How to Determine If Your Child is Ready to Begin Kindergarten
These days, the question isn’t just, “Is my child ready to be in school?” but also, “Is my child ready to read?” The typical U.S. kindergarten now focuses on reading instruction, even though the trend smacks against brain development patterns informing us that a five-year-old’s brain is not developmentally ready. To determine if your child’s brain is ready for the complex tasks of reading, look for the criteria that indicates development of both of the language centers of the brain.
Are Schools Expecting Our Kids to Read Too Early?
New brain research reveals that the tasks taught in a typical kindergarten curriculum are not appropriate expectations for the brain of a typical five year old. Neither the language centers for reading nor the processing centers responsible for what we see as self-control are fully developed. The pressure for American education to improve is high and has led to the trend of pushing reading instruction in kindergarten instead of first grade, and changing from a half day to full day to accomplish that. This push has caused an increase in reading disabilities and behavorial issues and puts the successful education of our nation’s children at risk.
Problems Arise When Children are Pushed to Read Too Early
The trend to teach reading in kindergarten is an unreasonable expectation for five year olds because they do not have the maturity of brain function needed for reading. Certain, specific visual-processing learning problems arise, as well as problems in attention and motivation.
