Too much, too soon. New curriculum for under 5’s. - December 3, 2007

When will successive governments wake up to the fact that formal teaching and setting of targets are not the sole determinants of learning success?  Of equal importance is a child’s developmental readiness for formal education. 

Although there are key stages in development at which it is to be expected that a child will reach developmental milestones, there is also considerable individual variation in when these milestones are achieved, with boys generally being later than girls in developing language and fine motor skills, and children within the same family developing at different rates.  These individual differences are particularly important in the early years, and if children are forced into educational tasks before they are “ready”, they will pay a price further on in education.

Developmental readiness is connected to physical skills: the ability to sit still, hold and control pencil movements, control eye movements to follow a line of print without “skipping” letters and words or losing the place on the page; shut out background noise and visual distractions to be able to pay attention.  These skills begin with control of the body and  are trained through daily physical interaction with the environment through exercise and play.

Published research in 2005 based on a programme developed at INPP for teachers which involved 810 children found that up to 48% of  5 - 6 year olds and 35% of 7 - 9 year olds in mainstream schools in the UK did not have the physical skills they need to succeed in the classroom.  No amount of the teaching or targets will make a significant difference to these children until the physical basis for learning is put right.

Young children need time and space in which to grow up, not targets.  If as much time was devoted to the assessment and training of developmental readiness  (something which was done 30 years ago) as it is to educational targets, many more children would succeed.

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