Early learner expert tied to Hollywood takes on Common Core
(Mass.) Already under fire for its ties to the Obama administration and for unsettling teacher unions – the Common Core has a new adversary, actor Matt Damon’s mom.
Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an author and a professor emeritus in education at Lesley University – as well as the mother of the Hollywood star – is also founder of an early learning advocacy group, Defending the Early Years.
A new white paper out this month from the Boston-based non-profit takes issue with a requirement in the Common Core State Standards that kindergarteners should be reading before moving on to the first grade.
The paper, co-written by Carlsson-Paige with the group’s executive director Geralyn McLaughlin Joan Almon, makes several key points:
- Many children are not developmentally ready to read in kindergarten, yet the Common Core State Standards require them to do just that. This is leading to inappropriate classroom practices.
- No research documents long-term gains from learning to read in kindergarten.
- Research shows greater gains from play- based programs than from preschools and kindergartens with a more academic focus.
- Children learn through playful, hands-on experiences with materials, the natural world, and engaging, caring adults.
Carlsson-Paige argues that pushing young learners into reading before they are ready can be detrimental over the long term.
“If you present children with information that’s too disparate from what they know then they give up or feel confused, or cry, or get turned off,” she said in a recent interview with KQED television of San Francisco.
“Part of the art of teaching is to understand where a child is in developing concepts and then be able to present information in ways that are new and interesting, but will cause a little bit of struggle on the part of the child to try to understand them,” she said.
Defending the Early Years was founded in 2012 “to take action on policies that affect the education of young children,” according to its website. Among the issues of concern are appropriate practices in early childhood classrooms and the impact of “current reforms” on what they consider to be appropriate practices.
The report notes that the Common Core sets out more than 90 standards that kindergarteners are expected to meet before moving on to the first grade. The key literacy standard requires that kindergarteners should “read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.”
Authors of the paper said that not only is there no research supporting this goal but the findings of many studies contradict the objective.
They note the work of researcher and educator Mercedes Schneider, who has documented “the lightning-quick writing” of the Common Core and the lack of evidence that all kindergarteners need to learn to read.
“If they [the writers of the CCSS] were interested in research they would have started with kindergarten and piloted the standards for a few years and then made adjustments based on their research — and built slowly from there,” Schneider is quoted saying.
“There is absolutely no evidence that developmental stages were considered,” he said. “That is a major problem across the standards and especially for the youngest grades. Anyone who has a cursory knowledge of development knows that it is not linear and that children do not all develop at the same rate — there is a span.”
A better approach, the researchers said, is to allow children to participate in a traditional play-based program from preschool through kindergarten.
“As they construct their ideas through play and hands-on activities that make sense to them, children’s knowledge builds in a gradual progression that is solid and unshakable,” they said.
“Being able to read well will also depend on the strength of a child’s oral language development. Active, play-based experiences in the early years foster strong oral language in children. As children engage in active learning experiences and play, they are talking and listening all the time.”Early learner expert tied to Hollywood takes on Common Core :: SI&A Cabinet Report :: The Essential Resource for Superintendents and the Cabinet:
