Too Much Too Early

I'm reading Dr. David Elkind's 1987 book Miseducated. I read his book from 1981, The Hurried Child, a while ago. I'll be reading his latest book, The Power of Play (published in 2007), next.

Elkind has an impressive background. He has written more than 400 book chapters and articles, and several stories for children. His numerous books include Reinventing Childhood (1998), All Grown Up and No Place to Go (1998), and Ties That Stress: The New Family Imbalance (1994). From 1964 to 1965, Elkind was a national Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow at Piaget's Institut d'Epistemologie Genetique in Geneva, Switzerland. Much of Elkind's work can be seen as an attempt to duplicate, build upon, and more fully explore Piaget's theory and research. Elkind's research has focused on cognitive, perceptual, and social development in children and adolescents, as well as the causes and effects of stress on children, adolescents, and families.

Here are few key quotes from an article Elkind wrote in 2001 called "Much Too Early!"

The deployment of unsupported, potentially harmful pedagogies is particularly pernicious at the early-childhood level. It is during the early years, ages four to seven, when children's basic attitudes toward themselves as students and toward learning and school are established. Children who come through this period feeling good about themselves, who enjoy learning and who like school, will have a lasting appetite for the acquisition of skills and knowledge. Children whose academic self-esteem is all but destroyed during these formative years, who develop an antipathy toward learning, and a dislike of school, will never fully realize their latent abilities and talents.

Evidence attesting to the importance of developmentally appropriate education in the early years comes from cross-cultural studies. Jerome Bruner reports that in French-speaking parts of Switzerland, where reading instruction is begun at the preschool level, a large percentage of children have reading problems. In German-speaking parts of Switzerland, where reading is not taught until age six or seven, there are few reading problems. In Denmark, where reading is taught late, there is almost no illiteracy. Likewise in Russia, where the literacy rate is quite high, reading is not taught until the age of six or seven.