We are the experts in child development. We must keep advocating for practices rooted in research and fact. It is not always easy, but it is necessary. Knowing the unrealistic expectations put upon children, we must keep working on their behalf.
– Stacy Benge, The Whole Child Alphabet

Tom Hobson, also known as Teacher Tom, recently shared on his blog “Some Facts About Play-Based Learning for Preschoolers.” Not one to shy away from speaking his mind, he opens:

“According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Economic Forum, and Unicef (and according to the dubious measurement of standardized test scores) Finland has the best schools in the world. They have achieved this status by building their educational system on evidence. The US languishes around the middle of the pack, often falling into the bottom half according to some measures. We have achieved this lack of success by relying upon the busy-body guesswork of policy makers, billionaire dilettantes, and administrators who listen to them.

“It shouldn’t be surprising that the system based on evidence, on research, on reality, would outperform the one based on the fantasies and feelings of people who are not professional educators. In Finland, they do not try to teach kindergarteners to read because the evidence tells us that formal literacy instruction should not start until at least the age of seven and that children who are compelled into it too early often suffer emotionally and academically in the long run. In the US we are forcing kindergartners, and even preschoolers, to learn to read. There is very little research that points to longterm gains from teaching children to read in kindergarten. In fact, most of the research that has been done tends to find early instruction reduces comprehension and reading for pleasure in later years.”