DEY endorses excellent, intentional literacy experiences in kindergarten

Today’s post is written by DEY’s Senior Adviser Nancy Carlsson-Paige. She just posted the comment below on Diane Ravitch’s blog, to help clarify our message in the report Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Much to Lose and Little to Gain.

When we issued our report Reading Instruction in Kindergarten, we had a concern that our main message might be misunderstood.  That message is that research does not support the Common Core requirement that all children must read with purpose and understanding by the end of the kindergarten year.  But we did not want this message to be interpreted to mean that children should just play in kindergarten and that maturity would take care of skill development.  We want to make clear that we do support providing children with an excellent, intentional early literacy curriculum.  For this reason, we included two sections in our report that specifically describe what such a curriculum should look like.  However, it seems, based on the blog comments by Bill Honig, that the full message of our report has been misunderstood, despite our efforts.

First and most important, Mr. Honig states that we should teach foundation skills for reading in kindergarten and we entirely agree.  But building foundation skills and expecting children to read with purpose and understanding are not the same thing.

Children build a strong base for learning to read and write in kindergarten through the many activities good teachers present.  In addition to oral language experiences such as story telling and story acting, and opportunities for using symbols with a variety of materials, teachers provide myriad opportunities for specifically engaging children with print. Teachers read big books, poems and charts using pointers and props that isolate letters.  Children are encouraged every day to draw and write with invented and conventional spellings.  Teachers take dictation from children and help them write their own stories. In organic and meaningful ways, teachers use print throughout the day to label block structures, cubbies, and interest areas, write recipes, and transcribe the children’s stories.  They make charts for attendance and classroom jobs and review these daily with children.  Teachers understand the developmental progressions in early reading and writing and encourage skill development based on each child’s level of mastery.  This ensures that the skills children learn develop a solid and meaningful foundation for making sense of print.

The Common Core standard requiring children to read in kindergarten has resulted in an erosion of excellent early literacy experiences such as those just described.  Many kindergarten teachers are now resorting to inappropriate didactic methods of instruction in order to meet the requirement of this Common Core standard.  Every contributor to the discussion on this blog shares the same goal: to ensure that every young child learn to read and achieve success in school.  Our grave concern is that the Common Core standards for kindergarten are harming and not helping us reach this goal.