Excerpts
Parents visiting their children’s kindergarten class for the first time may think they’ve arrived at the wrong room, especially if they expect it to resemble the kindergarten they attended as 5-year-olds.
Imaginative play areas that once occupied a dominant part of the kindergarten landscape—think dress-up corners, easels and paints, stacks of blocks—have, in many instances, been replaced with literacy corners and science centers. Getting along with classmates and learning to follow simple instructions from a teacher also have been sidelined as the primary goals of kindergarten. Now, most kindergarten teachers are focused primarily on preparing young learners for future academic success.
The changes have not gone unnoticed by educators, parents, and policymakers.
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When and why did play get pushed out of kindergarten classrooms?
As Brown noted, teachers have been raising concerns about changes to kindergarten for two decades. That time frame coincides with the passage of No Child Left Behind, the federal education law in place from January 2002 to December 2015. The law, which sought to improve public education for all children, led to an increase in standardized instruction and accountability measures related to academic achievement.
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The Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced NCLB in 2015, took steps to reduce standardized testing in K-12. But teachers continue to report stress related to standardized test prep.
In a 2023 EdWeek Research Center survey of 870 teachers, principals, and district leaders, 41% of respondents said the amount of time they and teachers in their districts spend preparing students for standardized tests has grown since 2018-19. Further, 51% of respondents said they felt a “large” amount of stress from school and district administrators to ensure their students perform well on state-mandated standardized exams; 28% reported feeling a “moderate” amount of stress.
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Is the pendulum swinging back toward play-based learning in kindergarten?
In recent years, some educators have begun to push back against the “academization” of kindergarten. These voices have gotten the attention of state policymakers; in turn, a few states have begun to push for a return to play in kindergarten, including Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Oregon.
New Hampshire in 2018 amended its education legislation specific to kindergarten, noting that this grade level is “structured upon a play-based model.” Language for the state’s official kindergarten tool kit says: “Educators shall create a learning environment that facilitates high quality, child-directed experiences based upon early childhood best teaching practices and play-based learning that comprise movement, creative expression, exploration, socialization, and music.”
Connecticut in 2023 passed legislation requiring play-based learning in public preschool and kindergarten classrooms, and permitting it in 1st through 5th grades. Members of the Connecticut Education Association, led by CEA Vice President Joslyn Delancey, pushed for the return to play-based learning in early elementary classrooms. Delancey taught elementary school for 17 years before being elected to the association.
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Is all play created equally?
Not all play designed for today’s kindergarten classrooms looks like it did in the 1970s and ‘80s, when kids played together without much direction or input from teachers. Still, free, or unstructured, play retains an important place in the kindergarten classroom, believe some education experts. It allows children to explore, imagine, and socialize independently. But it’s generally not tied to any specific academic goals.
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Play-based learning can boost students’ academic skills, research shows. A 2022 review of 39 studies that compared guided play to direct instruction (when a teacher delivers clearly defined, planned lessons in a prescribed manner) in children up to 8 years old found that guided play has a more significant positive impact than direct instruction on early math skills, shape knowledge, and being able to switch from one task to another.
But kindergarten isn’t just about acquiring academic skills, note education experts. Play-based learning also has the potential to help teach young learners lifelong skills.
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