As their bridge to schooling, kindergarten can bring structure to children’s natural curiosity. But many K classrooms today are structured like those of later grades: focusing on academic competencies over foundational social-emotional, cognitive, and motor skills. If we’re serious about improving outcomes across the K-12 continuum, we need to recommit to developmentally appropriate instruction, to guided, play-based, whole-child learning. It’s time to take back kindergarten.

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