Crisis in the Kindergarten

Why Children Need to Play in School

“Time for play in most kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing....”

The Alliance for Childhood has just released (early 2009) Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School, by Edward Miller and Joan Almon.

New research shows that many kindergartens spend 2 to 3 hours per day instructing and testing children in literacy and math—with only 30 minutes per day or less for play. In some kindergartens there is no playtime at all. The same didactic, test-driven approach is entering preschools.

But these methods, which are not well grounded in research, are not yielding long-term gains. Meanwhile, behavioral problems and preschool expulsion, especially for boys, are soaring.

In a foreword to the report David Elkind, author of The Power of Play, writes,

We have had a politically and commercially driven effort to make kindergarten a one-size smaller first grade. Why in the world are we trying to teach the elementary curriculum at the early childhood level?

The report is covered in the Harvard Education Newsletter (May/ June 2009), and Peggy Orenstein, who recently went looking for a kindergarten for her child, wrote in “Kindergarten Cram” in the New York Times (4/29/2009),

I came late to motherhood, so I had plenty of time to ponder friends’ mania for souped-up childhood learning. How was it that the same couples who piously proclaimed that 3½-year-old Junior was not ‘developmentally ready’ to use the potty were drilling him on flashcards? What was the rush? Did that better prepare kids to learn? How did 5 become the new 7, anyway?

The full report text is available free at allianceforchildhood.org in the Research & Resources area, under Publications & Reports, along with many subsequent papers.