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Dangers of Early Test Taking
September 22, 2016
If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it.
-Rebecca Solnit, American Writer
-Rebecca Solnit, American Writer
"Young children are notoriously bad test takers," proclaims Lillian Katz in the DVD Child Assessment, part of the Voices: Insights from the Field series. Katz, who is Professor Emerita and Co-Director of the Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting, University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana, goes on to say that tests given to young children are "terribly unreliable."
Quoting recent studies, Katz explains, "Once a child has been defined by adults, he tends to bring his behavior into line with that definition. Children who have confidence in their ability tend to ask teachers for help when they get stuck. Children who don’t have confidence in their ability don’t ask for help...Adults can break this cycle, but children can’t."
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These are not your typical training DVDs. No scripts. No staged events. Interlaced with real-life classroom video, these powerful DVDs offer you practical ideas and experienced insights from seasoned professionals who speak with the passion and perspective that can only come from years of working with directors, teachers, young children, and their families. Each DVD provides a rich platform for staff development and training sessions that will inspire, motivate, teach, provoke new thinking, and generate lively discussions.
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Comments (2)
Displaying All 2 CommentsAor International
Dallas, TX, United States
*From 2 1/2-7 yrs of age children are growing and learning and putting "it all together" at their own developmental rate of readiness, according to Piaget. We, as adults in the early childhood classroom, can to support this children's "representational stage" with opportunities to play, discover and explore, and as adults in the classroom, as another set of learners, we can be shared "partners in learning" with the children. Testing is developmentally inappropriate, and it's time we stop getting bullied by corporate interests, and eliminate testing altogether forever.
Pennsylvania, United States
When will it end? When can we just accept that little children need to be little children and grow and develop at their own rate and time. Maybe if we stop pushing little kids to learn more earlier and slow the pace down for the kindergarten and first grade children--maybe that would benefit everyone. Why are we always racing to cram more 'knowledge' into preschoolers brains? This whole early education push will not benefit the children if it is not developmentally appropriate and by that I mean learning through play and conversation, as it should, without testing and nonsensical academic curriculum.
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