Readiness and Developmentally Appropriate Practice
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One way in which children are described is in terms of readiness, most notably kindergarten readiness, but also at any age level or in other terms whereby children may be excluded from an age/class group based on a judgment that they do not have the prerequisite knowledge or skills to meet expectations. Readiness means that a child has mastered certain skills and dispositions towards learning in order to be considered “typical” and eligible for entry. Readiness criteria can be anything from being toilet-trained and thus ready for entry to a 3-year-old class to being able to sit still and pay attention for a specified period of time for kindergarten. Currently at least thirty-four states continue to require testing for entry to kindergarten (Education Commission of the States, 2018).
Long-term research findings show, however, that readiness tests in terms of predictive value are largely unreliable (Ackerman & Barnett, 2005). Hence the image of children as “ready” or “not ready” has been a big issue in early childhood education. The National Association for the Education of Young Children asserts that the schools or programs and the curriculum in use should be “ready” and responsive to children rather than the other way around (NAEYC, 1995). One of the primary features of all the major early childhood curriculum approaches and models previewed in Chapter 2 is an image of the child that isn’t dependent on externally imposed readiness criteria.
