Kindergarten Mandated Curriculum
In regards to the newly state-mandated, textbook-based curriculum for Kindergarten, I am apprehensive to the benefits of such said curriculum for children so young. Although textbooks cover lots of information in a given subject they aren’t nearly as effective as age-appropriate literature in their ability to interest children in the area of topic and getting them excited about learning. Kindergarten aged children will most likely see typical textbooks as boring and/or overwhelming. At this age children are at the beginner stage of reading, some may not have any prior reading skills, which advises that textbooks are too far-fetched for their age group.
Developmentally Appropriate Practices, or simply DAP “is not a curriculum but a framework for how to think about curriculum in a way that takes into account what we know about how young children grow and learn.” (Jaruszewicz, 2012, s1.3) DAP’s aim is to foster children’s optimal learning and development. By outline of DAP our educators must nurture every child’s social/emotional, physical, and cognitive development by meeting the individual needs of their students. The textbook-based curriculum strays away from this by implementing a one-size-fits-all approach through textbook.
There is no doubt that language and literacy development should be incorporated into our children’s curriculum but the use of textbooks is not the answer. According to the Georgia Kindergarten English/Language Arts Common Core Performance Standards, these children are supposed to “demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print” which means they should be able to take the textbook and figure out which way to flip the pages and understand that a word is written from left to right and that each word is made up of letters, which most children at this age does. The next standard is “demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).” If not before, during Kindergarten most children
Developmentally Appropriate Practices, or simply DAP “is not a curriculum but a framework for how to think about curriculum in a way that takes into account what we know about how young children grow and learn.” (Jaruszewicz, 2012, s1.3) DAP’s aim is to foster children’s optimal learning and development. By outline of DAP our educators must nurture every child’s social/emotional, physical, and cognitive development by meeting the individual needs of their students. The textbook-based curriculum strays away from this by implementing a one-size-fits-all approach through textbook.
There is no doubt that language and literacy development should be incorporated into our children’s curriculum but the use of textbooks is not the answer. According to the Georgia Kindergarten English/Language Arts Common Core Performance Standards, these children are supposed to “demonstrate understanding of the organization and basic features of print” which means they should be able to take the textbook and figure out which way to flip the pages and understand that a word is written from left to right and that each word is made up of letters, which most children at this age does. The next standard is “demonstrate understanding of spoken words, syllables, and sounds (phonemes).” If not before, during Kindergarten most children