(Early reading or book eating?)
A story in The Sun about a class of pre-kindergarten students in Oklahoma who are “already reading,” caught my eye this week, in part because I’m always on the look out for ways in which we are pressuring children to hurry up and master skills.
Turns out, while some of these four-year-olds are finishing beginner books, most are simply memorizing a sentence or two, according to the article.The story is sweet, and filled with quotes praising the administrators and teachers for being supportive and creative and for pushing the students. What it doesn’t do is examine a longstanding debate about the appropriate age to teach reading.
There are plenty of people who do not believe formal learning should start for children until they are seven, including Lilian Katz,, a professor of education at Illinois University
Katz last year addressed an international conference on nursery school at Oxford University in England, and told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian that teaching children to read and write too early can dent their interest in books later on.
In Sweden, children do not star formal instruction until six or seven. I know one thing from my own experience. For the first few years, any book I put in front of my children ended up in the same place — their mouth. I do think the issue how reading is taught, what books are introduced and what the right age to get kids started is a fascinating one, especially at a time when public school children are taking standardized tests earlier — and more often.
More news
Alternative routes to teaching become more popular despite lack of evidence
Do new exams produce better teachers? States act while educators debate
INGLEWOOD, Calif.—In the back of a tenth-grade geometry classroom on a recent morning at Washington Preparatory High School, nine miles southeast of Los Angeles, Landon Yurica and Alycia Jones bent over the papers in front of them. At 23 and 24, respectively, the two could almost blend in as students as they tried the assignment [...]
California struggles to assess teacher training programs
NORTHRIDGE, Calif.— It took less than a minute for Mario Martinez to finish the first six questions of the algebra exam that his professor, Ivan Cheng, had just handed to him. The high school-level test was supposed to be a good example of an exam, so that the graduate students in Cheng’s math methods course [...]
Chicago parent on school closings: “If you’re not teaching children…it needs closing”
NORTHRIDGE, Calif.—On a recent afternoon at California State University, Northridge, Nancy Prosenjak was attempting to quiet the graduate students spread out across conference tables in the back of her classroom. She was still missing nearly a third of the class, but she was eager to debrief with her students about their first day of student [...]
Chicago parent on school closings: “I cry a lot…Nobody wants their school closed.”The decision to close more than 50 struggling schools in Chicago has fueled outrage among many parents and teachers. But others see the strategy as a way to improve education for the city’s most vulnerable students. Patricia Hunter, 28, a stay-at-home mom, sends her daughter Danielle to Dulles School of Excellence on the South Side. [...]
California’s rocky path to prosperityThe Chicago school system plans to shutter 54 schools next year to save money and improve academics. Among them is Lafayette Elementary in Humboldt Park on the West Side of the city, a school with a treasured school orchestra and a program for autistic children. Valerie Nelson, 43, is a home health care worker who [...]
Unless California helps low-income parents learn basic skills, train for jobs and pursue higher education, the state’s prosperity is at risk, concludes Working Hard, Left Behind. The Campaign for College Opportunity, the Women’s Foundation of California and Working Poor Families project collaborated on the report. California leads the nation in low-income working adults and in [...]
