In my view - Think before you speed

There is an urgent need to think through the underlying tacit assumptions in this field carefully, before uncritically plunging into empirical research that routinely obscures more than it reveals.

Take the recent Office of National Statistics research, for example. Does a mechanistic, outcomes-obsessed approach yield any useful information about early-childhood environments? When 'measurable outcomes' are driving decisions about how we care and relate with young children, wisdom routinely gets sidelined - and with no guarantee that such outcomes data is remotely capable of 'capturing' the qualities of experience that make a difference to young children. Such empirical research also uncritically assumes that measurable 'achievement' at ever younger ages is necessarily developmentally appropriate.

We live in a culture obsessed with crude speed as some kind of virtue in itself. One of the most damaging aspects of this 'cult of speed' is the assumption that it is good for children if their development and learning are speeded up - and all the better if we can measure it 'scientifically'!

Yet the experience of other European approaches is that most children will learn to write and read at around six years of age without all the negative unintended consequences that often arise from forced early learning, and the damage to self-esteem and the love of learning that can ensue. Indeed, if these 'variables' were factored into research on early learning, I suspect that the results would look very different.

The drive towards earlier literacy learning surely has far more to do with our tragically disappearing understanding of early learning experiences, and with policy-making expediency, than it does with a true comprehension of children's developmental needs. There is an urgent need for a fully informed debate about this before the cults of speed and outcomes-obsessed research do more damage in this delicate field.