Literacy and Reading

The last time the National Association for the Education of Young Children took a position on teaching with technology it was 1996.  The Web was only a few years old, portable music meant the Sony Walkman, and Einstein was still that physics genius with the mustache, not a line of DVDs for babies.

It’s that time of year when the education policy team here at New America prepares a list of questions about the Obama Administration’s proposed federal budget. The budget, released yesterday, is not expected to become law anytime soon – many pundits say there is no chance Congress will pass it. But it does set important benchmarks for what the Administration would like to see in education spending.

Here are our two questions that relate most directly to early education:

President Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget request to Congress this morning, and once again, early learning gets a boost. The president proposes increased funding for Head Start, child care grants and for IDEA: Special Education Grants for Infants and Families, as well as additional funding for the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge.

This week and next, the STEM acronym will get some major airtime, as the Obama Administration tries to drive home the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in its new budget proposals.  The President kicked off the conversation in his State of the Union Address, and he provided some memorable visuals two days ago when he gleefully launched marshmallows from student-invented cannons at the second-annual White House Science Fair.  

All this talk of science and innovation might lead one to think that literacy and early education are sliding down a notch on the Administration’s priority list.

As digital media and new technologies start to capture the attention of early educators, it’s important to ask: Do we know whether any of these gadgets and gaming programs actually help children learn? 

Each January, Early Ed Watch predicts the hot spots for the coming year -- issues that will dominate discussions in early education policy and trigger halleluiahs or handwringing from advocates of better investments in early learning, birth through third grade.

Those who follow the science of early learning know that children's interactions, whether with their environment or with teachers and parents, are a critical foundation for their learning. So it may not come as a surprise to read an article I submitted this week to TIME magazine's online opinion section. But for those of us – I'm guilty too – who can become enraptured by new technologies and their potential for education, it might offer some food for thought.

As 2011 comes to a close, we took a few minutes to review the progress – and pitfalls – of early childhood education news over the year. So before we jump into another year of news and analysis, here’s a look at some of the major stories featured on Early Ed Watch this year. Happy New Year!

Among early learning advocates, the fate of play continues to be hotly debated. In the past few months, several articles have stoked the conversation, including an article in Scientific American MInd questioning whether preschool includes enough playtime and a piece in The Washington Post about the District of Columbia Public Schools adopting a play-based curriculum called "Tools of the Mind" for its 3, 4 and 5 year olds.  The first piece seems to reinforce the misconception that preschool will replace play.  The latter article describes a program that envisions classrooms in which playful learning and intentional teaching co-exist.

To learn more about the relationship between play and learning, we invited Annie Murphy Paul -- journalist, author and mother of young children -- to talk with us about what she has uncovered in the reporting of her forthcoming book, Brilliant: The New Science of Smart.