There is an increasing urge among some educators to hurry children along. This stems from a belief that children need to start early to get ahead in the global race. If an early start was an advantage, the UK would excel in any international comparisons. It does not, instead it lags behind. As a child psychologist I know that this push for earlier teaching is not informed by research evidence on child development.
Evidence is not on the side of this anxious drive to put more emphasis on reading and maths in the pre school years to get better results later in primary school. The human brain is extremely capable but needs many years to develop and mature. The underlying developmental process is invisible to us. There are 2 broad approaches adults have intuitively taken in their relationships with children under 7. Either, to assume the child is a blank state, and to take charge of the child’s experience, or to see the child as a unique person and tune into their needs and interests.
Now we have a third way, where child development research can inform and guide what we do. We know that the infant brain has more neural pathways than an adult and that experience gradually builds the brain the child needs. The unwanted neural matter is pruned away to streamline the brain’s ability to function quickly and efficiently.
The child’s learning experience needs to be multi sensory and self directed so that the child is fully focused on the experience and it can be processed. In the early years a child learns through direct hands on experience and where sensitive adults or older peers are available to support the child’s experience then the progress is enhanced. Only much later from around 7 or 8 can a child switch attention consistently for lengthy periods between their own thoughts and what an adult is teaching them.
Play is the main opportunity for learning in the early years but is often misunderstood. What is being achieved through play is not visible and well intentioned adults often feel the need to direct a child’s learning.
A child’s need for independence in learning to move and refine their coordination is clear. We can see how a child repeats and refines actions to get the result they want. We also know that the body develops slowly and creates limits on what can be learnt at a particular time. No one would attempt to teach a 2 year old to ride a 2 wheeled bike, we just know we have to wait and it will come with time. The baby taking their first steps doesn’t grow into the child playing complex sports without experience and self knowledge of what their body can do.
Play also has a major but less visible role in cognitive development, especially in the executive function skills linked to attention and self regulation. A child who attends an early years settings will get the balance of free play and adult support that they need to develop these skills. Parents also benefit from information on their child’s progress which can develop their awareness of what their child needs to thrive. However the early needs sector is under intense pressure to focus on the beginnings of maths and literacy ready for when they start school at four years old. This is unnecessary and frustrating as the evidence from the rest of the world is that starting school at 6 or 7 works well. Learning to read at 6 or 7 doesn’t create delay, by age 11 children in other parts of the world are not behind the uk.
If an early start was an advantage, the UK would excel in any international comparisons, instead it lags behind. There’s a saying “if you want things to change do something different” Instead this government is asking early years and reception classes to intensify the early start. Plans to check on the impact of teaching will include a Baseline Test when children start school to allow scrutiny of the success of each school. Now this sounds sensible to those versed in corporate performance management. Take a base line, add input, then measure. Sadly small children can’t be reliably tested like that as 4 year olds.
As a psychologist with many years experience in testing children. Let me remind you of the reasons why this will fail.
Standardisation – standardised administration is essential to ensure all children see and hear the same thing. No coaxing, no pauses, no extra instructions. A robotic and not very child friendly experience and few little ones cope with this odd experience. Especially unsettling when you are just getting to know your new teacher at the start of school. Scary when they act in a cold and unhelpful way.
Reliability – children don’t necessarily do something to order easily or consistently at the age of 4. It is highly likely that testing will be underestimate for some children.
Validity – does the test really measure what you need to know? It may look right but face validity, as it is termed, is often deceptive. Test construction is a long process with lots of practice testing needed to select the right items for the test. How good is the validity for this baseline?
Predictability – Given that the baseline won’t be repeated annually it will have to link to other tests relevant for older children. Do the results on the initial baseline link with later performance measures in maths and literacy? Test constructors need pilot tests and examination of later test results to ensure high scorers on the first test become later high achievers. There are no plans to do this.
This brings me back round to my beginning. Play has a role in child development, it is not expendable when parents and teachers think their are better ways for a child to spend their time. Childhood has a purpose and cannot be set aside or accelerated. We seem to understand physical development reasonably well because we can see the child’s skills evolving. The need to crawl and walk if impeded slows development. This is obvious and can be seen but our understanding of mental development is much more difficult to acquire from everyday experience.
Knowledge of child development is undervalued. This is evident in the link between pay and status in teaching and the age of the child. Secondary teachers have higher status than primary and early years specialists aren’t even on the same pay scale. Our colleagues in early years and primary are more aware of the importance of understanding the whole child and not just their performance with the curriculum in front of them.
We need to see a real culture shift which puts the child at the centre of the process of planning in education. We need to call upon evidence from child development to create a learning environment which is age appropriate and sensitive to any special needs.
Play and its role in child development are not soft subjects which can be side-lined as irrelevant. Play is essential for experience and practice in all areas of thinking, learning and communicating with others. We cannot afford to curtail early development as expendable. Play is practice, practice which explores each new emerging skill and consolidates it. Play allows the child freedom to learn about themselves as well as the world around them. Play drives early development without it essential skills are at risk of becoming stunted and we will get the opposite result to what the advocates of formal teaching intend.
JeniHooper 