December 2011 Archives

Last week there was an article in our local paper explaining a change in the birthday cut-off date for entering Kindergarten. By 2014 California children will have to turn five by September 1 to enter Kindergarten that year. And beginning next Fall, a new state law will allow children to take two years of kindergarten classes.

The title of the article was: Learning at Pace of Leisure - New prekindergarten law to allow children more time to pick up skills.

So far, fine. But here's what spoiled the story: "This is much better for making sure the kids who enter kindergarten are ready for the rigor of kindergarten," said Rose Dunn, director of instruction for the Las Virgenes Unified School District, adding that kindergarteners are expected to master more advanced skills than in years past.

The rigor of kindergarten??? Are your serious?

This reminds me of a clip of the comedian Sinbad talking about the ridiculousness of having to pass tests to get into kindergarten. It went something like this: If the kid can eat a cookie and take a nap, he passes!

What happened to "Learning at pace of leisure?" When are we going to stop this kind of forced education and allow kids to be who they are supposed to be developmentally? When are we going to stop causing stress and anxiety to young children and their families, for no good reason?

Four and five-year-olds are supposed to play, nap, laugh, explore their surroundings, tinker, finger paint, and experiment with musical instruments like drums and cymbals.

The thinking that is summarized in Ms. Dunn's statement above is precisely why we wrote, Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten. The title is funny, but what is happening is tragic.

More and more, kids "are expected to master more advanced skills than in years past." And who made that rule?

Calling all parents and teachers...stop this madness, make your voice heard!

copyright 2011 by Willis & Hodson, Reflective Educational Perspectives LLC

www.solimaracademy.com - we customize learning programs to meet individual student needs

Join our newsletter list and get your free downloadable gift: our ebook, Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten! 


 

Contact us: 805-648-1739, info@learningsuccesscoach.com

Here is an article from Psychology Today by Peter Gray, a specialist in developmental psychology and research professor of psychology at Boston College, that supports one of our foundational premises here at LearningSuccess™ Institute--students need to mature into skills such as math (and reading), without formal instruction and grades, until they are at least 10-years old.

 

Early formal instruction and grading of skills actually complicates and decreases learning. By the time kids are 10 or 11-years old they have already had many experiences adding things together, subtracting, even multiplying and dividing things up. Guided by their innate curiosity and their endless experimenting that we call play, they have "matured" into understanding how mathematical functions work in the world. They have a practical understanding of what they mean. When they are given the algorithms for them in 5^th or 6^th grade, they have a backlog of experience to apply them to. The algorithms are another piece to an emerging puzzle they have already been putting together for years. However, when they are given algorithms before they understand the function of addition and subtraction in the world, the algorithms are just mysterious strings of codes and procedures to memorize. Students don't know what they apply to or mean; no wonder they can't remember them.

 

The sad truth is that most teachers, educated in schools where the algorithm came before understanding, teach strictly by rote, relying primarily on a continual stream of worksheets and drills to do the teaching. Beyond basic addition and subtraction, they don't actually know why the algorithms work or what they are for. Woe be to those Inventing and Thinking/Creating students who ask "Why do we do it this way?" "What is this for?" and worse yet have a different way to work a problem.

 

We hope you enjoy this article! 

When Less is More: The Case for Teaching Less Math in Schools by Peter Gray in Freedom to Learn, Psychology Today, 3-18-10

copyright 2011 by Willis & Hodson, Reflective Educational Perspectives LLC

www.solimaracademy.com - we customize learning programs to meet individual student needs

Join our newsletter list and get your free downloadable gift: our ebook, Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten! 


Part 1 of this article ended with the question: What's the matter with basing a curriculum on reading level?

 

What is the matter is that many, many 9 and 10-year olds (as many as 40% of them) are not "developmentally" ready to read  "4^th grade" material.

Their senses (vision and hearing) memory, and organizing functions of the brain

need more time to integrate with one another. So, if 40% of your students aren't yet developmentally ready for your curriculum, what would be the logical thing to do?

 

The current answer to that question in most school districts is to sound an alarm, label the kids, generate fear in parents and ship the kids out to reading specialists.

 

This solution is troublesome in three ways:

 

Trouble #1

No matter how much money we spend, no matter how much extra instruction we provide, no matter how much we bribe, threaten, reward or punish students, young people cannot integrate their brains faster than their inner, developmental clock allows. The saying, You can't push the river, comes to mind. As teachers and parents we often spend valuable time, energy and money pushing rivers and then feeling bad, sad and mad when we don't get the results we want, when we could be working WITH the developmental clocks of 40% of our students who aren't reading at "4^th grade level" when they enter the 4^th grade.

 

What we can do about it.

We can give this 40% of our students more time to practice their reading skills in their 3^rd and 4^th grade classrooms. Classroom reading instruction can be individualized and decentralized to allow students to learn at their own pace.

 

Trouble #2

We grade and rank young people on their reading ability. History and science are subjects and we study them for the information they give us about our world. However, reading (writing, listening and math, too) are skills that cannot be taught. To be a successful reader means that a child has matured into many skills that can be nurtured but not taught. There is a reason parents don't grade their kids on their walking skills, bicycle riding skills, or skateboarding skills. We would have many fewer kids mobile in these ways. We know fully well that walking, bicycle riding, and skateboarding depend on the coordination of a lot of separate abilities, including: depth perception, balance, coordination and muscle strength, as well as practice.

 

Reading is the integration of vision, hearing, and brain organization. Students have their own internal clock for when this integration takes place. It takes time and kids can't be threatened or bribed, rewarded or punished into doing what they aren't yet able to do!

 

What we can do about it.

Start celebrating all the tiny steps along the way that are leading to becoming a

fluent reader. As we say at LearningSuccess™ Institute: Success leads to more

success! Give students lots of time without pressure to develop to their fullest and

celebrate their accomplishments with them!

 

Trouble #3

Kids learn best in small doses (10-15 minute sessions), in familiar places, with people they trust in a spirit of play and discovery. To feel emotionally safe and comfortable they need consistent systems, methods and expectations. When they are taken to unfamiliar places to learn from unknown people using unknown methods for long, focused reading skill development sessions (40-60 minutes) the young people are being asked to learn a "new structure" for learning to read, in addition to the reading basics.

 

In addition, going to tutors almost always occurs after a full day of school when students' energy is low, and they need a snack and some free time, not more lessons.

 

What we can do about it.

The elementary school classroom can be the place where all students are able to get their reading needs met with the help of teacher-coaches who are well trained in best reading practices and are well versed in students' developmental stages of readiness.

 

We can replace reading worksheets and teacher-driven lessons with a systematic prepared environment with hands-on activities that students work through at their own pace.

 

Let our students move, investigate, self-correct, and take breaks when they need to.

 

It's all possible! LearningSuccess Institute has been helping families and schools set up nurturing reading programs for more than a decade. And Montessori schools have been doing something similar for many decades.

If your child is struggling with reading and you have questions, give us a call - 805-648-1739.

by Victoria Kindle Hodson, copyright 2011 by Willis & Hodson, Reflective Educational Perspectives LLC

www.solimaracademy.com - we customize learning programs to meet individual student needs

Join our newsletter list and get your free downloadable gift: our ebook, Midlife Crisis Begins in Kindergarten!