Federal-education policy has influenced the time kindergarten teachers devote to the development of literacy skills compared with other subjects, a researcher from the University of Virginia said Friday.
Daphna Bassok, an assistant professor in education policy at the Curry School of Education, shared results of a recent study on the changing nature of kindergarten, “Is kindergarten the new first grade?”
She and a colleague learned that kindergarten teachers reported a 25 percent increase in the time spent on literacy skills between 1998 and 2006, but no change in the time spent on math and decreases in the time spent on art, music, science and social studies.
Bassok’s talk drew an audience of 50 people, including faculty members and graduate students from the UA Department of Education Reform, at the Graduate Education Building at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
Bassok said questions remain about the effect a heavy focus on academics has on children. While she doesn’t want kindergarten classrooms that are all playtime and no academics, she is concerned about the way 5- and 6-yearolds are being taught.
“It’s creating potentially stressful environments for kids,” Bassok said.
Bassok said she hopes to discourage teaching that involves a teacher mostly talking to students and instead encourages teaching that incorporates movement and play into lessons on spelling, sentences and stories.
Articles, including in Newsweek and The Washington Post, have suggested that kindergarten has shifted to a more academic focus, and Bassok and another University of Virginia researcher, Anna Rorem, wanted to find out if that perception was true.
They analyzed data collected from large, nationally representative studies of kindergarteners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies in 1998 and 2006 by the National Center for Education Statistics. The 1998 study included surveys of 3,000 kindergarten teachers, and the 2006 study included surveys of 5,000 kindergarten teachers.
The 1998 surveys were taken prior to the implementation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush. The 2006 surveys were taken after the No Child Left Behind Act was in place.
The federal act required states to administer statewide, standardized tests in literacy and math for students in the third- through eighth-grades and once during high school. The act set a goal for 100 percent proficiency in 2014, though more than 40 states, including Arkansas, have received waivers from having to meet the 100 percent proficiency goal.
The surveys showed a change in how teachers spent their time after implementation of the law, Bassok said.
Kindergarten teachers in 1998 reported spending an average of 328 minutes per week on reading and writing skills, while kindergarten teachers in 2006 reported spending 86 more minutes, an average of 414 minutes per week, on reading and writing skills, Bassok said.
The time kindergarten teachers reported spending on social studies and science, however, dropped from 148 minutes per week in 1998 to 103 minutes per week in 2006, Bassok said. The time devoted to art and music also fell from 139 minutes per week in 1998 to 112 minutes per week in 2006.
The data showed no change in the time spent on math skills, with teachers reporting spending about 200 minutes per week on math in 1998 and in 2006, she said.
Attitudes about teaching reading in kindergarten also have changed, with survey responses showing a 34 percent increase in the teachers who thought children should learn to read in kindergarten, Bassok said. In 1998, 31 percent of the teachers surveyed thought children should learn to read in kindergarten, compared with 65 percent of the teachers surveyed in 2006.
Other policy changes, including expanded access to preschool programs, could have influenced the shift, Bassok said. Kindergarten teachers could have made changes to their instruction in response to greater numbers of children entering kindergarten already knowing most of the alphabet and letter sounds, she said.
As a special-education teacher in middle and high schools in California, UA doctoral student Sivan Tuchman said she is concerned about students graduating with enough skills to live independently so they will not have to rely on social services. Bassok’s research indicates a greater focus on academics, and Tuchman said that could affect the amount of explicit instruction students receive regarding nonacademic skills, such as the ability to get along with others.
Students need explicit instruction on nonacademic skills, just like they do in academic subjects, said Tuchman, who is studying in the Department of Education Reform. Combining playtime with academics would help children learn to interact with their peers.
“There is the potential to develop curricula that both enables us to meet these standards but keeps kids engaged and teaches them some of these other skills,” Tuchman said.
The work of Bassok and her colleague helps document changes that occurred because of pressure from No Child Left Behind for students to achieve proficiency, said Jay Greene, head of the Department of Education Reform.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/26/2014