The Most Important Attribute of Kindergarten and Preschool Programs

In the Pacific NW it is time to register children for next year's preschool and kindergarten classes.  In the U.S. the link between students' standardized test scores and school rankings has caused an alarming, developmentally inappropriate "push down" of early academics into kindergarten and further into preschool. However, evidence shows a play based program will lay a strong foundation for a successful academic career.

For young children "play" and "learn" are synonymous and intertwined.  According to the National Association For The Education of Young Children (NAEYC), "Kindergarten is a time of change, challenge and opportunity.  In many ways, kindergarten classrooms unfortunately bow to the pressures and look more like a primary classroom than a kindergarten".  http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/position%20statement%20Web.pdf

According to NAEYC there is considerable research that supports the Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) of using a variety of play based teaching strategies for the education of kindergarten children such as;

• soci0-dramatic play for self-regulation

• block building and board games for mathematics

• singing and playing rhyming games for phonemic awareness (the ability to work with individual sounds in words, a foundation for reading)

• small group story book reading with opportunities to talk about what is read for learning vocabulary and background knowledge

• while playing restaurant or describing their drawings or doing their own writing children gain literacy skills

 Social, moral and emotional development is also facilitated through play and is hugely important to all areas of academics and life.

In, "Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Curriculum and Development in Early Education" Carol Gestwicki wrote,  "Children aren't just pitchers to be filled with knowledge.  They must be active participants in constructing their own knowledge, play is the context for this active learning. It is through play that children literally teach themselves". http://college.cengage.com/education/course360/child_dev_and_curr_111194220X/gestwicki85549_1111185549_02.02_chapter02.pdf

Intellectually 5 and 6 year olds have a big shift in development, that form the basis for their approach to life long learning, in these areas: 

• personal responsibility

• self-direction

• logical thinking

Parents of very bright children often mistakenly assume their child needs more than a play based program.  Robin Schader Ph.D., parent resource advisor for the National Association for Gifted Children said, "When it's fun and playful, that's when it gets into your head.  Neuroscience research confirms it is pleasure that makes our brains want to repeat and remember an activity, and it's that kind of natural repetition that fuels learning".  This helps explain why play is how children learn best.

A new play based Kindergarten program at Woodland Park Cooperative is now registering children for Fall 2015.  Only a few spots are left.  For more information, here is a link to the program  http://woodlandparkcoop.com

For further reading on this topic and ideal programs see Part 1 and then Part 2 of Teacher Tom's blog, "A Great Teacher is A Great Artist".   
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/a-great-teacher-is-great-artist-part-
two.html

Play based cooperative preschools in the Seattle area can be found here;
http://coops.northseattle.edu