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Elementary Choices
| Article
# : |
11905 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1987 |
2,165 Words |
| Author
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Kathleen Prentice
Kathleen Prentice is a free-lance writer whose articles appear
in the Detroit Free Press. |
Jacob's kindergarten days are filled with finger paints, picture books, building blocks, rhythm instruments, activity centers and water play.
Five-year-old Amy works with computers and textbooks. She matches shapes and fills in missing letters on worksheets. And she prints the alphabet and memorizes addition facts.
Many parents aren't sure which works better: a developmental kindergarten program with a curriculum of prereading, premath, socialization, and thinking skills, or an academic approach, with children memorizing words and facts. Across the country, kindergarten is at the center of a controversy that is as basic as the alphabet: How do young children learn best?
While learning theories and their consequent curricula are topics for debate, experts agree that kindergarten is changing. "We live in a changed world," says Dr. Barbara Bowman of the Erikson Institute in Chicago. "Our expectation of schools has changed and our family life has changed. There are more children in preschool than ever before. Also, we have vastly increased our knowledge of child development and how children learn, so we are reviewing traditional practices."
These changes focus upon five-year-olds who have already been in day-care and nursery-school programs for years before they enter elementary school, and have experienced a spectrum of programs.
Creative learning experience
... (2000 of 13634 Characters)
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