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Table of Contents

• Shouldn't Preschool people Advocate for Better Elementary Schools, Too?
• Ready or Not?  What Kindergarten Teachers Believe
• National Education Goals: Planning for Readiness
• Developmentally Appropriate and Intellectually Ambitious Primary Classrooms
• Primary Grades Interest Group Mission Statement
• Other Newsletters as Resources

Shouldn't Preschool People Advocate for Better Elementary Schools, Too?

Anne L. Mitchell

With all of the current talk about reform in public schools, it seems to me that we in early childhood education should be speaking up and offering ideas from our perspective. With our long-time focus on children and child development, we should be saying, whenever possible, that some major changes need to' be made in public education, that these changes are not necessarily the ones already proposed, and, in fact, that some of the proposed changes are not good for children.

All over America, schools from kindergarten on-with exceptions, of course--operate on principles that go directly against what we know about children and how they learn; consequently, these schools fail in their mission to help children achieve their greatest potential. Good preschools don't do this! Indeed, from the time nursery/ kindergarten education began, its goals and methods have encouraged teachers to work with children's nature and individuality, rather than against them. I believe, therefore, that those of us teaching at the preschool level must point out what the focus and philosophy should be at all levels of education in America.

Good preschools primarily base their programs on principles of child development. This may not seem earthshaking, but it is the fundamental difference in approach between good preschools and typical elementary schools-the former work with children, and all too many of the latter work against them. At the preschool level, good programs build on the knowledge of what young children are like. Preschools take into account characteristics such as learning style (which is very physical and very social), language abilities, interests, emotional needs, and so on; schedules and curricula are set up with these in mind. At the elementary level, many programs that are considered "good" by those in charge of them focus on what someone has decided needs to be learned in a certain amount, and in a certain amount of time; methods and materials are selected with this in mind. The child is not as important as subject matter. What comes first, not who. If a child does not learn, then he is the failure, not the system or method.

We need a huge change in the way educators at the elementary level are trained to look at children. They need to learn-as well-trained preschool people are taught to do-to look at children as individuals on their path of development; and if children are not at a certain point, it's because they haven't arrived yet. If they can't do something yet, it's because, in many cases, they're not ready to.

Let's advocate developmentally appropriate education throughout elementary school. Children should be allowed a wide span of years to learn to do things in elementary school. Let"s take the pressure off children and their teachers and give children time-lots of time if they need it-to develop and learn at their own pace. Teachers will tell you that all of a sudden some children just take hold in the second or third grade, but saying this, the teachers don't seem to connect the fact to readiness. We need to remedy the school, not the children.

Another principle of child development that we recognize in the preschool, and that needs to be emphasized much more in the elementary school, is working with the whole child. In recent years large amounts of the early childhood education field almost lost sight of this principle, with the push to develop children's cognitive abilities. As our preschool children go on to elementary schools, we need to insist that schools continue to work with the whole child so that children can achieve their greatest potential. Expanding only one developmental area is not going to do it; indeed, it is not going to equip children to adequately face the world of the future.

Once we get schools to accept working with whole children, perhaps we can move on to getting the schools to work with the whole world-the world the way children see it. In a good preschool we do not split up the world and then feed the pieces back to children a bit at a time. We try to integrate learning-to keep the world whole, not fracture it. Most elementary schools, however, divide learning-reading and writing and arithmetic are separate from science and geography and history. South America is studied because fourth grade is when you study South America.  Children learn the facts and figures about capitals and population, and the learning doesn't mean anything because it's not tied into anything else.

Encourage and help the whole child study the whole world-that's what good preschools do and what developmentally appropriate elementary schools do too. In addition, the whole child should study the whole world with a whole "staff" of educators. In addition to the teachers in the classroom, each child has another teacher or teachers, his parents, of equal if not more importance to him.

We preschool people are aware of recommendations to reform elementary schools -- at least the primary grades -- in the directions touched upon here, but are we active in the effort?  Our excellent elementary school colleagues need our encouragement!

In good preschools, the kind that NAEYC accredits, the door is always open and parents have free access to visit, to confer, and, in many schools, to stay and help as long and as much as they want. Parent-cooperative preschoos-- action in many states and especially in my own state of Washington-are based on the philosophy that parents are indeed an integral part of a child's education and that parents' talents, energy, and caring are of great value. Those of us who work constantly to help parents realize this are angry and frustrated to see many elementary schools close the doors and invite parents out. Not all, but too many schools do this. Schools should open their doors and include parents as ex-members of the staff. Parents and teachers really should- be partners in the educational process and have to be if children are to obtain all they can from school.

These, as I see them, are some of the major implications of properly implemented preschool education for the elementary school, implications that early childhood professionals should be pointing out as we serve on collaborative teams, as we take classes together, and as we act as involved parents. Over a long period of time, we have observed children carefully and have developed goals and methods that work with them. Preschool programs are based on understanding children and their level of development, and teachers are trained to do so; preschools work with the whole child, rather than on one area of development; learning is integrated, rather than fragmented; parents are encouraged to participate, rather than kept out. I believe that these goals and methods are good for children at all levels of education and that they should be not only seriously considered but earnestly tried.

