Educators Divided : Super Baby: Early Start in Schooling

According to the parents of Jason Selva, the 3-year-old can spell about 250 words, recognizes simple signs like “Stop” and “Police,” and counts with amazing accuracy.

“They’re just like little sponges at this age. They are so receptive that you just want to take advantage of it,” said his mother, Laura Selva.

Jason’s eagerness for learning, however, has sparked an ongoing debate within his Eastside family.

Some relatives have encouraged the Selvas to enroll Jason in a special preschool that stresses “academic preparation.” But Arturo Selva wants his son to acquire these skills naturally, without any formal instruction until he is older.

“Parents who push miss out on the fun of having children,” said Jason’s father, a 17-year teaching veteran of the Los Angeles School District. “The child becomes an object, a goal instead of a person.”

Educators Deeply Divided

The Selvas are not the only parents struggling to decide the proper age to begin a child’s formal schooling. Early childhood educators, who once generally agreed that it is never too early to start a child’s education, now are deeply divided over the age when children should start school and how much academic work these young students should receive.

And the division has grown even wider with the entry of politicians who--in an attempt to win the favor of upwardly mobile parents with high aspirations for their children--have started advocating mandatory pre-kindergarten classes for 4-year-olds and all-day, academically oriented kindergartens for 5-year-olds.

New York City Mayor Ed Koch, for instance, has promised that by the fall of 1986 every 4-year-old in the city will be enrolled in some kind of pre-kindergarten program. And in states throughout the country, some kindergartens now feature entrance tests, report cards and graduation requirements.

‘Super-Baby Nonsense’

While academic preschools and kindergartens may be popular with parents, many critics say these programs may push children too far, too fast.

“No one is saying that parents shouldn’t teach their children the alphabet, encourage them to count and explore the world,” said Louise Bates Ames, associate director of the Gesell Institute of Human Development, a New Haven, Conn., early childhood education research organization.

“But it’s all this super-baby nonsense--pushing children to do things and be things that they aren’t ready for. What many parents don’t understand is 4-year-olds aren’t ready for academic work, and the average 5-year-old isn’t ready for all-day school.”

For decades most American educators viewed preschool and kindergarten as a low-pressure, non-academic experience where children would acquire schoolroom skills, such as sitting quietly and answering questions in complete sentences.

By the time the “war on poverty” was launched in the mid-1960s, most early childhood educators believed that 3- and 4-year-olds should be involved in some type of preparation for kindergarten and elementary school. This helped launch Headstart, Homestart and what seemed to be an endless succession of early education, achievement-oriented programs.

By 1983, slightly more than 38% of the nation’s preschoolers were enrolled in some kind of early childhood education program, according to a study by the Carnegie Corp. of New York. This was almost double the number of toddlers enrolled in preschools in 1970.

A good pre-kindergarten program, according to early childhood educators, has several goals. First, it should help the child with simple tasks, such as holding a pencil or crayon correctly and drawing a recognizable figure. The classes should help reduce fears of speaking in a group and encourage expression in complete sentences. Math games should teach a child to count, and reading programs should help the child recognize his own name, the letters of the alphabet and the sounds of letters.

Boost Toward Success

A recent study of a Headstart program in Ypsilanti, Mich., supported the widely held perception that preschool classes can give children a boost toward success in their academic career.

The study, which spanned a 16-year period, contends that more Headstart graduates completed high school and entered college than did their peers who did not attend the preschool program. The study also claims that Headstart graduates hold higher paying jobs.

But Ames of the Gesell Institute said many middle-class parents have misapplied the results of the Ypsilanti Headstart program to their own children.

“It is a fundamental error to apply programs designed to help economically disadvantaged children to children from middle-class backgrounds,” Ames said. She added that successful students are produced because “parents become involved in their children’s academic careers. Encouraging this involvement isn’t necessary for middle-class parents because they are already involved.”

Ironically, researchers say, preschool attendance is often lowest among those students who would benefit the most. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, children from families with incomes of less than $10,000 a year have the lowest rates of attendance and children from families earning more than $20,000 a year have the highest.

Because of this discrepancy, several states have considered making pre-kindergarten attendance mandatory. “We see universal pre-kindergarten as an equity issue,” said Ann Eldridge, assistant to the New York commissioner of education. “Access to good programs is a problem for children who need this extra boost for a good academic start.”

Changes in Kindergarten

The debate over changes in kindergarten programs has been equally intense. Preschoolers now are likely to face a battery of challenges when they turn 5 and approach kindergarten. Those new challenges can include entrance tests, longer school days and, in some cases, a variety of graduation requirements.

From Diamond Bar to Fairfield, Conn., potential kindergarteners must pass screening tests to demonstrate abilities in reading and math before they are allowed to enter kindergarten. This fall, Santa Monica kindergarteners will join their young New Jersey counterparts attending school from 8:45 a.m. to 3 p.m., and they will concentrate on such subjects as math, reading readiness, science and social studies. The young students also will receive homework.

Defenders of the more rigorous approach say the screening tests are not a juvenile equivalent of college entrance exams.

“The screening process is not used as a gatekeeper. It is a way to find the appropriate program for the student,” said Larry Dougherty, assistant superintendent of the Greenwich, Conn., school district. “Screening also gives teachers a sense of how kids cope with school environment.”

Furthermore, supporters say many children are now ready for such challenges. “Many of the children who are coming to school today already have spent a full day at school and even longer in a day care situation,” said Carol Goren, one of the architects of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s all-day kindergarten program. “These kids are ready for a full school day.”

Traditional Game Playing

Educators such as Goren point out that these more academic kindergartens still contain the traditional game playing, painting and listening to the teacher read a story. The academic features have been added for those children who are prepared.

The parents of children who are not ready for a tougher kindergarten often are told to send their children to preschool in preparation for kindergarten.

But even though public schools in two-thirds of the states now offer some type of pre-kindergarten or academic kindergarten programs, many educators remain critical of the trend.

“Our data shows that one-third of children in kindergarten weren’t physically or psychologically ready to be in school,” said Ames of the Gesell Institute. “A lot of children who are labeled as being learning disabled are actually just a grade ahead of where they should be.”

Added Carol Seefeldt, an education professor at the University of Maryland: “The children’s garden has become a pressure cooker. If the pressures for early achievement have changed, if the world around them has changed, they have not. There is no way to speed up the way they grow, develop and learn.”