It is hardly a surprise or secret when it comes to education that the United States is not at the top of the pack. I have consistently been in favor of school reform in order to raise our global ranking, ranging from dropping standardized testing to changing classroom layouts to phasing in the importance of the arts again. However, I have recently found our education deficit needs to start differently and earlier than I could have imagined.

In a recent study conducted by the University of Virginia, many of America’s kindergarten teachers believe that children should learn to read in kindergarten. This mindset saw an increase of around 50% from the late 1990’s, illustrating the overall shift in the focus of academics that is highly American (Walker 2015). This shift can arguably be seen as following a pattern of logic.. We are behind in global education because our children are behind in comparison internationally due to our standards in school, especially in reading, which is the foundation of all other subjects. Except that logic doesn’t hold. There is no evidence that learning to read in kindergarten or before has any long term benefits for the children (Defending the Early Years 2015). Children who learned to read later than their counterparts caught up in reading skills by around 11-12 years old.

An incredibly important question is raised after knowing these findings: if there is no advantage to teaching children to read early, is there a disadvantage to doing so? (Walker 2015)

Scientific evidence says astoundingly, yes.

The American push towards an increasingly more academic school day is at the expensive of play.

Finland, a top rank in global education, has approximately four hour kindergarten days filled with what is called free play. Free play is unstructured, undirected, and child controlled play that allows children the ability to use their imagination and follow their interests. It is known in both the general and academic world that play has a vital role in the positive development of children, yet in American classrooms, the time dedicated to this type of play has decreased substantially, if left at all in some classrooms.

A Maltese Education Journal published a finding that shows a correlation between free play and disruptive behavior: less free play was related to an increase in disruptive behaviors. Disruptive behavior is a continual aspect in the lives of children that persists throughout school in some cases, hindering normal intellectual development, which can be a major factor in the education deficit the United States sees (Veiga et al. 2016).

Not only are there behavioral benefits to free play, but it also brings the word “joy” back into the conversation of learning, something that is greatly missing in the conversation of American education (Walker 2015). The Finnish mindset to let children learn while standing up and giving play breaks between lessons in 15:45 minutes ratio, producing children who not only enjoy learning, but excel at school by international comparison

Free play also allows for children to develop their math, language, and social-interaction skills without worksheets and sitting still. The benefits of Finnish free play teaching for kindergarten emphasises how unnatural the United States mantra of sit down, sit still, and hold a pencil mindset is. Unlike the recent trend to have every kid reading by the end of kindergarten, Finnish kindergarten teachers are not required to have reading proficiency in their lesson plans. Instead, children are taught to read when they are interested, willing, and with the guidance of a personal lesson, created by the parents and teachers.

Free play allows children to put in to action what they have learned during any given lesson in a way that their bodies and brains need as well as gives them the opportunity to grow and experiment on their own. Free play is not confined to working either indoors or outdoors, it can be done whenever, wherever - its benefits of improving development, hindering disruptive behavior, encouraging social interaction and functioning are vast.

The United States rank in global education would benefit greatly if curriculums focused less on requiring kindergartener’s to be able to read and focus more on free play. American children are losing out on the benefits of free play and gaining next to nothing by reading early if children will catch up in reading skills five or so years down the road. There would also appear to be less shame in the school environment when children don’t have to read at a certain time trying to hit a national benchmark that some children may not be ready for and rather by teaching children when they are interested and ready.

Cutting out free play is what the United States gets majorly wrong in early education.

Sources:

Veiga, Guida, Carlos Neto, and Carolien Rieffe. "Preschoolers’ Free play—Connections with Emotional and Social Functioning." The International Journal of Emotional Education 8.1 (2016): 48-62. ProQuest. Web. 17 May 2017.

Walker, Timothy D. "The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland." The Atlantic.Atlantic Media Company, 01 Oct. 2015. Web. 17 May 2017.

Walker, Timothy D. "How Finland Keeps Kids Focused Through Free Play." TheAtlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 30 June 2014. Web. 17 May 2017.