Anne L. Mitchell taught for more than 40 years at the preschool, elementary, and college levels. She retired as the coordinator of parents and early childhood education at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington. This is a condensed version of an article which appeared in Young Children (July 1993), and which is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

Ready or Not?  What Kindergarten Teachers Believe

A document which provides information about kindergarten teachers' beliefs was issued in September, 1993, by the National Center for Education Statistics, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. According to Public School Kindergarten Teachers' View on Children's Readiness for School, the three most important indicators of a child's "'readiness for school" are (1) that the child be physically healthy, rested, and well-nourished; (2) that the child be able to communicate needs, wants, and thoughts verbally in the child's primary language; and (3) that the child be enthusiastic and curious when approaching new activities.

• Other highlights: Most public school kindergarten teachers (88 percent) believe that readiness for school is a result of children's growing and maturing and cannot, therefore, be pushed. However, 94 percent also believe that they can enhance a child's readiness by providing skill-building experiences.

• Ninety-seven percent of public school kindergarten teachers agree that one of the best ways to help children learn to read is by reading to them, and 90 percent of these same teachers report that their students listen daily to stories read aloud.

• Only 27 percent of public school kindergarten teachers believe that by the end of the kindergarten year all children will be ready for first grade; 70 percent indicate that they would hesitate to send children to first grade if they felt the children were not ready for the demands they would meet there; and 85 percent of these teachers state that they communicate with first grade teachers so that they can proceed from where the kindergarten teacher left off.

• Fifty-four percent of public school kindergarten teachers teach full-day classes. Of those who teach half-day classes, 62 percent teach both a morning and an afternoon kindergarten.

• In U.S. public school kindergartens, the student-to-staff ratio during the spring of 1993, including teachers and paid assistants, was 15 to 1. The stud parent-to-adult ratio, which includes volunteers in the classroom, was 14 to 1.

• Public school kindergarten teachers in the U.S. average nine years of teaching experience in kindergarten. Fifty-four percent majored in early childhood education, and 29 percent are members of early childhood professional associations.

Copies of the report, Public School Kindergarten Teacher's Views on Children's Readiness for School, are available for $7.50 from the Superintendent of Documents, P. 0. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15250-7954. Its stock number is #065-000-00596-4.

National Education Goals:  Planning For Readiness

The National Education Goals Panel has established a Resource Group and a Technical Planning Group for each goal to assist it in charting the nation's progress toward meeting the goals. In December, 1993, the Goal I Technical Planning Group issued a draft report entitled Reconsidering Children's Early Development and Learning: Toward Shared Beliefs and Vocabulary.

Goal One envisions that "by the year 2000 all children in America will start school ready to learn." The Technical Planning Group has suggested that early development and learning may be conceptualized in five dimensions: (1) physical well-being and motor development, (2) social and emotional development, (3) approaches toward learning, (4) language usage, and (5) cognition and general knowledge. Its draft report proposes six action steps to guide the development and implementation of services for young children and their families:

First, the Group will undertake additional work to observe, describe, measure, and understand these five dimensions.

Second, assessments of the strengths and needs of young children entering school need to reflect the five dimensions. Cited as inappropriate are the current testing methods which "focus too narrowly on children's knowledge of pre-literacy and preacademic information."

Third, to assist schools and teachers in recognizing the five dimensions accurately, ways to assess them in children whose cultural backgrounds are different from the teacher's must be developed. "In the past, individual and cultural variations in the expression of these dimensions have been mistaken for deficiencies in the children. Assessment procedures and instruments must be constructed to recognize and illuminate multiple expressions of outcomes in these dimensions."

Fourth, policymakers and practitioners need to recognize that preparing children for school means helping them become "healthy, adjusted, curious, and expressive, as well as knowledgeable. The best ways to reach high standards may be to attend to children's wellbeing and then provide learning environments and experiences rich in opportunities to explore, rather than to provide earlier formal academic instruction."

Fifth, teacher training and certification should provide opportunities for teachers to understand, recognize, and nurture the five dimensions of early development and learning, as well as the variety of ways in which different children may demonstrate them.

The sixth action step recommended by Reconsidering Children's Early Development and Learning is that the delivery of human services should be coordinated among health, education, and other social service agencies at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Goal I Technical Planning Group is chaired by Sharon Lynn Kagan of the Yale Bush Center in Child Development and Social Policy.

Developmentally Appropriate and Intellectually Ambitious Primary Classrooms

An article detailing some of the characteristics which should be found in appropriate primary classrooms appeared in a previous edition of Of Primary Interest. This list of attributes is to be found in Carol E. Copple's Starting Right: Reforming Education in the Early Grades (Prekindergarten through Grade 3), a report based on a meeting held at the Carnegie Corporation of New York on June I and 2,1992.

