Making Space for Joy, Play, and Rigor in Kindergarten

When my daughter, Ainsley, started kindergarten, I was excited. So was she. As a former elementary school teacher and current early learning researcher, I felt confident about what I wanted to see and hear in her classroom. But, I also knew that kindergarten classrooms have changed a lot over the last two decades, and the items essential for young children to do their best learning have been disappearing from kindergarten classrooms across the country. 

Ainsley had attended pre-K in the same school just down the hall, but kindergarten was different. It was the beginning of something new: her formal schooling.  We had so many questions. Who would her teacher be? Who would she play with? What would her classroom look like? My husband and I walked her into the bustling Washington, DC, school on her first day in late August. Smiling teachers, the principal, and other staff greeted us as we walked down the corridor to the pre-K and kindergarten wing. As we entered Ainsley’s new classroom, I paused. While I wasn’t surprised, I still felt disappointment rush through me. Missing from the room were building blocks, imaginary play areas, art easels, and space for experiments and exploration. 

Ainsley pulled me into the classroom, and we found her cubby and hung her backpack. We said good morning to her teacher whom we had met a few days earlier at ”Meet the Teacher.” Then I hugged Ainsley and wished her a fantastic first day. As I left the room, I turned for one more look. I hoped Ainsley would build friendships. I hoped she would have opportunities to play, explore, ask questions, and be creative. My final thought walking down the hallway was that if the furniture weren’t so small, I’d think this was a classroom for older children.

At one time, children in kindergarten played much of the school day. But in the last few decades, the pendulum has swung almost entirely in the opposite direction. Ainsley’s kindergarten experience was not an outlier. Kindergarteners today spend much of their days just sitting, listening to their teacher deliver reading lessons and completing worksheets.  They have limited, sometimes no, opportunities for choice, exploration, and play. But there doesn’t have to be an either/or proposition: academics vs. play.  The best kindergartens include the best of both: challenging academic content woven into playful experiences. 

Over the last several years, I have visited dozens of kindergarten classrooms in multiple states to understand children’s experiences. I’ve seen classrooms like Ainsley’s with long stretches of reading instruction where children sit, listen, and respond. And I have also seen a different kind of classroom— reminiscent of years past, yet different in meaningful ways. In these classrooms, teachers follow academic standards and challenge students. They encourage student talk and choice. And they build a strong classroom community to guide children’s learning through play and exploration.

In one such classroom in New Hampshire, I observed a small group of students exploring magnetic tiles and bells. At first, the students played only with the tiles and ignored the bells. But then one student noticed that when a magnetic tile fell from their creation onto the table, a bell on the table moved toward that tile. The student's curiosity was piqued, and they began putting bells on the magnetic tiles. Other students in the group followed suit. When center time was over, the class gathered on the carpet. The teacher asked for volunteers to share what they learned during their play. One girl shared that she used the bells to decorate the tiles because they stuck to them. The teacher asked why the girl thought the bells stuck to the tiles. She didn’t know. 

Later that day, when the students were in music class, I asked the teacher why she didn’t probe more. She said it was only Monday and would put different objects with the magnetic tiles throughout the week, some magnetic and some not. The teacher wanted to see what the children could figure out independently. Then, as the week went on, she explained, she would ask more probing questions to help guide their thinking.

That New Hampshire classroom illustrates how young children learn best: play, discovery, and opportunities to talk through ideas. During kindergarten, in addition to building on the literacy and numeracy skills they already have, children are supposed to grow their understanding of the world around them, expand skills to interact positively with adults and their peers, and explore their curiosities in a way that develops a love of learning that carries them through their schooling. Yet, kindergarten is still optional in most states, children are not guaranteed full-day kindergarten, and school districts in many places spend less money on kindergarten than first grade. Kindergarten matters. It is so much more than simply the first year of formal education.

Those who understand that kindergarten is important often miss why kindergarten matters. This is particularly true for government officials who enact misguided rules for kindergarten, such as 90 minute or more uninterrupted reading blocks, to ensure “important” learning is happening. Unfortunately, this has unintentionally led to educators adding time for literacy, math, whole group teaching, and testing while subtracting time for outdoor recess, classroom play, and building relationships. 

It’s past time to rethink what kindergarten has become. Kindergarten is the first year all children have access to public education. While many four-year-olds and even some three-year-olds attend pre-kindergarten, our country is nowhere near providing universal access to all pre-K-aged children. It is an extremely inequitable situation, especially for children and families who are already part of historically marginalized populations. For the growing number of children who can attend public pre-K, kindergarten can be redundant and boring. Meanwhile, for children and families who don’t have access to or choose not to attend a pre-K program, their kindergarten experiences can be jarring and stressful. The commonality between these two groups is the lack of planning for creating coherence between children’s experiences before and in kindergarten.

As I think about my younger daughter, Tatiana, a new kindergartner, I think about the kind of experience I want her to have. Now living in Florida, I’m still looking for what Ainsley missed in kindergarten: the joy and robust learning I saw in some of the dozens of classrooms I’ve visited. The pendulum has started to swing back in some cities and states, and some leaders are beginning to recognize that kindergarten and the early grades must change. But more work and more voices are needed. Leaders, educators, and parents must know about and get behind the slow but promising shifts to see real transformational change.

This book will bring readers into the more than 30 classrooms I have observed over the past seven years. Throughout the book,  I will weave in my personal experiences as a mother of two young girls and a former elementary school teacher and my expertise as an early education policy researcher as I delve into my questions, frustrations, hopes, and themes that surface when I visit a classroom that shows what is possible. In the opening of the book, I will examine how kindergarten has changed over time and why. Then, I will turn to places delivering high-quality kindergarten experiences and what makes it possible. In stories of my visits, I will bring in the voices and perspectives of school leaders, teachers, and families. Finally, I will offer my ideas for how to transform kindergarten on a larger scale and for the benefit of more children.