Kindergarten is the New First Grade?

He was cooking. There was flour.

As the parent of a kindergartener (see covered in flour, left) and as a person who studies literacy, I hear a lot about how much school expectations have changed in the past decade. Now being hailed as the 'New First Grade', kindergarten reading expectations are completely different from way back when I was sitting on the circle mat.

In a new article in Educational Researcher, D'Agostino & Rodgers (2017) say, "Okay, so we keep hearing that, but is it true? And, what does that mean for literacy? And, if kids today are reading earlier, are ALL kids today reading earlier or are just SOME benefitting?"

Turns out, there isn't too much empirical data on early literacy prior to kindergarten and first grade (which makes sense since, until recently, the expectation was that kids would learn to read a grade older).

Using data from the Reading Recovery program, D'Agostino & Rodgers looked across six aspects of early literacy (letter identification, sight-word reading, phonemic awareness, writing vocabulary, concepts about print, and text reading level) to see if there were changes in what children, overall, can do, reading-wise, by the end of kindergarten.

They found that children in general were reading at a higher level upon entry to first grade. So, yes, there's truth to the idea that kindergarten is the new first grade.

They also found that achievement gaps narrowed on basic skills, like letter identification and phonemic awareness. So, that means that suggestions about teaching reading from the National Reading Panel and the National Early Literacy Panel seem to have been taken up by early childhood educators.

Finally, D'Agostino & Rodgers also found that achievement gaps widened on advanced skills, like word recognition and text reading level. D'Agostino & Rodgers suggest that indicates the importance of widening early literacy curricula to include more work with sight words and reading.

D'Agostino, J. V., & Rodgers, E. (2017). Literacy achievement trends at entry to first grade. Educational Researcher, 46(2), 78-89.