Episode 66: Play, Persistence, and Preschool — A Balanced Approach to Early Learning

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Foreign welcome to another episode of K12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr. Kim Fields, former corporate manager turned educational researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the microdiscriminations that I faced as an African American mom raising my two kids who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. If you're looking to find out more about current information and issues in education that could affect you or your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K12 education trends and topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing whether the focus on academics in preschool is too much too soon. Preschool, especially for children of color, is critical for academic development and preparation before entering kindergarten. The quality of the preschool as well as the quality of preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers and first grade teachers is vital. The focus on academics, however, needs to be balanced with a whole child approach that attends to the development of social emotional skills as well as the importance of play. I highlight the research on both the pros and cons for academic focused program preschools. I also provide characteristics of what constitutes a high quality preschool on this episode. Let's get started. The question is whether academic preschools are too much too soon. Let's take a look at the Pros first. A 2017 study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley Department, Department of Education and Public Policy found that the preschools that focused on academics provided substantial gains for black students from low income families as well as to students from middle class families. It found these gains for students after attending an academic oriented preschool for just nine months. The study found that the average child in America probably gains about six to eight weeks in terms of cognitive growth from these academic oriented pre Ks, but the average African American youngster gains about four months in these academically intense classrooms. An academic orientated preschool is one where teachers focus on classroom activities that involve oral language, pre literacy and math skills. Games are typically used to teach academic concepts. The benefits of attending a preschool that focused on academics were noted throughout kindergarten. The study also concluded that the amount of time spent in preschool was important. It wasn't just how long a student had been attending preschool, but it also involved the amount of time spent in in preschool each week that mattered. Children who began attending preschool between the ages of 2 and 3 received more benefits than students who started attending at age 4. African American children received substantial benefits from attending a full day program classified as one that met for at least 20 hours per week. Black students were more likely to enroll in preschools focused on academics. Around 30% of black children in this study attended federal Head Start, which the researchers found to have the most academically oriented programs. The study also found that while significant cognitive benefits were noted for black students, those gains did not translate to greater social development skills. And as determined by their parents, high quality preschool could help children of all backgrounds enter kindergarten on a level playing field. Universal high quality preschool could reduce the achievement gap in kindergarten intrigue, especially in math, by 78% for Hispanic students and 45% for African American students. The gap in reading would be virtually eliminated for both groups, according to an analysis of by the National Institutes for Early Education Research. Students from low income families would also close the gap with higher income families by 27% in math and by 41% in reading. Preschool is generally good at offering short term academic gains for children, but a program that provided services starting at presence school and going through the third grade showed benefits for children that boosted their college attendance rates years later. In a study of 1,000 children who attended the Chicago Child Parent Centers as preschoolers completed more years of education than a control group of children and those effects were amplified the longer they remained in the program. This particular program is seen as a school reform model that focuses on professional development of teachers and principals as well as the curriculum that is aligned from preschool to third grade. Children in the program have smaller class sizes, an intensive focus on reading and math, and hands on learning opportunities. Parents were taught skill building strategies and were connected with social services and other programs and if they wanted to continue their own education. Although this program is still in existence, although not nationwide, it looks more like today's publicly funded preschool programs with one caveat. Its emphasis on parent involvement, extracurricular programs and early grades may help boost the beneficial effects of early education after students start school. Low income students who participated in both math focused preschool curriculum and extracurricular math clubs during the first year of school closed almost 30% of the math achievement gap between them and their wealthier peers by the end of kindergarten, according to a 2018 study. This shrinkage of the math achievement gap may have been due to the wrap up quote curriculum called Building Blocks where students in the control group received three times as much math content compared to a typical preschool program in which children receive as little as an hour of math instruction per week. The High Fives Extracurricular Clubs were small math clubs that provided help before and after school or at lunch in which four or five students played math games and hands on activities with the teacher. Researchers in the study plan to continue to follow the students through third grade to ascertain whether supplemental clubs can continue to bolster the benefits of preschool, especially for low income children. It could take decades or more for the benefits of early childhood education to come into focus. However, a new study in the journal child development in 2022 suggests that preschool may help prepare students for better academic engagement in high school. This study suggests that state supported programs may have more stable benefits than Head Start in the long run. Overall, students showed no significant differences in cumulative grade point averages or scores on the ACT or SAT college placement exams receiving regardless of whether they participated in preschool. There were two exceptions to this Native American students performed better in English and English arts and language arts on college placement exams and Hispanic students had higher GPAs if they attended preschool. Additionally, children of color who attended preschool were particularly likely to be more engaged in school later on.

