Purdue News

All-day kindergarten is a must for Indiana children By Marilyn Haring All-day kindergarten is an excellent investment for the state of Indiana provided that the extra hours at school focus on "readiness" skills rather than become a form of day care for five-year-olds. The focus of these readiness skills should be literacy and numeracy, which are the keys to academic success in first grade and beyond. If our schools offer all-day kindergarten, it should be mandatory for children who meet the age requirement. In a widely-cited study of a dozen full- and half-day kindergarten classrooms, Purdue Professor James Elicker found that today's kindergarten curriculum is much more academic and skill-related than it was 25 years ago. He determined that spending a full day in class may be less stressful for youngsters than trying to "cram" the demands of today's kindergarten programs into the traditional half-day schedule. Because there is so much to learn, I believe that every school corporation in the state should offer full-day kindergarten and every child who meets the age requirement should attend. The need is especially great for youngsters whose parents are unable to send them to pre-school programs. Furthermore, I believe that as many children as possible should be eligible as soon as possible; thus, the cutoff date for a child to turn five should be moved back from June 1 to August 15. Finally, some children are already exhibiting potentially violent and antisocial behaviors at the age of five, and all-day kindergarten is a place where civility and other skills of good citizenship like cooperating and sharing can be taught and reinforced. Indiana must get serious about education if we are to raise our rather poor showing in most educational polls. All-day kindergarten is an important step in the right direction. To the Purdue News and Photos Page