Most parents no matter their class or ethnicity want to give their children a good start in life. A key building block to a solid education foundation is preschool. Changing family patterns make full day kindergarten an importation option. Adoption.Com provides a good overview of the history of full day kindergarten
CHANGES IN FAMILY PATTERNS
Among the changes that make full-day kindergarten attractive to many families are the following:
–An increase in the number of working parents. The number of mothers of children under six who work outside the home increased 34 percent from 1970 to 1980 (Evans and Marken 1983). In 1984, 48 percent of children under six had mothers in the labor force (The National Commission on Working Women 1985)
–An increase in the number of children with preschool or day care experience. Since the mid-1970s most children have had some kind of preschool experience in Head Start, day care, private preschools, or in early childhood programs in the public schools. These experiences have provided children’s first encounters with daily organized instructional and social activities before kindergarten (Herman 1984)
–An increase in the influence of television and family mobility. These two factors have produced 5-year-olds who seem more knowledgeable about their world and are apparently more ready for a full-day school experience than the children of previous generations
–Renewed interest in academic preparation for later school success. Even when both do not work outside the home, parents are interested in the contribution of early childhood programs (including full-day kindergarten) to later school success.
The article also discusses the pros and cons of full day kindergarten.
Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post reported on a recent conference about early learning in the article, Early childhood education again in spotlight:
Q.What does “high quality” mean when talking about early education programs?
W. Steven Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said that quality programs for 3- and 4-year-olds develop skills and knowledge in language and literacy, math, science, social studies and the arts, while also addressing social, emotional and physical development. The Center for the Child Care Workforce says that such programs also have qualified and well-paid staff, low staff turnover, low student-teacher ratios, provision of comprehensive social services and nurturing environments, and periodic licensing and/or accreditation. The results of such programs, research shows, are students who succeed better academically, graduate from high school more often and are more economically productive later in life. Economic impact studies have shown that every $1 invested in early childhood education saves taxpayers up to $13 in future costs.
The goal should be to enroll as many children as possible in early learning programs.
A good summary of the benefits of all day kindergarten is provided by the Indiana Department of Education.
- Teachers reported significantly greater progress for full-day children in literacy, math, general learning skills, and social skills. Full-day kindergarten children spend more time in teacher-directed individual work and learning centers. Elicker and Mathur (1997) found that full-day kindergarten allowed children to be more actively engaged and more positive in their activities.
- Researchers find strong support for quality full-day kindergarten programs among parents and educators. Parents and educators report that full-day kindergarten is less rushed with opportunities for extending learning experiences, flexibility to address individual students’ needs and better communication between home and school (Elicker and Mathur, 1997; Hough and Bryde, 1996; Wichita Public Schools, 1989).
- The full-day schedule allows more appropriate challenges for children at all developmental levels. For advanced students, there is time to complete increasingly challenging long-term projects. For children with developmental delays or those “at-risk” for school problems, there is more time for completion of projects and more time for teacher/student interaction.
- Full-day kindergarten programs can result in social benefits. In a longitudinal study by J.R. Cryan (1992), children in full-day kindergarten programs showed more positive behavior than their peers in half-day kindergarten in the areas of originality, independent learning, involvement in classroom activities, productivity with their peers, and their approach to the teacher.
- Full-day kindergarten programs can result in academic benefits. Research analyzing twenty-three studies of full-day kindergarten indicated that “overall, students who attend full-day kindergartens manifest significantly greater achievement than students who attend half-day kindergarten” (Child Study Journal, 27(4), 273). Full-day kindergarten children have fewer grade retentions and lower incidence of Title I placements (Cryan, 1992).
- School corporations in Indiana that currently provide full-day kindergarten also find academic and social benefits. A longitudinal study of full-day kindergarten in the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation revealed academic, social and behavioral benefits. On standardized tests, full-day kindergarten children performed significantly better than half-day kindergarten children in third, fifth, and seventh grade on the CTBS.
- The number of transitions kindergartners face in a typical day can be reduced by full-day kindergarten. Due to family work schedules, children who attend half-day may be cared for by three or more care givers over the course of a day. While full-day kindergarten does not eliminate the need for child care outside of school (Elicker and Mathur, 1997), many parents, who are given the option, prefer full-day because children may have fewer transitions.
- Two-way transportation can be an important benefit of full-day kindergarten. Currently, most school corporations in Indiana only provide one-way transportation for half-day kindergarten students. There are a number of children in Indiana who are unable to attend kindergarten because their parent(s) do not have access to transportation during the day.
Peggy Gisler, Ed.S. and Marge Eberts, Ed.S have a Kindergarten Readiness Checklist of skills your child should have mastered by the time they enter kindergarten. Two other good articles are Ellen H. Parlapiano’s Ready for Kindergarten? and BabyCenter’s Kindergarten Readiness: Is Your Child Ready For School?
Early childhood learning should prepare children for learning and help with socialization. Alison Gopnik has an excellent article in Slate which reports about the results of two new studies, Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School which argues against strict academic programs in preschool. Kate Zernike has an excellent in the New York Times about how some children are literally being pushed out of childhood. In Fast-Tracking to Kindergarten? Zernike writes:
Research suggests that there is little benefit from this kind of tutoring; that young children learn just as much about math, if not more, fitting mixing bowls together on the kitchen floor. But programs like Kumon are gaining from, and generating, parents’ anxiety about what kind of preparation their children will need — and whether parents themselves have what it takes to provide it….
“The best you can say is that they’re useless,” said Alison Gopnik, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who compared the escalation of supplemental education with Irish elk competing to see which had the biggest antlers.
A key building block to a solid education foundation is preschool. There are many different considerations in selecting a preschool. The overall considerations should center on the quality of the preschool and whether it meets the needs of the child. For some, those concerns take a back seat to whether the preschool is the “right” place rather than the appropriate place. “Right” meaning where the parents and child can mingle with the “right” sort or type. The focus of moi’s comment is to urge parents to look at what will in the long term make a happy, healthy, well adjusted child who is secure enough to take on the challenges of life. Nothing in life is guaranteed, even to the most well connected. How one copes with survival in a world that often presents challenges, which upend what people thought they knew, depends on internal fortitude and a sense of security.
For a variety of reasons, despite the budget mess, we need to INVEST in children.
A healthy child in a healthy family who attends a healthy school in a healthy neighborhood ©
Resources
- Pew Center Pre K Now
- National Conference of State Legislatures Resources on Kindergarten
- Education Commission of the States, Full Day Kindergarten: A Study of State Policies in the United States
Dr. Wilda says this about that ©
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