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One thing that has definitely changed is the level of academic expectations for young kids. Working with educators, it's apparent how much expectations have cha

One thing that has definitely changed is the level of academic expectations for young kids. Working with educators, it's apparent how much expectations have changed even in the last 10-15 years. Things that children were once expected to know in 1st grade are now expectations of children in kindergarten or even pre-kindergarten. Kindergarten is the new 1st grade, in terms of reading, and that means children have to spend more time sitting and copying letters and words. In kindergarten, some children will be a year older than other children, and a year is a massive amount of time, developmentally speaking, when you're talking about 5-year-olds. The biggest risk factors for an ADHD diagnosis are being in the youngest quartile of your grade and being male. Neither of those are actual medical problems.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago
> One thing that has definitely changed is the level of academic expectations for young kids. Working with educators, it's apparent how much expectations have changed even in the last 10-15 years. Really, I think this needs a reference/citation? We didn't read a classic English book until 7th or 8th grade when I was in school. In contrast to say my parents education in Russia where they read Pushkin in ~2nd grade. Math education was several years behind what they were taught as well.
- atemerev 10y ago
  Pushkin wrote quite a lot of child books, easily accessible for 2nd grade. It's not like Tolstoi or Dostoyevsky (those had to wait until grade 10).
  - forgotpwtomain 10y ago
    There are also great children's authors in English - A.A. Milne, Oscar Wilde's stories, Mark Twain, Kipling, Baum (Wizard of Oz). All of these could be accessible at various stages within grades 2-5.
    - atemerev 10y ago
      Yes, of course. I just wanted to explain that reading Pushkin at 2nd grade is not as impressive as it might sound in English. :)
- panglott 10y ago
  Yes, the effect is very dramatic over the last 10-20 years, but I suspect it's been hard to document. It's clear in terms of some expectations: a generation ago, it was expected that children would learn the alphabet in kindergarten, but today children are expected to enter kindergarten knowing the alphabet. So many kindergarten classes spend a few weeks reviewing the alphabet before rushing into words, leaving behind some children that didn't get pre-school before the age of 5. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/08/462279629/why-kindergarten-is-the-new-first-grade http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/08/462279629/why-kind... "In 2010, prekindergarten prep was expected. One-third more teachers believed that students should know the alphabet and how to hold a pencil before beginning kindergarten. Everyone should read. In 1998, 31 percent of teachers believed their students should learn to read during the kindergarten year. That figure jumped to 80 percent by 2010." http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/01/is_kindergarten_the_new_first.html http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/0... ".The percentage of teachers who reported their students never received physical education more than tripled, from 14 percent to 45 percent" https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/06/13/common-core-killing-kindergarten/lydG3pnscVEnTEoELUZWdP/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/06/13/common-core-kil... '“When we require specific skills to be learned by every child at the same time, that misses a basic idea in early childhood education,” she says, “which is that there’s a wide range to learning everything in the early years.”' Meanwhile in Scandinavia children don't even begin formal education until they're 7.

forgotpwtomain 10y ago

> One thing that has definitely changed is the level of academic expectations for young kids. Working with educators, it's apparent how much expectations have changed even in the last 10-15 years. Really, I think this needs a reference/citation? We didn't read a classic English book until 7th or 8th grade when I was in school. In contrast to say my parents education in Russia where they read Pushkin in ~2nd grade. Math education was several years behind what they were taught as well.

atemerev 10y ago
Pushkin wrote quite a lot of child books, easily accessible for 2nd grade. It's not like Tolstoi or Dostoyevsky (those had to wait until grade 10).
- forgotpwtomain 10y ago
  There are also great children's authors in English - A.A. Milne, Oscar Wilde's stories, Mark Twain, Kipling, Baum (Wizard of Oz). All of these could be accessible at various stages within grades 2-5.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    Yes, of course. I just wanted to explain that reading Pushkin at 2nd grade is not as impressive as it might sound in English. :)
panglott 10y ago
Yes, the effect is very dramatic over the last 10-20 years, but I suspect it's been hard to document. It's clear in terms of some expectations: a generation ago, it was expected that children would learn the alphabet in kindergarten, but today children are expected to enter kindergarten knowing the alphabet. So many kindergarten classes spend a few weeks reviewing the alphabet before rushing into words, leaving behind some children that didn't get pre-school before the age of 5. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/08/462279629/why-kindergarten-is-the-new-first-grade http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/01/08/462279629/why-kind... "In 2010, prekindergarten prep was expected. One-third more teachers believed that students should know the alphabet and how to hold a pencil before beginning kindergarten. Everyone should read. In 1998, 31 percent of teachers believed their students should learn to read during the kindergarten year. That figure jumped to 80 percent by 2010." http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/01/is_kindergarten_the_new_first.html http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2014/0... ".The percentage of teachers who reported their students never received physical education more than tripled, from 14 percent to 45 percent" https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/06/13/common-core-killing-kindergarten/lydG3pnscVEnTEoELUZWdP/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2015/06/13/common-core-kil... '“When we require specific skills to be learned by every child at the same time, that misses a basic idea in early childhood education,” she says, “which is that there’s a wide range to learning everything in the early years.”' Meanwhile in Scandinavia children don't even begin formal education until they're 7.