As we near enrollment each year our conversations with parents center around plans for their children’s next school year and, for some, that means making the decision of when they should move on to the academic environment of elementary school- either Pre-K, Kindergarten, or First Grade. We are tremendously grateful for the opportunity to work in partnership with parents on this matter, and often take this time, then, to share some articles and research to help inform their decisions.
I recently had a conversation with a parent who was wondering about how her child will meet the reading and writing needs of elementary school. She was a bit worried about the fact that many of their peers would already be “reading” and did I think that her child would have any problems “catching up”.
Whenever I answer to this sort of inquiry, I consider and communicate about two main points. First, where is their child in terms of physiologically readiness? Many of our parents are familiar with the observations and assessments that we use at Rose Rock to determine this aspect of readiness. Behavioral-Developmental pediatrician, Dr. Susan R. Johnson has a fabulous gathering of articles about the importance of developmental milestones that we can observe in children to determine academic readiness and what drastic impediments can develop when early learning is pushed.
Teaching Our Children to Read, Write, and Spell is an article we have shared previously that I encourage parents to review. She begins the article, “There is a widely held belief that if we just start teaching children to read, write and spell in preschool, they will become better at these skills by the time they reach the first and second grades. This, however, is false. The truth is that children should be taught to read, write and spell only when their neurological pathways for doing so have fully formed. ”
A few of the major milestones that demonstrate this level of neurological development include:
- balancing on one foot for 10 seconds with eyes closed
- walking on a balance beam without looking down
- skipping
- reproducing geometric shapes and forms that will be necessary for the formation of letters and numbers
- paying attention and sitting still in a chair for at least 20 minutes
Dr. Johnson says “If children can’t do these tasks easily, their vestibular and proprioceptive (sensory-motor) neural systems are not yet well-integrated, and chances are they will have difficulty sitting still, listening, focusing their eyes, focusing their attention, and remembering letters and numbers in the classroom.”
The second point I discuss is the capacities that are developed here at Rose Rock. When speaking to this particular parent I confirmed that there are explicitly taught skills that her child has not been exposed to yet. Yes, her peers may be “reading”, in other words, reading very short sentences out of 10 pages books that were very repetitive and absent of a true story line and had been read to and with them over and over again. They would not be comprehending much, if anything yet because they haven’t developed the capacity. Her child, on the other hand, would be entering school with a burgeoning capacity for comprehension.
Her child is currently sitting through 10-15 minute long stories that are building upon a previous story within a series, with a fairly complex story line and repeated characters who are developing throughout the series. I have not repeated any of these stories, and yet her child is able to recall what has happened in previous stories, answer questions about those stories, and predict what may happen in future stories. Her peers in elementary school will not be doing developing this capacity for understanding complex stories, and she will be quickly catching up to the explicit skills of reading sight words and handwriting. This is not a unique situation either. Every child in our care comes to this capacity when they are allowed to develop fully in their own time.
Barbara Sokolov, who has taught in public and Waldorf schools, discusses this content in relation to her experiences in both of these school settings in her article, There is More to Reading than Meets the Eye. She states, “Besides the superficial process of decoding words on a page, there is a corresponding inner activity that must be cultivated for true reading to occur. Waldorf teachers call it “living into the story.” When a child is living into a story, she forms imaginative inner pictures in response to the words. Having the ability to form mental images, to understand, gives meaning to the process of reading. Without this ability, a child may well be able to decode the words on a page, but he will remain functionally illiterate.”
Lastly, one of the most rewarding parts of our job is experience when children receive the gift of turning six years old at Rose Rock and become the leaders of their classes. They are flourishing and leading with mastery and confidence in their last year at Rose Rock before becoming one of the young ones again in elementary school. A few years ago we wrote about this, too, in a blog post titled A year of Mastery and Confidence. In this post we share an article from Standford Graduate School of Education, Study finds improved self-regulation in Kindergartners Who Wait a Year to Enroll.
It really is a beautiful process to see the children develop, mature, and flourish in our care as they become ready for elementary school and it’s academic demands. Our hope in this partnership is that in sharing our experiences and knowledge, and holding regular conversations with parents that we are able to help them determine the best path for their child’s development.
Susan R. Johnson, MD, FAAP, Teaching Our Children to Read, Write and Spell, Pathways to Family Wellness, October 2017
http://pathwaystofamilywellness.org/Family-Life/teaching-our-children-to-write-read-a-spell.html
Barbara Sokolov, There is More to Reading than Meets the Eye, Renewal: A Journal for Waldorf Education, Vol. 9 #1, Spring 2000
May Wong, Study Finds Improved Self-Regulation in Kindergarteners Who Wait a Year, Stanford Graduate School of Education, October 2015
https://ed.stanford.edu/news/stanford-gse-research-finds-strong-evidence-mental-health-benefits-delaying-kindergarten