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Here's what to look for in a high quality preschool program. The 10 elements include comprehensive early learning standards and curricula appropriate assessments that measure a child's academic, social, emotional and physical progress professional knowledge and skills among teachers as well as staff ongoing support for teachers support for diverse learners including English language learners and special needs students meaningful family engagement sufficient time in the classroom small class sizes with low student to teacher ratios comprehensive program assessments and quality rating and improvement systems. Basically, this means that well trained teachers who get the support they need to be their best for their students. Also, programs that engage families and provide full day classes that have a clear structure for review and improvement are also ideal. Now let's flip the switch and look at the argument against academic preschools. Although several studies show that academic progress of children who attend preschool start kindergarten with a measurable advantage over their peers who did not enroll in preschool. By the time both groups of children reach the third grade, the students often are academically indistinguishable from one another. This has led to the concept of early education fade out. The key to having a lasting effect of the positive benefits from attending preschool is having early childhood programs that are of high quality and that are not seen as a one shot inoculation that will sustain children throughout their academic careers. Many researchers have argued that preschool fade out occurs because children enrolled in elementary schools that aren't prepared to sustain their academic gains. Even if students were enrolled in schools that have robust transition practices between preschool and kindergarten, such as parent orientations and teacher visits to students homes or or whether schools exposed kindergarten students to advanced math and reading content, or whether kindergartners were in classrooms of fewer than 20 students, none of those elementary program characteristics made a difference in how quickly the benefits of preschool faded out for students. What does seem to make a difference is serious and sustained attention to preschool curriculum and to the quality of teachers. The fact of the matter is that only a small fraction of children in this 2018 study had high quality experiences all the way from infancy to elementary school. Those that did have long term high quality education performed measurably better on tests of literacy and math compared to children whose elementary school classrooms were of moderate or poor quality. High quality child care, preschool, and elementary school experiences all matter. One of the problems with early childhood education's current focus is that it neglects the role of play and learning. Preschools should devote more time to cultivating a child's imagination and instead of focusing on test preparation and recall of numbers and letters, preschool children are often underestimated for their emotional strength, their capacities for friendships, for problem solving, and full creativity. All children do not need preschool because there are different kinds of environments that can be very educational and very productive and meaningful. The reality is that most adults in this country go to work and when they are at work their children need childcare. It's important that the child care be high quality. Quality relationships are important for learning and many times children often don't have a chance to play in mixed age groups. Play is very important in a learning environment and a productive learning environment involves learning through through play. Children have a great capacity to learn from each other and from active engagement in the world, including from friendships and relationships with family. Child development seems to be at odds with what's going on in most preschool classrooms, so it's critical to take a deeper look at the science of learning. As preschools focus more on academics, there's a concern that social and emotional learning or or SEL is taking a backseat. How do preschools best ensure that children are learning to get along with others, to handle their emotions, to focus on specific tasks and persist despite facing challenges? It's not really an either or proposition. The skill sets are intertwined. The programs that seem to be the most successful for children are those that are tracking both social emotional and cognitive academic learning at the same time. There's a balance to maintain. Too much emphasis on academics can actually hamper SEL by causing children to think negatively about school. However, too much free play can can also have negative effects. Guided play or playful learning may be just the key to providing SEL and academics. Teachers should be very strategic in choosing activities that support learning in both domains. Several characteristics of an effective social emotional learning preschool program include a focus on students using the proper words to convey their feelings, how to share methods to teach children how to make friends, and how to keep going when things get tough. Another key characteristic of an effective SEL preschool program is a focus on the quality of the child teacher interactions as well as parental involvement. Social emotional learning leads to students short and long term success because students with these skills are more likely to graduate from high school and find productive employment. Kindergarten teachers also rank SEL skills as necessary because the child's ability to follow directions is a critical kindergarten readiness skill. These skills help to facilitate a child's capacity to manage themselves in the classroom environment and feel comfortable and successful there. The focus on building cognitive skills wrapped with social emotional learning is considered a whole child approach to learning. A recent study found that young children scored higher on tests of school readiness when they got supplemental instruction using curricula designed to build their literacy and math skills compared to receiving only instruction through a broader whole child approach. Therein lies the debate about what type of instructional approach is best for young children. Two of the more popular whole child programs are Creative Curriculum and High Scope, both of which are used by two thirds of head starts from providers. Both curricula seem to focus on hands on investigation by children, which are meant to bolster creativity, cognitive and critical thinking skills as well as active participatory learning. Whole child curricula that were examined as part of this study seem to be too general for teachers to implement very well because it involved multiple skills including watching, observing, scaffolding at every conceivable opportunity. Proponents of the content focused programs indicated that their programs also supported whole child development through guided play. Many research bodies rely on the Programs for International Students Assessment or pisa, which is a test of reading, math and science that's used to create an international ranking of students. Academic Performance Low income and minority children are on average enrolled in lower quality preschool classrooms than their higher income and white peers. This brings into question whether publicly funded preschools really do help narrow the achievement gap. There seems to be quality gaps between preschool classrooms that are about the same size as the large race and income related achievement gaps that students experience when they first enter kindergarten. These quality gaps varied considerably by state. Low income, black, Hispanic and non English speaking children, children were slightly less likely to engage in free choice activities in preschool. They were more likely to work individually on activities