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Kindergarten Teachers Speak Out: “Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast!”
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Gallant, Patricia A. |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | This article presents results of a study of 229 kindergarten teachers who completed a survey designed to gather information about the current state of Michigan kindergartens. In addition to detailed data that reveals teachers’ literacy instructional practices, teachers provided written responses to the following open-ended questions: What are the main issues facing kindergarten teachers? What, if anything, would make a difference in your ability to provide the type of program you would like to provide? What kind of professional development would be useful to kindergarten teachers? Teachers identified issues related to working conditions (time, class size, materials) and literacy instruction (autonomy for decision-making, developmental appropriateness of curriculum, student readiness, parental involvement in literacy, and professional development). Their patterns of response and vibrant words provide a window on the current kindergarten teaching experience and highlight the pull (or tensions) that many teachers experience in their instructional decision making because of the complex links between policy and practice. Implications for future policy makers and professional development based in principles of emergent literacy are discussed. A colorful poster once greeted people at the door of my kindergarten classroom. Bold red font scripted the title: All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Pictures of smiling, playful children swinging, jumping rope, digging in a sandbox, building with blocks, and dressed for dramatic play formed a border that framed a poetic text: 202 • Reading Horizons • V49.3 • 2009 Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some... (Fulghum, 1989, p. 6-7) It represented what I believed mattered most about the kindergarten experience for children. In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, goals such as socializing in a diverse community, caring about ourselves and the environment, developing oral language, and loving to learn formed the heart of my half-day kindergarten program. According to our local curriculum guide, the onset of formal reading and writing instruction was the responsibility of the first-grade teacher. I did not plan guided reading groups or formal writing workshops yet all children made progress in literacy and some learned to read and write as a natural outcome of literacy activities embedded within a playful, inquiry-based context in my half-day program. Today, the illustrations and words on that poster remind me of a bygone era in most public kindergartens. Snapshots of children and teachers in classrooms I visited within the past year would form different images. Where the dramatic play center once stood, children and their teachers might sit in small groups for reading instruction. Where children once stood around a sand or water table, boys and girls might sit at literacy and math centers, engaged in written tasks. Where kindergarteners once constructed make believe villages by creating towers and roads with blocks, children and their teacher may cluster around a table for guided reading groups or writing conferences. Children who once boarded the bus at the end of a half-day in school might stay for lunch and return to the classroom for the entire day. The purpose of this article is to highlight the nature and impact of some of these many changes in literacy instruction occurring in today’s kindergarten classrooms. No question—kindergartens have changed. Today’s public school kindergarten programs have become increasingly more academic and less play-oriented. Teachers provide direct instruction to teach children how to read and to write prior to first grade. This shift affects kindergarten teachers, children, parents, caregivers, and preschool teachers in myriad ways. After a brief historical perspective of the escalating academic expectations for kindergarten, research is presented from a recent survey of kindergarten teachers, highlighting their voices as they define and respond to the issues that arise from shifts in kindergarten curricular expectations for literacy. The Kindergarten Teachers Speak Out: “Too Much, Too Soon, Too Fast!” • 203 article concludes with a discussion of the implications of this research and recommendations are made related to the issues voiced by kindergarten teachers. Escalating Expectations Kindergarten, a pivotal year in a child’s continuous educational experience, represents the arrival of a relationship in which school becomes a significant partner with parents, childcare providers, and others involved in early learning experiences. Results from national and state research studies confirm its importance to the educational success of young children (West, Denton, & Germino-Hausken, 2000). Research also affirms that learning to read in kindergarten correlates with academic success throughout school (Hanson & Farrel, 1995). Although early literacy professionals and researchers ascertain that kindergarteners benefit from research-based explicit reading instruction (McGill-Franzen, 2006), the debate about whether and how to teach reading in kindergarten continues. A recent surge in popularity of professional books that focus specifically on literacy instruction and assessment in kindergarten suggests that kindergarten literacy is in itself a prominent topic, and responds to the needs and interests of teachers and schools who are extending their kindergarten curricula to include reading and writing instruction (Bergen, 2008; Duncan, 2005; Kempton, 2007; McGee & Morrow, 2005; McGill-Franzen, 2006; Schulze, 2006; Wood-Ray & Glover, 2008). Attention to and concern about kindergarten literacy instruction are not new (Joyce, Hrycauk, & Calhoun, 2003; Moyer, 1987). In fact, Smith & Shepherd (1988) identified how kindergartens had increased their academic expectations during the previous twenty years, since 1968. Their paper was inspired by changes toward more academic kindergarten curricula that were set in motion in the early 1980’s, when the National Commission on Excellence in Education published A Nation at Risk (1983). The report pointed at mediocre school achievement and advocated for higher expectations, lest we sink in world status. Escalating expectations in higher grades trickled into primary grades and kindergartens, creating a focus on early academic success and causing educators to raise expectations in lower grades. Schools consequently raised their kindergarten curricular goals to reflect expectations of their more able students and set out to raise all children to those standards. As schools responded with urgency to A Nation at Risk (1983), however, researchers and practitioners warned about the effects of escalating academic demands in kindergarten. Smith & Shepherd (1988) and Egertson (1987) noted that 204 • Reading Horizons • V49.3 • 2009 a shift of first grade expectations into kindergarten resulted from current social trends: universal access to kindergarten, the day to day pressures that teachers felt from accountability policies, and pressure for higher academic achievement from middle class parents. Policies and practices such as raising the entrance age, readiness screening, and retaining children in kindergarten emerged. As a result, declines in time spent at recess and the arts, and increases in the use of workbook-based reviews and didactic practices, have become commonplace. They further reported that, although these policies intended to solve the problems of having high academic demands on children who were younger or unready, they also resulted in excluding some children from school and increased the emphasis on mathematics and literacy skills (Egertson, 1987; Shepherd, 1988). Determining appropriate instructional methods for young children became the subject of research and debate when the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) issued its first position statement on the subject in 1987. Its wording suggested a dichotomous relationship between teacher-centered and child-centered practices. Likewise, the heart of the debate centered on whether teachers should use developmentally appropriate, child-centered practices, based in exploration and play, or didactic, teacher-centered practices, which tended to rely more exclusively on passive forms of instruction as well as drill-and-practice approaches. National concerns about kindergarten focused on the developmental appropriateness of what was being taught and how it was being taught, which led to the increasing use of transition kindergarten classes, readiness assessment, and retention (Bryant, Clifford, & Peisner, 1991; McGill-Franzen, 1992). Since the early 1990’s, the U.S. has experienced a dramatic increase in state and federal level policies related to early literacy, standards, and accountability. The turn of the century brought a surge of research on early literacy (Morris, Bloodgood, Lomax, & Perney, 2003; Neuman & Dickinson, 2001; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998; Xue & Meisels, 2004) and extensive attention from the U.S. Department of Education directed toward early reading (No Child Left Behind, 2001; Reading First, 2002). How the current period of high-stakes testing and accountability is transforming the nature of schooling in the United States is at the forefront of educational criticism and debate (Allington, 2002; Goodman, 2006). Policy mandates, political rhetoric, curricular programs, and public sentiment all have influenced instructional practice and student outcomes (Xue & Miesels, 2004). Kindergarten has, through escalating federal, state, and local attention, increasingly become a targe |
| Starting Page | 3 |
| Ending Page | 3 |
| Page Count | 1 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 49 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1057&context=reading_horizons&httpsredir=1&referer= |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
