Is There Still Room for Play in California Kindergartens?

Six-year-old Mateo Long is a soft-spoken, shy little boy. Reading with his mother, Marisa Strong, is one thing that gets him out of his shell.

His favorite book is "Pete the Cat and the Bad Banana," a children’s story about a cat that discovers his love for bananas after eating not-so-appetizing food.

Strong points to the words and begins to read.

“Pete tries a ... ” Strong pauses.

“Pickle!” Mateo exclaims, as he follows along.

“Pete tastes it,” Strong continues. “It tastes better, but not as good as a ...”

“Banana!” Mateo exclaims, finishing the sentence.

Mateo will be going into kindergarten this year, and he’ll be a little older than most kids in his class. But still, Strong is worried.

The Oakland mom knows that under the state’s new academic standards for kindergarten, Mateo will have to read at a higher level before moving on to first grade.

“I’m not going to fight it. ... I want to give it a try,” Strong says. “Let’s just try and not expect him to do everything perfectly all the time.”

Under the state’s old standards, kids moved on to first grade if they could sound out letters and read basic words like "cat," "mop" and "the."

The new Common Core State Standards require kindergartners to learn more words and read short sentences fluently.

Teachers will also do more with informational books and do less with all those fun storybooks.

So instead of reading a children’s book like "Frog and Toad," teachers might now opt for a science book about frogs. Kristen Cruz Allen, administrator of curriculum frameworks at the state Department of Education, says that's part of helping children gain skills they'll need in the future.

“They actually can do" the more complex work, she says. “It’s really making them think critically about the text that they’re reading and preparing them later on, when they’re going to write arguments with text evidence.”

Many kindergarten teachers say they understand why the shift in standards is necessary but are still concerned about students who didn’t go to preschool, who speak another language at home or who simply need more time to grasp the new concepts.

“What would be nice is if we didn’t have to put an evaluation on them,” says Renee Smith, a kindergarten teacher in Fremont. "When you have to give it a grade, it doesn’t necessarily show you growth. When we have to stick something on kids, that judges them."

Smith and others say the reality is that kindergarten has become a boot camp for first grade.

“You don’t want to turn them off to school at age 5,” Smith says. “The hardest part is how do you still make it fun and get them to come back every day.”

One expert who is trying to put the fun back into lesson plans is Heidi Butkus.

The veteran teacher has created her own Common Core-aligned curriculum called Heidi Songs, which teaches kids how to read using memorable songs, physical activities, and bold images and videos.

“Play develops language and vocabulary better than any lesson you can give them,” Butkus says.

She says the problem with the new standards is that teachers take them too literally and suck the fun and imagination out of the schoolday.

She says some teachers don't know how to bring play back into the classroom because they’ve “lost that skill.”

Parents like Strong understand there is no avoiding these new standards, so they're planning to put their trust in teachers, yet keep a close eye on how they're teaching the new content.

“I’m just happy that he’s trying to sound out the words,” Strong says. “It would be nice if my son was reading (fluently), but it will come.”