I am often asked for preschool and kindergarten curriculum recommendations by well-meaning parents. My answer is always the same: none. Preschoolers and kindergarteners don't need formal sit-down work. There is no long-term advantage. What they do need is need time to play, and explore, and to be creative.
I understand why many parents jump the gun on formal learning. They just want to give their kids the best start in life, but earlier isn't always better. Pushing academic skills before a child is developmentally ready causes frustration and resentment, often leading children to hate learning.
The early school years are best spent focused on play and outdoor exploration. Play provides the perfect environment for developing important pre-reading and pre-writing skills. These skills include things like core body strength, hand and finger strength, visual perception, object manipulation, and gross and fine motor skills. And these skills provide an important foundation on which to build later academic skills. A child with poor fine motor skills will have a difficult time learning to properly grasp a pencil and form letters. A child with poor visual perception skills will have trouble interpreting letters and numbers when learning to read. It is important that kids get ample time to develop these foundational skills before moving on to formal academics.
Studies show that while children in academic kindergarten programs do score slightly higher on immediate academic tests than children in play-based programs, that advantage is quickly lost. Within just a few years, many children subjected to academic kindergarten programs actually begin to perform worse academically than their play-based kindergarten counterparts. There is also evidence that early academic training has detrimental effects on social and emotional development. You can read more about the evidence here: Psychology Today: Early Academic Training Produces Long-term Harm by Peter Gray Ph.D.
When kids aren't given enough time to develop those important pre-writing and pre-reading skills, they are at risk of struggling academically later. It's hard to build fluent skills on a shaky foundation.
If you want to introduce some academic learning in preschool or kindergarten that's fine, just be sure to do it in a developmentally appropriate way. Pick out and read books together, count stairs as you climb them or toys as you clean up, sing alphabet and phonics songs, talk about things you see and encounter during your day, take nature walks, do puzzles, color pictures. Add some activities that strengthen pre-writing and pre-reading skills to your day, like building with blocks or Legos, finger painting, drawing, peeling and placing stickers, playing with clay or playdough, or threading beads. These activities may not always seem like learning activities to us adults, but they are perfect for strengthening those foundational skills kids need before jumping into formal academics.
Also, keep in mind that there are other skills as important or even more important than academics. Self-care, making friends, reading social cues, being kind, riding a bike- these are all important things to learn, and many of them can be achieved through play.
As a society we need to get out of the mindset that play and learning are two separate things. Play IS learning.
If you enjoyed this post, check out:
Learning to Read Is Not a Race
What Homeschooling Looks Like For Us: the Preschool and Kindergarten Years
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