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Tutoring 3 Year Olds
May 18, 2011
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
-Dolly Parton
-Dolly Parton
Here is a scary scenario from the New York Times article, "Fast Tracking to Kindergarten" shared by Zvia Dover:
"On command, Eze Schupfer reads aloud the numbers on a worksheet in front of her: '42, 43, 12, 13.' Then she begins to trace them.
"'Is that how we write a 12?' her instructor, Maria Rivas, asks. 'Erase it.'
"'This is a sloppy 12, Eze,' she says. 'Go ahead: a one and a two. Smaller. Much better.'
"Eze moves to 13.
"'Neater,' Ms. Rivas insists. 'Come on, you can do it.' Finally, she resorts to the kind of incentive that Eze, her pink glitter sneaker barely grazing the ground, can appreciate: 'You’ll get an extra sticker if you can do a perfect 13.'
"Eze is 3.
"Eze is neither problem child nor prodigy. But her mother is convinced she needs extra tutoring.
"As competition in education has spread down, the tutoring industry has followed. Research suggests that there is little benefit from this kind of tutoring; that young children learn just as much about math, if not more, fitting mixing bowls together on the kitchen floor. But programs like the Japanese based Kumon are gaining from, and generating, parents’ anxiety about what kind of preparation their children will need — and whether parents themselves have what it takes to provide it."
Exchange has packaged five of its play resources into a single "Play Tool Kit" and is offering the entire set at a discount - separately these resources would cost $104.95, but we are offering the entire Tool Kit for only $84. Resources in the kit include:
- Advocating For Play
- Beginnings Workshop Book - Play
- Big Body Play
- Promoting the Value of Play CD Book
- The Play's the Thing
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Comments (11)
Displaying 5 of 11 Comments [ View all ]Child Care Answers Child Care Resource and Referral
United States
The pressure that is placed on young children if very discouraging for those of us in the early childhood profession. The individuals influencing these ridiculous claims know absolutely nothing about early education and it's up to us to stand together and push back.
United States
How sad!! I am so thankful for the opportunity to homeschool my children. My oldest is 6 and so far we've mostly been "unschooling" and playing with lots of time outside, running, digging, jumping... We read all the time, sing, bake, do household chores. We are mostly media free. He is reading, adding (even multiple-digit numbers), subtracting, multiplying, dividing - all learned through play!
It makes me sad to see such young children pushed academically (and burning out at such a young age) when they really should be playing.
Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada
This is heart-breaking really. It's a shame that this fear-driven hype has gotten some parents to buy into the idea of 'the earlier, the better'. Plus come to think of it, it appears ironic to me that in spite of the abundance of environmental information and increase in children's world of knowledge in this information age, we're still pushing them to know even more and much earlier. Fear-driven desperation can cause parents to make well intentioned-decisions that are detrimental to their children. Let's continue to advocate as ECE professionals on behalf of these children.
OMEP-USA
Washington, DC, United States
I, too, was dismayed by this article - it was in the Sunday Style section of the NYT. Everyone should visit the article's site - the photo of the little girl cited in the article tells the story even more poignantly than the words. The reporter is perhaps trying to reveal this poor example of what Kumon probably does not call education - they don't call their employees "teachers" but assistants!
I recommend comparing this with the article in the May/June 2011 issue of Exchange: "It's Time to Stop Defending Play" by Rosemary Burton (pp. 68-72). Dr. Burton concludes her article: "Let's talk about those learning experiences. Let's stop talking simply about learning through play. Let's instead talk about the 'what' and 'how' of learning through play as teachers facilitate that learning in skillful and deliberate ways. (p. 72). I would add that we must talk to parents about what it means to learn through play. Parents fear for their children's future. Let's tell them their children live in the present and that they learn best in the here and now by engaging in a wide range of activities with capable and educated adults who happen to be parents, relatives, and teachers.
UMKC Berkley CFDC
Kansas City, MO, United States
I'm in tears right now.
Yesterday afternoon I spent 30 minutes on the playground with our 3-year-olds. In that 30 minutes, they dug holes in the digging area, moved sand 20 feet across the sandbox, climbed into the playhouse where they pretended to be a family with two moms and three babies, watered the gardens, rode trikes and scooters and pulled wagons, swung from the monkey bars, smelled every flower to see if it had "changed since morning," and checked 50 times on the empty bird nest to see if the baby birds had flown "home to see them's mama."
This morning my heart is breaking for little Eza. What are we doing to our children?
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