by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman
As the national push for universal and full-day kindergarten has grown, administrators feel compelled to show that their investments in kindergarten—both half and full day—are worthwhile.
What’s happened is revealed in a new report, “Crisis in the Kindergarten” from the Alliance for Childhood. Based on data from nine recent studies, bringing to public attention that playtime, what used to be the major way kids learned, is being limited.
In most kindergartens today children spend far more time on literacy and math and being tested on those skills than they do in socialization and exploration.
Instead of exercising their bodies and using their imaginations, young children are being subjected to new state expectations linked to standardized tests. In 268 classrooms visited, in a typical day kids spent three hours learning to read and do math and had only 30 thirty minutes of free play.
Blocks, sand, water tables and props for dramatic play are disappearing and leaders in child development are calling for a return of play-based teaching warning that such approaches “could well damage the intellectual, social and physical development of an entire generation.”
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