7 - Seven
Many students are 7 years old before they are ready for direct, formal reading instruction and assessment. Given the age cut-off date of August 1, in Arkansas, most students reach this age sometime during their first-grade year. "Given the range within which children typically master reading, even with exposure to print-rich environments and good teaching, a developmentally appropriate expectation is for most children to achieve beginning conventional reading (also called early reading) by age seven" (NAEYC 1998 p.8). The picture below shows the physical difference between the hands of a typical 4 to 5-year-old and a typical seven-year-old. Too often, young students are not physically able to master the literacy skills expected of them in Kindergarten.
In early years, the National Association for the Education of Young Children recommends immersing students in a literacy-rich environment and "capitalizing on the active and social nature of children’s learning, early instruction must provide rich demonstrations, interactions, and models of literacy in the course of activities that make sense to young children" (NAEYC 1998 p.6) Many five and six-year-olds are not developmentally ready for direct literacy instruction, nor are they able to perform to a level of mastery on standardized, computerized literacy assessments.
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