樂，學中文、教中文。/Enjoy learning &Teaching Chinese

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/us/preschool-academics-study.html

A group of students at Woodside Community School in Queens peered up at their teacher one morning this month, as she used an overhead projector to display a shape.

It looked like a basic geometry lesson one might find in any grade school, except for the audience: They were preschoolers, seated cross-legged on a comfy rug.

這個月的一個早晨，在皇后區的林邊社區學校，一群學生凝視著他們的老師，她正使用頭頂上的投影機打出一個形狀。

它看來像是你可能在任何小學看見的基本幾何課程，只不過聽眾有所不同：他們全是學齡前兒童，盤腿坐在舒適的地毯上。

“What attributes would tell me this is a square?” asked the teacher, Ashley Rzonca.

A boy named Mohammed raised his hand, having remembered these concepts from a previous lesson. “A square has four angles and four equal sides,” he said.

老師艾希莉．隆薩問道：「哪些特徵告訴我這是個正方形？」

名叫穆罕默德的男孩舉手，他上次上課時，記住了這些概念。他說：「正方形有四個角和四個等長的邊。」

As school reformers nationwide push to expand publicly funded prekindergarten and enact more stringent standards, more students are being exposed at ever younger ages to formal math and phonics lessons like this one. That has worried some education experts and frightened those parents who believe that children of that age should be playing with blocks, not sitting still as a teacher explains a shape’s geometric characteristics.

But now a new national study suggests that preschools that do not mix enough fiber into their curriculum may be doing their young charges a disservice.

隨著全美的學校改革人士推動擴大公費學前幼兒園，並且制定更嚴格的標準，已有更多學生在越來越小的年紀即接受類似這個課程的正式數學和拼音課程。這讓一些教育專家憂心忡忡，也讓一些家長嚇壞了，那些家長認為這個年齡的孩童應該玩積木，不是安靜坐著聽老師解釋某個形狀的幾何特徵。

不過，現在一項新的全國性研究指出，學前幼兒園若不將足夠的實質內容加入課程，可能是在傷害他們所照料的孩子。

The study found that by the end of kindergarten, children who had attended one year of “academic-oriented preschool” outperformed peers who had attended less academic-focused preschools by, on average, the equivalent of 2 1/2 months of learning in literacy and math.

“Simply dressing up like a firefighter or building an exquisite Lego edifice may not be enough,” said Bruce Fuller, the lead author of the study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you can combine creative play with rich language, formal conversations and math concepts, that’s more likely to yield the cognitive gains we observed.”

研究發現，上完幼稚園後，那些曾上過一年「學術導向學前幼兒園」的兒童，表現優於上過較不以學術為焦點的學前幼兒園的兒童，平均而言，識字和數學學習成果前者領先差距相當於兩個半月。

研究由柏克萊加州大學研究人員完成，領銜作者布魯斯．富勒說：「只是裝扮成消防員，或堆砌一座精緻的樂高積木大建築也許已不足夠。若能將富有創造性的遊戲，與豐富的語言、正式的對話和數學概念相結合，那就更有可能產生我們觀察到的認知增長。」

The new wave of preschools provide playtime, but their major goal is academic “kindergarten readiness,” and the study could provide ammunition for policymakers who want to keep on that course. It could also help officials like de Blasio make the case for even more public spending on prekindergarten programs.

Whether they will win over all parents is another question.

新一波的學前幼兒園有玩耍時間，不過主要的目標是成為學術上的「幼稚園的預備班」，而這項研究可為想要繼續這種作法的決策者提供彈藥。它還能幫助白思豪這樣的官員找到理由，為學齡前教育計畫提供甚至更多的公共支出。

至於他們能否贏得所有父母的支持，另當別論。