It’s not easy to figure out what is really going on in a pre-school classroom. It might look like children are simply sitting on the floor, playing, cooking or running around in circles, the way toddlers will sometimes do. This may be one reason why so few journalists bother to venture into early childhood classrooms. And that’s too bad, because it can be richly rewarding. EarlyStories was reminded of this while reading Linda Borg’s story in The Providence Journal this week.
In a high quality pre-k, every actiitity has a purpose
Borg visited a program known as Ready to Learn, an early childhood initiative in four cities that is part of an experiment to see if what kind of edge pre-kindergarten classrooms provide once students begin their usual academic careers. They are learning “the skills they need to succeed in kindergarten, learning how to listen, to sit still and to take turns. They are also learning the prerequisites of reading: how to hold a book, read from left to right and connect letters with specific sounds,” the story notes.
What would happen if children across the U.S. had a similar opportunity? And how can you compare those who have attended such programs with those who have not? In this case, children were chosen by lottery, and the gains they make will be measured by the National Institute for Early Education Research. The findings will be available later this summer, and it will be exciting to see what they reveal — and how they influence the availability of high quality early childhoood programs.
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at 10:12 am
Those of us interested in high quality early childhood experiences for children also celebrate the quality in Alabama’s voluntary preK program. Identified for three straight years as meeting all 10 qualifiers for high-quality early childhood experiences, the children participating in those classrooms are having similar rich experiences to those you have seen. Our challenge is to increase the number of classrooms (we only serve between 4-5% of our children). Does that mean that only 4% of AL children are having high quality experiences? No, there are profit-based, non-profit, Head Start, at home and home-based situations where the same positive things are happening. However, many more need to be reached. Thanks for talking about this important issue. It would help if we had a common language for readiness and I’m working on that.
at 1:12 pm
It may seem as though the children are just playing but actually they are learning at the same time.