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Elementary Choices
| Article
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11905 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1987 |
2,165 Words |
| Author
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Kathleen Prentice
Kathleen Prentice is a free-lance writer whose articles appear
in the Detroit Free Press. |
Jacob's kindergarten days are filled with finger paints, picture books, building blocks, rhythm instruments, activity centers and water play.
Five-year-old Amy works with computers and textbooks. She matches shapes and fills in missing letters on worksheets. And she prints the alphabet and memorizes addition facts.
Many parents aren't sure which works better: a developmental kindergarten program with a curriculum of prereading, premath, socialization, and thinking skills, or an academic approach, with children memorizing words and facts. Across the country, kindergarten is at the center of a controversy that is as basic as the alphabet: How do young children learn best?
While learning theories and their consequent curricula are topics for debate, experts agree that kindergarten is changing. "We live in a changed world," says Dr. Barbara Bowman of the Erikson Institute in Chicago. "Our expectation of schools has changed and our family life has changed. There are more children in preschool than ever before. Also, we have vastly increased our knowledge of child development and how children learn, so we are reviewing traditional practices."
These changes focus upon five-year-olds who have already been in day-care and nursery-school programs for years before they enter elementary school, and have experienced a spectrum of programs.
Creative learning experience
Last September Jacob Kaminker first boarded the school bus and traveled past the chicken and vegetable farms in South Brunswick, New Jersey to Dean Elementary, the stone school that has served this community's children for decades. It now houses kindergarten through third grade.
Jacob goes to Joan Warren's classroom in Dean's kindergarten wing. In the center, children gather on a large rug for sharing time. Shelves of blocks, games, tools and cages housing live chickens line the walls. A quiet nook is set aside for looking at books and listening to tapes; another corner is set up for rhythm instruments and singing around the piano. Tables in the back of the room have counting and sorting activities. Areas for dramatic play and language and science development are spaced around the classroom for children to learn by hands-on experience. Warren has designed her classroom environment and
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