More than ABCs and 123s

So I might be getting a little controversial here.

Okay, maybe a lot controversial.

Hold on to your hats.

I’ve been hearing more and more about things like “kindergarten readiness” and “early childhood education” being taken to a whole new extreme regime of tests, rote memorization, and butt-in-seat learning. And with recent legislation (at least in Minnesota) for a huge increase in early childhood funding, there’s a potential for this type of regime to be taken to an even greater (or rather, worse) extreme.

The stakes are high to prove that early childhood is the silver bullet. Promises have been made about the efficacy of spending money in the early years to increase kindergarten readiness and student achievement across the board.

 

Report (via stock.xchng)

And many of those promises are based on a lot of good, solid research.

But the problem is, how do you prove the money was successfully invested? You need a measure of kindergarten readiness and of success in school to demonstrate that there has been improvement. That the millions of dollars invested in the state’s youngest citizens have provided measurable benefit to young children and to society.

And the measure of success, for decades, has been standardized testing.

Unfortunately, the main measurements of “school readiness” are not based on measuring the ability to learn effectively, but on concepts, like numerical reasoning (knowledge of numbers) and vocabulary (what words you know).

And what do early childhood educators often think when they hear those words?

Reading and math.

It’s no wonder that the focus is on pounding the ABCs and 123s in the early years. These days, if you don’t know the alphabet inside and out before you enter kindergarten you’re somehow a failure and labeled “not ready for school”.

(As an aside, my mom tells me I didn’t know the alphabet when I showed up to kindergarten….and clearly my life has been a total failure since then…)

 

Brian in hand (via stock.xchng)

But the thing that researchers and other early childhood experts will tell you, is that it’s not about ABCs and 123s. Rather, things like self-regulation (the ability to control your own behaviors), executive function (paying attention, planning, memory), and emotional control (the ability to regulate your own emotional ups and downs) are more predictive of later success than measures like IQ (which are largely reliant on vocabulary and numerical reasoning measures) (Alloway & Alloway 2010; McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2006). Additionally, working with children in creative ways (e.g. aerobics, yoga, computer games) that work to build these skills has been shown to be more effective than paper and pencil methods of training executive function (Diamond, 2011).

The thing is, those skills of self-regulation and executive function carry you over the long haul. They are the quintessential foundation to learning, building relationships, and success in not just an academic environment, but in every environment. Those skills are the building blocks for a successful life. Not just success in school.

 

Bouncy Castle (via stock.xchng)

So how do we foster those skills in early childhood? Well, frankly, by letting kids be kids. By providing play environments where they can learn about mud and bugs and trees and plants. By letting them dig in the sandbox for buried treasure because they’re pretending to be pirates searching for gold. By giving them an opportunity to negotiate the finer points of playing house with other kids. By providing a safe, secure, environment with the freedom to play, laugh and learn.

Those early years are a time of wonder, and should be filled with opportunities to see, touch, smell, hear and taste the many varied and fascinating things the world has to offer. The memories of swinging on the playground swings feeling the wind whipping past, looking through a kaleidoscope to see the spinning colors and shapes, touching the soft fur of a puppy or the course bark of a tree, tasting cool fresh squeezed lemonade on a hot day. It’s no coincidence those are the memories kids will cherish long after they’ve moved on to school.

Because those are the things that are most important.

The biggest hurdle then, is proving that more time spent exploring and learning about the world actually equals greater success. And this responsibility should not fall on the teachers of our young children. It’s the responsibility of those doing the measuring to be more savvy, more creative, and more innovative in the way that they measure success.

Standardized testing is one piece of the equation to be sure. But it can’t be the only piece, or we’ll fail, again, to prove that any of this funding and increased effort in the early years made the least bit of difference.

I love what Michael Quinn Patton says in reference to the differences between quantitative versus qualitative research – and it fits so well in this context too.

“A questionnaire is like a photograph. A qualitative study is like a documentary film. Both offer images. One, however—the photograph—captures and freezes a moment in time...the other—the film—offers a fluid sense of development, movement, and change.” (Patton, 2002, p. 54).

The photograph of standardized testing captures a day, a moment in time. It doesn’t capture the ringing of a child’s laughter, the joyful exclamation of discovery, the comfortable sigh of peaceful exhaustion.

In short, the photograph is not enough. And I hope we will see that in time.

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References:

Alloway, T.P. & Alloway, R. G. (2010). Inves­ti­gat­ing the pre­dic­tive roles of work­ing mem­ory and IQ in aca­d­e­mic attain­ment. Jour­nal of Exper­i­men­tal Child Psy­chol­ogy, 106(1), 21-29.DOI: http://10.1016/j.jecp.2009.11.003

Diamond, A. & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333, 959-964.

McClelland, M. M., Acock, A. C. & Morrison, F. J. (2006). The impact of kindergarten learning-related skills on academic trajectories at the end of elementary school. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21(4), 471-490. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2006.09.003.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods 3rd edition. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks: CA.