Tutors for toddlers?

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, you may have seen extended family members, including young children.  In your visiting, did you ask any toddlers how their tutoring was going?

TIME’s recent article "Tutors for Toddlers" profiles a new trend – parents hiring after-school tutors for their 3 and 4 year olds to help children learn to read and develop math skills earlier using such techniques as letter charts and flash cards. With growing marketing of "educational videos" and the nationwide emphasis on testing in schools, increased parental anxiety about performance of preschool aged children is perhaps not surprising. But it also goes against what science tells us about how children develop.

Young children learn best by exploring and interacting with the world and people around them, not through worksheets and drills. NAEYC’s position statement on Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs emphasizes the multiple domains of young children’s development – physical, social, emotional, and cognitive – and highlights that play is an important method children use to develop in all areas. Early educators and parents who focus on the "whole child" are more likely to help create a lifelong learner who will read when he is ready, and for years to come.  And that would be cause for giving thanks.