I recently received an e-mail from a former student who is an early childhood educator. She wrote that she first taught in university lab schools, and then returned to college to earn a social work degree. She now works as a social worker in 0-5 programs and as such attends a lot of parent-teacher meetings. At these meetings she hears parents complain about their child being thrown out of kindergarten because he or she is in need of “improvement.” This is a euphemism for the fact that the child could only name 15 rather than the required 17 letters of the alphabet, or that he or she cannot correctly name ten numbers between 10 and twenty. She wrote to me to ask if there were any groups or organizations that were working against this craziness.

I wrote back and told her that as far as I know there is no organized opposition to this madness. Across the United States, in large communities as well as small, as many as 30 percent of children are retained in kindergarten because they do not know their numbers and letters. In effect these children have failed kindergarten. What a way to start your academic career! Part of the problem is that the first grade has been transformed. When fewer than fifty percent of children were in some type of out-of-home program, the first grade curricula had to be flexible to accommodate children with a range of preparation.

Today, however, some eighty percent of children in the US attend some out-of home program full or part time. As a result the first grade has now become fully academic and not prepared for children who may not know all their letters and numbers.

The irony is, as any first grade teacher will fully admit, knowing one’s numbers and letters are not what a child needs to succeed in first grade. To be successful a child needs to have attained three social skills.

1. The child has to be able to listen and to follow instructions

2. The child has to be able to concentrate and bring a task to completion on his or her own.

3. The child has to be able to work cooperatively with other children, stand in line, take turns etc.

If a child has these skills, the numbers and letters will come easy. The demand that all children entering first grade must know their numbers and letters rests on several false assumptions.

The first is that all early childhood programs emphasize numbers and letters. They don’t, particularly the good ones.

The second false assumption is that all children progress intellectually at the same rate. But early childhood is much like early adolescence. Some adolescents reach puberty at eleven, some at twelve, some at thirteen or fourteen or even later. They all get there but they get there at different rates.

The same is true for young children attaining the new mental abilities that the ancients called the “age of reason,” the ability to learn rules and engage in formal education. Some children attain these at four, others at five others at six or seven. To demand that all children entering first grade know their numbers and letters is equivalent to demanding that all students attain puberty before they enter seventh grade. Making such demands on young children not only makes no sense, it can do harm. A child’s first experiences in school color all of his or her attitudes not only towards school but also towards teachers and learning.

We always wait too long in our personal lives and in our social policies. I only hope that we don’t wait until we have damaged so many children that we are forced to change a failed policy.