Children learn more and better in playing

Dr. Ruth Beechick, in her book, the Three R’s, talks about a study that was done to settle the issue once and for all. It was done by a school district. They had two classes of Kindergarteners.

In one class, they focused on early academics: Phonics, reading, math, workbooks, etc.

In the other, they took a play based approach. They did no formal reading lessons at all. Instead, they read to the children, played with science (learned about nature, played with magnets, melted ice, did real life and play activities.)

They assessed the children when they were in the third grade to see which class was doing better.

The result: The “play-based” Kindergarten children were doing better! They learned to read later, yes—but they learned to read more quickly and easily than the “academic” children did.

They had higher reading scores and better vocabularies than the “academic” children did, too, because they had spent more time living “real life” and doing/talking about ‘real things.”

http://susanlemons.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/common-preschool-myths-debunked-part-2/

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