Make Children First

makechildrenfirst.ca

As most parents are aware, the province of B.C. is talking again about implementing all day kindergarten for five-year-olds in our province.

Make Children First is an advocate for early learning opportunities for children to ensure they all arrive at grade one developmentally ready to learn.

It is not our mandate to make decisions for families, but to inform our community about the issues involving their children.

It might be helpful to understand that, in Canada, our school system is far more organized and legislated than our child-care system.

This is one of the reasons increasing services for early childhood is proposed through the ministry of education, not through childcares and preschools — and not directly to families.

The 2008/2009 provincewide survey of five-year-olds (the Early Development Instrument), shows one in three children are entering kindergarten with learning difficulties.

This means they could struggle in school and with lifelong learning.

The list of pros and cons surrounding this topic are extensive, but here are some of the issues.

Arguments made

for all-day K:

■ A full-day program can help close the achievement gap between children coming from a variety of learning environments.

■ Full-day programming allows all children to have equal opportunity to access the same learning opportunities.

■ Full-day kindergarten can be beneficial for early learning when curriculum remains play-based.

■ All-day programming can be a key turning point for children who may have existing cognitive set-backs which can be worked with through full-time instruction.

■ Given more time with their peers, there are positive social benefits to children.

■ With more and more families requiring both parents to work, and in the case of single parent families, full day kindergarten alleviates some of the pressure to find childcare.

■ Teachers have more time to implement existing curriculum and be more creative (as long as learning expectations remain the same).

Arguments against full-day K:

■ Studies have not addressed long term holistic results for children, and more time is needed to see if the all-day model is superior.

■ All-day programs increase the burden to taxpayers.

■ Parents are concerned that their kids aren’t ready to be away from home for a full day and the transition to all-day early learning is too quick.

■ All-day kindergarten “schoolifies” early childhood and opportunities to just “be a kid” are being diminished with extensive programming.

■ Half-day programming is less expensive and provides adequate learning opportunities for children.

■ Teachers might be concerned that with twice the amount of time spent in kindergarten that ministry of education and parent expectations will become twice as high, which is troublesome.

■ Parents alike are concerned their children will be tested more often and five-year-olds are not ready for “school.”

Whatever your opinion is, let it be a comfort to know that if all-day kindergarten becomes a part of the early learning opportunities in our community, parents will retain the choice whether to put their children in full or half-day programming.