A lot of the arguments I see again and again against early learning are bogus, especially for parents planning on homeschooling. Here are 3 that have been on my mind lately.
Benefits to enrolling in Head Start fade over time
One is that there are studies that have shown that the benefits of enrolling in Head Start faded over time, to the point that they were negligible. It seems a strange thing to me that so many homeschoolers have latched on to this data and are using it as a reason to argue against early learning. First of all- there is a HUGE difference between the public school route of education and the homeschooling projectory, and there are huge differences in the WAY people homeschool. The traditional way of homeschooling I grew up with is as rare as ever, many homeschoolers in the US today use hybrid schools, charter schools, online schools, and a myriad of options that simply weren't available 30+ years ago. The evolution is great- parents have more options these days. My point is- why are we even looking at Head Start data to determine OUR best practices? Seems to me we ought to be looking to our own community to see what works. If people are so adamant against "public school at home", why latch on to data that doesn't apply to us and our teaching methods?
Furthermore, the studies weren't very scientific, and, in fact, Head Start has benefited a lot of kids. There were children in the control group who ended up going to Head Start, and a good number of them went to other preschool programs. There were also children in the treatment group who ended up not going to Head Start. These are real kids in the real world with parents who made choices that evolved based on their family's needs. They weren't lab rats, and thank goodness. Oklahoma has a universal Pre-K option, and Tulsa has published results that show that children who enrolled in Pre-K were more likely to enroll in AP classes in high school, and more likely to attend college. So... I don't think these studies are really proving what people are saying they are.
Also consider that Head Start was not intended for the masses, but rather for minorities, the poor, and at-risk children. It wasn't intended to create little geniuses, it was designed to help children who traditionally struggle in school. And homeschoolers, take note, there are a lot of parents who teach their kids preschool skills at home. Even if one argues against Head Start, the study doesn't prove that preschool learning is worthless. "Home-based care" often includes parents engaging with their child's early learning. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/does-head-start-work-the-debate-over-the-head-start-impact-study-explained/
Finland leads the world in PISA scores, and they wait until age 7 to start school.
I have seen people bring up Finland a lot, and mentioned it in my last blog post. Their PISA scores are impressive, and they have led the world for years. Recently their scores have dropped somewhat, but it's likely not as a result of their education model not working, rather, a huge influx of immigration and children who struggle with learning a new language and cultural differences that have made integration hard. They still are in the top tiers regardless.
People point out that Finland doesn't start formal schooling until 7, with the implication that we shouldn't either. But latching on to this, too, is a bit short-sighted, especially for homeschoolers. This shouldn't be an argument for unschooling, or putting off any education for our own children younger than 7. Finland actually offers universal Pre-K, with a required half-day program that begins when they are 6. It's not at all unusual for children as young as 18 months to attend government-sponsored child care in Finland. Their equivalent to pre-K may not include formal reading instruction, nor does it have a sit-at-the-desk-and-listen environment for the kids. Instead, they spend a good deal of time outdoors in nature. They learn music. They implement play-based learning. If anything, Finland's model would be an argument FOR preschool, nevermind the delay for formal reading instruction. These kids are among their peers from an early age, and there is a good deal we, as homeschoolers, can learn from their model, if we care to really look at it. But too many just say, "Look Finland is doing awesome and they wait until 7 for school", which is egregious, given how the larger picture is ignored.
19th century children only had a few years of education, and yet they were highly literate.
Ah yes, an appeal to the old models and pioneer days. Back in pioneer times, it wasn't unusual for children to only have a few years of formal education. College attendance was rare, and many didn't even finish high school. No time or opportunity. And yet, it was a golden era of high literacy, even on the plains where limited formal schooling was available. And indeed, they aren't wrong when they say that there was limited formal schooling available, and a good many people read.
Therefore, today I see people concluding that little formal schooling is necessary, since it worked so well for our 19th-century ancestors. Again, I find this to be an egregious argument because the limited time in a one-room schoolhouse was hardly the sum of their education. Furthermore- why are homeschoolers, of all people, using this model to argue in favor of limited education when it was AT HOME LEARNING that drove the pioneer school house's success? If you knew your kid was only going to have 6-8 years of formal schooling, you'd prepare your children so they could get the most out of their time there. If they have to walk 5 miles to get to school (or more), and they are needed on the farm half the year, well, wouldn't it make sense to help your children through the material at home? Parents did that. There were a lot of candlelight reading lessons from the McGuffy readers, as well as the Bible. Yes, children might not go to school until they were 8-10, but they often showed up to their first day of school already knowing how to read and do basic arithmetic because they were taught at home. Their mothers dreamed of them getting an education, and they prepared them for it. People didn't have cell phones or Netflix back in the day. They read. And their children learned, often at a young age, because why wouldn't they want to participate in the family activity of reading around the fireplace? At school, Their teacher would assess their progress, and they would simply continue. The one-room schoolhouse was remarkably effective because it met children where they were and let them progress at their own pace. Missing 6 months of formal schooling wasn't unusual, but the kids often did alright because they had their text books at home and were studying in the evenings. And those books were rigorous!
It's almost laughable to say that people like Abraham Lincoln were uneducated. Sure, his formal schooling was very limited, but he was homeschooled! He didn't become a voracious reader in a vacuum.
Final Thoughts
None of these arguments against early learning hold water for me, especially the idea that the benefits of their preschool learning is going to fade out over time. When my oldest was kindergarten age, a friend told me that advanced kids often average out over time, so why bother? I told her I didn't want my kids to average out, and that if that's really what happens to a young gifted kid in the public school system, it's more of a reflection of how their special needs are not being met in the public schools than it is an argument against teaching them early.
A child who learns to read early is a child who will not struggle to read in public school. And there are a LOT of children who are struggling. If anything else, that would be a good enough argument for me! The argument of the fading benefits of early learning is not a reflection of a child's lost capacity for learning when they are older, it is a reflection of how we are failing to help these kids reach their potential.
Besides, I'm not seeing these faded benefits in my own early learning circles, especially where they are homeschooled and the parents are continually engaged in their progress. The only time we had any faded benefits was the couple of years I fell into some lazy habits as their mother. It certainly had nothing to do with their capacity to continue learning.
When you have mastered certain steps in learning, you can then progress to the next step. And then the next, and then the next. When I see people argue that the benefits of early learning fade over time, I parse that argument out and see an argument that children who once were very bright and learned to read very early are, at age 8 or what have you, incapable of maintaining that momentum, whereas children who learned to read a year or two before have an accelerated capacity to catch up with them, simply by being the same age in the same classroom. Sure, all the children have a capacity to learn, and consistently working with a child from age 5-18 may very well yield better results than an early start followed by sporadic involvement in their education later on.
But can we really argue that a child who DID learn to read early, and DOES have an engaged parent who continues the same involvement in their education throughout their childhood will lose their capacity to progress when they are school age? It's ridiculous, and it doesn't pan out that way in the real world. The parents of child prodigies don't wait until they're 8 or 9 to teach them the alphabet. They started early and never stopped progressing. I'm not arguing for a stressful, high pressure education for any kid, but by golly, these arguments against early learning are ridiculous. Our kids are far more capable than we give them credit for.