like worksheets. Minority students from low income families were also more likely than their counterparts to have teachers with adult centered and authoritarian beliefs about child rearing. Although teaching quality is key for addressing the academic needs of minority students, students high quality teachers are less likely to work at the highest needs Schools to cause long lasting benefits for children, an intervention must target skills, capacities, behaviors or beliefs with these three characteristics. One they must be malleable or capable of being changed by the educator or the school 2 they must be fundamental to a long term goal. These types of interventions are ones that change a student's basic understanding of number sets in math, for example, or their mindset about intelligence and can be applied in many contexts over time since they will be needed to build other skills and three they must not be something that the student would typically develop on their own. Just as interventions to boost some kind of knowledge or capacity are beneficial and the outcomes tend to fade over time, it's worth noting that the harm caused by bad experiences tends to fade over time as well. An important question to consider is how states ensure children make a smooth transition from preschool to kindergarten. A 2018 report by the Education Commission of States which tracks policies related to education indicated that without systems in place to ensure smooth transitions from preschool to kindergarten, children can suffer socially and academically. Early childhood education now extends from birth to eight years old, as opposed to the earlier notion that it was birthed to age five. And although the transition from preschool to kindergarten is important, only about six states address this transition in statute or state law, and only 14, including the district of Columbia, do so by a rule mandated by ESTATES Board of Education. Schools are attempting to make this transition easier by putting stronger teachers in kindergarten since this is such a key year. Three states that were early adopters of recognizing the critical transition from preschool to kindergarten were California, Massachusetts and West Virginia. In 2010, a law passed in California created the nation's only transitional kindergarten program, a two year program that was offered for students who turned five between September 2nd and December 2nd and provided a modified kindergarten curriculum, which became part of the state's K12 system. The plans in Massachusetts and West Virginia focused a lot on engaging teachers at the preschool level and kindergarten level through the sharing of information about children and meeting to discuss how to help the transition. The plans also called for engagement with parents so that they know what to expect at the next level and feel comfortable with the transition. The report addressed alignment between preschool and the early elementary years, and it also notes that alignment across standards, curricula, instruction and assessments can lower the chance that learning gains made in preschool will fade out during the elementary school years. Here are some things to consider for you regarding this topic. Parents tend to be pretty satisfied most of the time with their child's preschool, even when independent evaluators get of those same preschool's low marks on measures such as the quality of classroom instruction and how much children are learning. Some of the factors that go into parent decision making about choosing a preschool involve the center's affordability, its closeness to home, its hours of operation, and whether it serves meals. Parents might be happier with with centers that offer these types of conveniences, but these characteristics may not relate strongly to the parents overall satisfaction with their child's preschool. Sometimes it's hard for families to evaluate the quality of programs where they've enrolled their children. A preschool rating tool called the Early Childhood Rating Scale can be used to rate your child's preschool. Roughly 88% of parents rated their child's care as very good to excellent. Although a 2016 evaluation indicated that 87% of publicly funded preschool classrooms have levels of instructional support that are too low to promote school readiness. It's important for you to visit more than one center so that you can make the best decision regardless regarding your child's preschool before enrolling them in one. Here are this episode's takeaways. After weighing the evidence presented by numerous research studies, the verdict is in There are more benefits to children going to academic focused preschools than there are detriments, especially for children of color. The quality of teaching in preschools needs to also exist when a child enters kindergarten. It turns out that students who attend a state funded school and subsequently had a highly rated first grade teacher performed better than children who had highly rated teachers but did not attend state supported preschool. As preschools focus more on academics, there is concern that the social and emotional learning is taking a backseat. How do preschools best ensure that children are learning to get along with others, handle their emotions, focus on a specific task, and persist despite facing challenges? It's not really an either or proposition. The skills are intertwined. The programs that seem to be the most successful for children are those that are tracking both social, emotional and cognitive academic learning at the same time. One of the problems with early childhood education's current focus is that it neglects the role of play and learning. Preschools should devote more time to cultivating a child's imagination instead of focusing on test preparation and recalling numbers and letters. High quality preschool could help children of all backgrounds enter kindergarten on a level playing field. Universal high quality preschool could reduce the achievement gap kindergarten entry in math by 78% for Hispanic students and by 45% for African American students. The gap in reading would be virtually eliminated for both groups, according to an analysis by the National Institutes for Early Education Research. Students from low income families would also close the gap with higher income families. Families are 27% in math and 41% in reading. A 2017 study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, the Department of Education and Public Policy, found that the preschools that focused on academics provided substantial gains for black students from low income families as well as to students from middle class families. They found these gains for students after attending an academic oriented preschool for just nine months. The study found that the average child in America probably gains about six to eight weeks in terms of cognitive growth from these academic oriented pre Ks, but the average African American youngster gains about four months in these academically intense classrooms. If this is the type of subject matter and discussion that resonates with you, please follow my podcast on whatever service you're listening to this also, I'd love to hear from you, so please leave me a rating or review or a comment on Apple or podchaser. If you like this podcast, the best way to support me and help me grow it is by leaving a review. This helps my rankings and entices other people to listen to the show and share this episode with anyone that you think will find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast and you can always connect with me on Instagram and Facebook with the handle kimjfields. Thanks for listening today. I hope you'll come back for more K12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Be sure to stay tuned on the next episode. I'll be sharing my thoughts on clearing the clutter in your physical space as well as in your mind. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.

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