As kindergarten readiness assessments sweep the nation, it’s useful to keep in mind the history of this Pandora’s Box. I stopped cold when I read the following paragraph, in a 2011 position paper from the :
The National Education Goals Panel stated that school readiness encompasses a range of child development domains, including (a) physical well-being and motor development, (b) social−emotional development, (c) approaches toward learning, (d) language and emergent literacy, and (e) cognitive skills, including mathematics. Moreover, children’s progress in these developmental domains is both independent and highly interrelated. Unfortunately, most kindergarten assessment tools focus almost exclusively on language, literacy, and mathematics. Yet, as noted, there is substantial agreement about the importance of social-emotional development of young children before, during, and after the transition to formal schooling, and this domain is predictive of academic progress in other domains.
What about that range of developmental domains? Lately it’s been lost in translation—from research to practice and policy—in the whirlwinds of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.
The impact on children is incalculable. Which is why I was so delighted to find some sanity at , courtesy of Dr. Eugene Weist:
Music is one of the first ways children experience math. Without thinking, our bodies react to music. When we hear music, we rock our babies, clap along, and even look toward the source of the sound. These responses are reactions to musical elements such as steady beat, rhythm, and melody, all of which reflect mathematical concepts. Even the youngest of children can respond to music and the mathematical principles behind it.
After defining “rhythm,” and how it relates to math–“Rhythm helps children learn to recognize one-to-one correspondence and to identify and predict distinct patterns–Geist offers a list of time-honored activities, starting with newborns, that help develop mathematical competence.
“Hush, Little Baby” never sounded so sweet.
