Too much, too soon

'But that is cruel - cruel to the children!'
'Why do you make them do these things so soon? They need to play!'
 'Over here on the mainland, we think you Anglo-Saxons are mad.'

Just three quotes from teachers that I jotted down while researching pre-school provision in Europe for my book Toxic Childhood.  As a specialist in literacy, I was particularly interested in their reactions to England’s pre-school writing targets which, when I first saw them, also struck me as cruel and mad.

The first two quotes came from early years teachers in Finland, the country that regularly tops the international charts for literacy (in which the UK has been doing steadily worse over the last decade). The third was from a primary headteacher in the Netherlands, the country that came first in the  2007 UNICEF survey of childhood well-being in the developed world (in which the UK – shamefully – came bottom).

Since my book appeared in 2006, I’ve frequently been asked to speak about child development in the modern world to early years practitioners in England.  Everywhere I go, they too are deeply worried about the requirement to start children manipulating pencils across paper when they’re scarcely out of nappies. But if they don’t, how will they hit the EYFS target of writing in sentences ‘by five’? 

It’s obvious to anyone working with young children that this target is unrealistic. For boys especially the hand-eye co-ordination and small-scale motor control involved in writing can take years to develop. 

And for many children from less advantaged homes, there’s a great deal of groundwork to be done in terms of developing spoken language before they’re ready to start writing it down.  What’s more, if we put children off writing at the very beginning of the educational process, the chances of igniting their interest at a later stage are very low. 

So ever since the EYFS became a statutory obligation in 2008, I’ve been an outspoken critic of the writing targets. Everything I saw in successful European countries convinced me that, during the first five or six years, it’s far more important to lay sound foundations for literacy, using activities that come naturally to children, than to crack on with unnecessary early instruction. 

Lots of songs, rhymes, ‘story time’ and story-telling, phonic games and an emphasis on oral learning (including plenty of learning by heart through playful opportunities for repetition) develop their language and auditory memory skills. 

Active play of all kinds, mark-making, small-scale manipulative tasks and moving to music (as in the excellent Dutch WriteDance materials) develop their physical control.  And opportunities for children to engage in emergent reading and writing during imaginative play (or in an attractive ‘writing area’) provide practitioners with opportunities to support their development at a level appropriate to their individual needs.

I didn’t see any child being ‘held back’ in Scandinavia or the Netherlands, but neither did I see them being forced to do something beyond their developmental level.

A few years ago, I was invited to give evidence to a government Education Select Committee on early years practice and was delighted that all bar one of the other experts there agreed heartily that some of the literacy requirements were a case of ‘too much too soon’. 

So when a revision of the EYFS was announced last year, I felt sure they would be radically overhauled.  I also expected – and it proved to be the case – that literacy targets would be one of the most controversial aspects of the consultation.

So I’m stunned to see the requirement to write in sentences is still in the proposed revised EYFS.  Which early years experts recommended this to Sarah Teather’s committee? Why was the majority opinion of practitioners who responded to the consultation ignored? Who are the cruel, mad people pushing this nonsensical target that’s bound to skew practice in ways that can damage children? 

There are many other aspects of EYFS that worry me immensely (along with most early years practitioners I meet). The writing target is simply the one I personally feel most qualified to comment on, and a particularly clear illustration that England has taken a seriously wrong turn in terms of early years policy.

As another Scandinavian practitioner put it, ‘How can you make a law about how little children should learn?’  
 
Sue Palmer is a literacy specialist, author of Toxic Childhood: how the modern world is damaging our children…and what we can do about it and a founder member of the OpenEYE movement.