balancing the readiness equation in early childhood education reform

Abstract

As policy-makers continue to implement early childhood education reforms that frame the field as a mechanism that is to ready children for elementary school success, questions arise as to how the multiple variables in the readiness equation, such as the child, family, and program, are affected by these policies. The instrumental case study presented in this article looks at this dilemma by examining how a collection of prekindergarten stakeholders in the United States aligned their academic performance expectations for students with their district’s standards-based kindergarten through grade 12 education system. Such an analysis highlights the issues that arise for early educators who are asked to define the ready student within a standards-based education environment. Through this case study, the author makes suggestions for early childhood advocates and educators that can assist them in working with policy-makers and administrators to develop a balanced vision of the readiness equation that takes into account not only children’s academic skills and knowledge but also the capacity of the family, the school, and the community to prepare these children for school success.

Teachers’ discourses of literacy as social practice in advantaged and disadvantaged early childhood contexts

“…The empiricist and/or environmental conception of readiness is constructed around the belief that there are certain knowledge, skills and experiences children need to become ready for school (Brown 2010). The idealist and/or nativist conception of readiness conceptualises literacy development as occurring within the child and 'dependent on inherent, maturational processes' (Evans 2013:174).…”

“…This understanding was based on the belief that readiness provided one with the necessary literacy knowledge, skills and learning experiences that were needed for formal schooling (Brown 2010). Both teachers believed that their role was to provide particular learning experiences so that the children could become school ready.…”

Curriculum in early childhood education: critical questions about content, coherence, and control

“…Moreover, development in the cognitive, behavioural, physical, and emotional domains does not necessarily encompass the conceptual structures, tools of intellectual inquiry, and distinctive forms of knowledge embedded in subject disciplines, which form the content of curriculum, and therefore of children's learning. In short, as Hatch (2012) Following Hatch, 'figuring out' what subject matter knowledge should be taught is the province of educational research, rather than developmental theory, where curriculum and pedagogical theory can come into the mix, and where school readiness can be understood in ways that take account of wider contextual, family, and individual diversities, as recommended by Brown (2010).…”

“…We incorporate ways of understanding children, learning, pedagogy, assessment, and play from these two contrasting positions. From this analysis we show how ECE curricula have moved from laissez-faire approaches, and towards control discourses that have previously applied to compulsory schooling, so that ECE must justify economic investment by proving its effectiveness, particularly in securing "school readiness" (Brown, 2010;Department for Education, 2011;Early Childhood Education Taskforce, 2011;OECD, 2006). At a surface level, curriculum content is commonly viewed as the subject-matter, knowledge, skills, dispositions, understanding, and values that constitute a programme of study.…”

Beyond a logic of quality: Opening space for material-discursive practices of ‘readiness’ in early years education

“…Such idealist/nativist assumptions (Brown, 2010;Meisels, 1999) rely on normative notions of maturational development to determine expectations of what a child is 'ready' to learn at particular points in his or her educational 'journey', and when, for a 'normally developing child', those points should be. According to this particular framework of understanding, we can assume that it is possible to identify in advance the form of the child who is 'ready for school' or 'ready for learning', and, consequently, to identify the child whose development may indicate a delay in that child reaching this desired goal at the 'appropriate' time.…”