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Too Little Play Negatively Affects Young Children
February 14, 2022
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.
-Maya Angelou
-Maya Angelou
“A state-funded pre-K program led to ‘significantly negative effects’ for kids in Tennessee,” proclaims an article in the online Hechinger Report. The study, which has been getting a lot of media attention lately, found that “children who attended Tennessee’s state-funded voluntary pre-K program during the 2009-10 and 2010-11 school years were doing worse than their peers by the end of sixth grade in academic achievement, discipline issues and special education referrals. The trend emerged by the end of third grade and was even more pronounced three years later.”
The Hechinger Report describes a conversation with Vanderbilt University’s Dale Farran, who talks about the significance of the study:
“The negative outcomes in Tennessee’s voluntary pre-K program suggest a need to rethink pre-K, Farran said. The lackluster results may be related to the way America approaches pre-K and educating young children. Ideally, she said, pre-K should involve more play, with teachers frequently interacting with students and encouraging them to explore their interests. Based on years of observation and visits to classrooms, however, she worries that pre-K involves too much whole-group instruction, rigid behavioral controls, not enough time spent outside and too much time in which teachers are speaking, instead of listening to children.”
An article by Nancy Carlsson-Paige in the Exchange Essentials article collection, “Advocating for Play,” describes how “the focus on academic skills and scripted teaching, alarmingly, has pushed down even to preschools and kindergartens where play experiences are disappearing…We educators have an important role to play in taking back healthy play for children today.”
The Hechinger Report describes a conversation with Vanderbilt University’s Dale Farran, who talks about the significance of the study:
“The negative outcomes in Tennessee’s voluntary pre-K program suggest a need to rethink pre-K, Farran said. The lackluster results may be related to the way America approaches pre-K and educating young children. Ideally, she said, pre-K should involve more play, with teachers frequently interacting with students and encouraging them to explore their interests. Based on years of observation and visits to classrooms, however, she worries that pre-K involves too much whole-group instruction, rigid behavioral controls, not enough time spent outside and too much time in which teachers are speaking, instead of listening to children.”
An article by Nancy Carlsson-Paige in the Exchange Essentials article collection, “Advocating for Play,” describes how “the focus on academic skills and scripted teaching, alarmingly, has pushed down even to preschools and kindergartens where play experiences are disappearing…We educators have an important role to play in taking back healthy play for children today.”
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Comments (5)
Displaying All 5 CommentsUnited States
Natalie, Linda, and Shawna -thank you for taking the time to comment on today's ExchangeEveryDay. We appreciate hearing from you. Your words always help us learn, grow, reflect, and more.
-Tiffany at Exchange Press
United States
Dear Natalie,
Thank you so much for making us better. You are right that the quote on today’s Exchange Every Day is not appropriate at all and we agree - it needs to be replaced immediately. On the website it will be replaced with this quote:
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
Maya Angelou
We love our Exchange community that cares so much and teaches us each day how to do things better. We apologize for our mistake and appreciate your taking the time to reach out.
With great appreciation,
Nancy Rosenow
DC4K - DivorceCare for Kids, dc4k.org and blog.dc4k.org
Navarre, FL - Florida, United States
So much agree with this article. I've advocated for play for many years. There is so much for kids to learn through play. You've heard it said, "play is a child's work?" I believe that to be true.
Pre-K teachers and preschool teachers need to plan for play. Play should be in their lesson plans. Sometimes in the state pre-K groups, I think the administrators get stuck on hiring highly educated teachers. Many times those highly educated teachers have not been trained in early childhood practices.
Miami Children's Museum
Miramar, FL, United States
I love Exchange but this qoute and article post is disgusting. I couldn't even believe that in the middle of Black History Month we would say that without Valentine's Day February would be January! this is a discriminatory comment that needs to be removed and apology issued. Immediately!
Learning and Growing Consulting
Carrboro, NC, United States
In each of the forums I have seen this conversation arise, I am struck by the visual of what Pre-k, specifically state funded Pre-k, supposedly looks like. I know that even with all of the different translations of quality that are out there, State funded pre-k is actually still a place that helps children from marginalized communities blossom and prepare for kindergarten. They have been just as many programs throughout the country that get state funded Pre-k right. In the states that get it right, the conversations have moved to how school systems can ensure that all the goodness children get in Pre-k doesn’t dissipate in their K-3 classrooms and how to find and fix that chasm in teacher practice and learning modalities in the older years.
This one study and the context in which it is being amplified is troublesome at best. It creates a narrative that tells the often ECE ignorant world around us that more funding and support for our disjointed and crumbling “system” wouldn’t benefit children anyway. There are plenty of quality studies on other state funded Pre-k programs, including the federal funded Head Start program, that have changed the social and academic trajectory of children, especially if they are also placed in child-focused K-3 classrooms.
As EC educators, we need to use this TN study and report as an example of what not to do and as confirmation that those of us who have been hyper-focused on creating child-focused, language and social skill heavy, caring learning environments are on the right track. Let us all agree that score-focused, strictly academic programs that are just “little <insert older classroom here>” doesn’t work for young children (birth- 8 years old) ever. Once we agree, let us set our course, using what we know as professionals in early learning, with laser precision to leading legislators, families, future educators, and each other toward a more child-focused education system that spans from birth to 12th grade and creates curious and competent learners.
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