The above report also discusses the two reform concepts of "intellectually ambitious" and "developmentally appropriate." Intellectually ambitious instruction may sound as if it is theoretically opposed to the provision of a nurturing environment in which students develop through play and social interaction. Developmentally appropriate practice may convey the impression that too much is being left to chance. The two ideas are not, however, incompatible or mutually exclusive, according to Copple. Intellectually ambitious instruction, supported by many practitioners in the elementary school reform movement, and developmentally appropriate practice, the backbone of the early childhood tradition, are two distinct concepts proposed by two different sets of people. People interested in the reform of primary education need to talk with proponents of both ideas, and through this dialogue reconcile the presumed differences of these approaches, which are not inherently oppositional. Carol Copple. and others belie ve that primary classrooms should be both intellectually ambitious and developmentally appropriate.

Primary Grades Interest Group Mission Statement

The Primary Grades Interest Group of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has developed a draft mission statement. The group is composed of teachers of young children, parents and guardians, curriculum developers, teacher educators, administrators, and others who have a particular focus on the welfare and education of children in the early elementary years, kindergarten through third grade.

The Primary Grades Interest Group plans:

to increase awareness that children in the primary grades constitute a group whose abilities, interests, needs, and ways of learning are distinct from those of preschoolers and younger children, and to support increased attention to primary education within NAEYC and among its affiliates and members;

to encourage the implementation of developmentally appropriate practices in assessment, curriculum development, and instruction in the primary grades, and to provide support and encouragement for those practitioners who are currently involved in such practices;

to serve as a forum to encourage and support current theory, research, and practice in primary education;

to celebrate and support cultural, linguistic, developmental, and other forms of diversity for all children within all types of families; and

to facilitate communication and networking among those who are interested in the welfare and education of children in the primary grades.

The draft mission statement was presented at NAEYC's National Institute of Early Childhood Professional Development, held in Chicago in June of this year. In describing the process wl-dch resulted in the formulation of the draft, Ken Counselman member of NAEYC's Governing Board and facilitator of the Primary Grades Interest Group, has written that

"There was general agreement that our audience was much larger than just the membership of the interest group, or even all of NAEYC, and should include policy makers, local communities and school boards, state education offices, superintendents, principals, parent groups, colleges and universities, and others. In addition, there was strong support for using the mission statement and any activities that might come from the group as a powerful networking tool for making connections with a variety of external constituent groups, including the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Head Start, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the PTA, Phi Delta Kappa, and others. Finally, along with general ideas presented in the mission statement itself, specific ideas for activities and directions for the group included promotion of fora concerning care and education of children I - n the primary grades, establishment of mechanisms (newsletters, publications, workshops, symposia, computer networks) to exchange ideas and concerns about 1 -mproving services to children in the prima ry grades, and advocacy fo r these children and their families within NAEYC and throughout the nation."'

Members of NAEYC's Primary Grades Interest Group are soliciting comments about the draft of the mission statement. Written suggestions may be mailed or faxed to the editor of Of Primary Interest at the Colorado Department of Education. The group plans to adopt the mission statement at a workshop session it is presenting at NAEYC's Annual Conference this Fall in Atlanta. The session is entitled Critical Issues in the Implementation of Appropriate Practice in the Primary Grades, and is scheduled from 8:30 to 12:00, on Wednesday, 30 November, at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Other Newsletters as Resources

Two other newsletters may be of interest to educators and parents of primary-age children.

The Texas Association of Administrators and Supervisors of Programs for Young Children began issuing a quarterly publication last year, the TAASPYC Newsletter. Each newsletter provides several perspectives on one topic; so far, its issues (16-24 pages) have focused on assessment, mixed-age grouping, family and community collaboration, and readiness and retention. For additional information, contact: Cami Jones, Editor, TAASPYC Newsletter, 2901 Barton Skyway #1305, Austin, Texas 78746.

The National All-Day Kindergarten Network is an association of early childhood educators throughout the country who are actively involved in the all-day kindergarten movement. It was founded in 1986 by Susan W. Nall of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and by Leslie R. Williams of Teachers College, Columbia University, New York. The purpose of the Network is "'to provide guidance in decisions of policy and practice, to serve as a liaison with early childhood projects and professional organizations, and to be a resource for the identification of speakers and materials related to kindergartens."

Published semi-annually, the National All-Day Kindergarten Network Newsletter has recently explored the connection between the use of an integrated, horizontally expanded curriculum, and the preparation of learning centers in the classroom. Subscriptions, which include annual membership in the Network, are available for $5. Address inquiries to: Susan B. Cruikshank, Editor, National All-Day Kindergarten Network Newsletter, Teachers College, Columbia University, Box 9, New York, New York 10027.

This page last updated: December 13, 2007