Teaching academics earlier is not helping children develop cognitive skills any sooner. Marcy Guddemi, executive director of the Gesell Institute, says that despite ramped-up expectations, including overtly academic work in kindergarten, study results reveal remarkable stability around ages at which most children reach cognitive milestones such as being able to count four pennies or draw a circle. Funneling academics down to preschools to “better prepare” children to deal with an already overly academic Kindergarten experience is a waste of time, and this “miseducation”, as Dr David Elkind refers to it (in his book, Miseducation- Preschoolers at Risk) can cause “damage to a child’s self-esteem, the loss of the positive attitude a child needs for learning, the blocking of natural gifts and potential talents.”
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 23:01:18 +0000
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