simply don't pay teachers well enough to attract anyone who isn't into self-sacrifice.