Report finds that requiring kindergarteners to read could be harmful

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Podcasts Take Two

Jan 23, 2015

Listen • 5:20

Report finds that requiring kindergarteners to read could be harmful

Common Core guidelines set the standards for what students should know at the end of each grade, like learning to read in Kindergarten. But is that the right standard to shoot for? Some say not necessarily.

A volunteer with the LA Public Library's STAR program reading to children at the Eagle Rock Branch (March 2012). Adults will read to children in the community as a way to engage the community around reading.

Common Core guidelines set the standards for what students should know at the end of each grade, like learning to read in Kindergarten. But is that the right standard to shoot for? Some say not necessarily.

These days, schools in most states follow the Common Core. The guidelines set the standards for what students should know at the end of each grade, like learning to read in kindergarten.

But some early childhood education experts say this is not not necessarily the right standard to shoot for.

Joan Almon, co-founder of the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, joins Take Two to discuss the new report she co-authored titled "Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose."