Kindergarten is More than Finger Paint and Naps
Kindergarten teachers work hard to instill fundamentals and prepare young children for elementary school
June 3, 2024
Kindergarten is often a child’s first experience in a classroom, a wondrous time of discovery and imagination. Classrooms buzz with youthful creativity. The doorways and walls are adorned with handprint artwork and paper chains. Young voices echo in the hallways with songs about counting and the alphabet.
Kindergarten teachers say their classrooms are not daycare but rather an important opportunity to develop fundamental skills and abilities that will prepare children for first grade and beyond. However, teachers say parents do not take kindergarten seriously.
Tiffany Preuss is a kindergarten teacher in Buckeye, Arizona. She says parents often do not understand how rigorous kindergarten has become.
“Kindergarten is not required so they look at you like this is just babysitting,” she said. “This is the foundation. If you don’t know your letters, you can’t read. If you don’t know your numbers, you’ll never be able to do trigonometry.”
Success in kindergarten prepares children for elementary school. A heightened focus on meeting academic standards in higher grade levels may explain why today's kindergarten classes resemble what used to be first grade.
A 2016 study of kindergarten trends from 1998 to 2010 found that the percentage of teachers expecting children to know how to read by the end of the year had risen from 31 to 80 percent.The study concluded that kindergarten is the new first grade, and many kindergarten teachers agree.
This Is Not Your Parent’s (Or Your Own) Kindergarten
Angela Hernandez has been a teacher for 20 years and currently teaches kindergarten at Northmead Elementary School in Patterson, California and says kindergarten is an important foundation for the grades that follow.
“I believe the most important grade of your life is first grade because if you don’t come out of first grade reading, you will struggle the rest of your school life,” Hernandez said. “I wish more people took it seriously.”
Hernandez said she can’t imagine putting a child into first grade without kindergarten as a base. She said kindergarten today may resemble what many of today’s parents would imagine being first grade, at least as they experienced it. But, she also recognizes the need for kids to play.
“We push them hard for academics. I really encourage playing. We play every day in the classroom because it’s very important,” she said.
Recent research suggests kindergarten classrooms are trading playtime opportunities for a heightened focus on academics. The study stated there is evidence that exposure to academic content in preschool and kindergarten can be beneficial for students. However, researchers also noted that heightened academic rigor, especially at a young age, may be stressful and negatively affect children’s motivation for learning.
Kindergarten Sets the Foundation for First Grade
In the classroom, kids learn the basics of phonics through learning sight words – simple words printed on flashcards that kids learn to recognize. There is a lot of reading in first grade and the work begins with recognizing letters and their sounds. By learning to count to 20 in kindergarten, children will be better prepared for addition and subtraction in first grade.
Kindergarten students also learn important soft skills. They learn how to be in a classroom, away from their parents, and listen to a teacher. Arts and crafts time may be messy, but it helps them develop fine motor skills. Recess offers more than time out of the classroom. The playground is where they learn social skills and make friends.
Tiffany Preuss says parents are doing students a disservice if they skip kindergarten. Arizona, like most of the United States, does not require children to attend although it is offered through public schools.
“They can jump right into first grade which is scary,” Preuss said. She says many of her students are reading at the first-grade level by the time they leave her classroom. “Those kids who have that foundation have a huge advantage over the ones who just jump right into first grade,” she said.
Finding a Balance Between Traditional Academics and Play
One kindergarten teacher who asked to be identified only by her first name, Lisa, said she began her teaching career in 1991. She currently teaches kindergarten in Salem, Illinois. She says as time has gone by that teachers are becoming more like social workers with lesson plans. She says she is discouraged from using certain methods of recognizing achievements in the classroom.
Fearing that speaking openly about the challenges could lead to repercussions from school administrators, she said she began the 2023-24 school year by making a large chart to track students’ mastery of basic phonics. Students who could state the name of a letter, and the sound generally associated with it received a sticker for each completed letter.
Her chart was not approved by school administration. She said she was advised about “the importance of not creating shame” in her students.
“I don’t feel that we have enough serious academic content,” she said due in part to her school’s focus on the CASEL play-based learning model. This teaching style aims to promote a child’s inner curiosity and creativity rather than traditional classroom instruction.
One of the core principles of the CASEL Framework is that play in kindergarten should not be looked at as purely recreational. The idea is that children learn by exploring on their own. They can develop critical thinking and creative skills by solving puzzles. When children play with one another they learn how to communicate, solve problems, and even resolve conflicts.
At least some of the shift towards academics may be attributed to the introduction of standards-based accountability reforms. Policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act aim to use standardized instruction and testing to ensure all students meet certain academic benchmarks. This has led to a struggle to find a balance between traditional academics and play-based learning models.
Kindergarten teachers love their students and want to provide a rich and stimulating environment that values both play and academics and prepares their students for lifelong learning. A balanced approach to kindergarten ensures kids can still be kids while also developing the skills they need to succeed in first grade and beyond.
Kindergarten Teacher Tiffany Preuss says she finds teaching her young students to be personally rewarding. “If you have a kid who’s headed down a really rough path, but you give them the gift of knowledge, it’s worth it,” she says.
