Click the image for the full series. Graphic by hyoin min and used here with Creative Commons license
Before my son started kindergarten in a public school in Boulder, Colo., in August, his teacher asked me to bring him in for an assessment. I expected this to be similar to what my daughter experienced when she started kindergarten three years ago — he’d meet his teacher, see his classroom, and then his teacher would ask him a few questions. She’d ask if anybody read to him at home, and see if he knew how to turn the pages of a book and hold it right side up.
On the day we were assigned to come to school, when the teachers separated the kids from the parents, handed us a stack of paperwork to fill out, and ushered the kids into a separate room, I thought that’s what was going on. But about 20 minutes later, the teacher came out and asked me, “Has Theo ever used a computer before?” She explained that the kids were in the computer lab, completing an assessment on the machines.
I told her Theo hadn’t used a mouse much, except for a few times at the library. In fact he hasn’t used any kind of computer much except for limited sessions playing games on the iPad. He’d certainly never sat for a full hour at a computer, as he would during this assessment. “You should know,” I said, “Theo is left-handed.”
When I said this, two other mothers looked up from the papers they were filling out, alarmed, and said that their kids were left-handed too.
“Oh, well that explains it!” the teacher said, and went back into the computer lab to switch the kids’ mice to the left-hand side.
The American Society of Pediatrics’ most recent guidelines for media use among children note that lots of kids are spending seven hours or more a day looking at a screen. They advise the creation of screen-free zones at home, media curfews at meals and before bedtime, and no screen time for kids under 2 years old (an admonition I dutifully followed — it was a happy day when I finally turned on “Sesame Street” for my kids). Kids over age 2 should have no more than one to two hours of screen time a day.
Photo by Kevin Makice on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.
Meanwhile, public schools are facing pressure to prepare kids for nationwide tests of the Common Core standards, which begin in the 2014-2015 school year. Most tests for fourth graders and up will be computer-based and require facility with a computer mouse, and the literacy tests will include essays that the kids must type directly into the computer.
Schools are understandably nervous, as in some districts these test scores will determine whether a teacher gets a raise, keeps a job, or if a school is closed. So in my kids’ school and others, they’re ramping up computer lab time and encouraging kids to use literacy and math programs at home, despite the fact that some lack Internet access. According to a 2013 U.S. Census report, 25.6 percent of Americans don’t have home Internet access.
What is a mom to do when the test-focused technology policies of her child’s school conflict with health guidelines and with her own instincts and beliefs about the right way to raise her children?
The Wrong-Handed-Mouse Report
A few weeks after Theo’s wrong-handed-mouse kindergarten assessment, I met with his teacher for our first parent-teacher conference. Thankfully, she’d done old-fashioned one-on-one evaluations of the kids because this was the first year for the computer assessments and she wasn’t sure how accurate they would be. Still, she presented me with a 17-page printout of the results by a company called i-Ready. The printout includes four pages of advertisements for “Recommended Products from Curriculum Associates” — computer applications parents can buy to drill their kids on these tests, called Ready Common Core Reading Instruction. (The teacher apologized for the ads and suggested I ignore them.)
The wrong-handed-mouse assessment included all kinds of software-generated tips about how to improve skills my son knows perfectly well how to do — when interacting with a person rather than a screen. One of the i-Ready instructions: “Model how to blend onset and rime [sic] of spoken one-syllable words and finish by saying the whole word.”
If a human had assessed my child rather than a machine, I would have gleefully pointed out that they’d misspelled the word rhyme several times in this report. (I can’t resist being a pedant when it’s so much fun.) Or maybe they actually wanted to encourage me to engage my kindergartner in a discussion of hoarfrost? Or perhaps their archaic spelling is in homage to Coleridge? If the creators of this software can’t spell the word rhyme, how can I trust that their academic assessments are valid?
Maybe I should have begun to drill my son on these skills, hoarfrost identification aside, but instead I let the wrong-handed-mouse report drift under other papers, and continued to read to him before bed as I always have, rather than prop him before a computer to practice literacy and mouse-handling skills.
Briggs Gamblin, the director of Communications for Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), noted that this i-Ready assessment for kindergartners is recommended by the Colorado Department of Education. “For some students,” Gamblin wrote in an email, “the computer-based assessment was a new experience. Staff recognize this could impact individual scores.”
A Little of This, A Little of That
Most of what my son does at school seems like joyful, hands-on kindergarten as usual, but at home we are encouraged to have kids log in to a program called Raz-Kids, through which they listen to books and record themselves reading the stories. Every once in awhile we do this for a few days in a row, then the recording mechanism on the program malfunctions, and we forget about it for months.
Raz-Kids homepage.
Meanwhile, in third grade, as the Common Core standards test looms, my daughter has been drilling on typing and test-taking skills. The kids spend time in the computer lab or on computers in the library every day, working on programs such as one called Typing Pal that’s supposed to teach them to touch type fluently (as far as I can tell, painstaking hunting and pecking is still the norm, even after years with this program) and an online reading program called Reading Plus. Teachers can monitor how often students are logging in at home and how many lessons they’re completing.
I think the reading selections in Reading Plus are generally engaging and high-quality. I also think the Common Core test the kids will be taking, called PARCC, is fair and will do a good job of measuring critical thinking skills, judging from the samples I’ve reviewed. But what I don’t feel comfortable with is all the multiple-choice-question drilling the kids are doing to prepare for it.
Briggs Gamblin said, “BVSD does not have a policy restricting or requiring the amount of time children use computers and other electronic devices. However, BVSD practice is that computers and other electronic devices should be a natural part of instruction and used intentionally to enhance and aid instructional practices.”
My daughter does well in school, but at every parent teacher conference I’ve attended so far, the teacher gently suggests that she use the online resources the school makes available more often. I do, for a few weeks after the conference. Then I forget about it, or can’t make the time.
Never once have my kids asked if they can please, please sit at the computer and use Reading Plus or Raz-Kids. Instead, they ask me to please, please read them a book or play with them or take them to the park. Besides, with all the screen time they have at school, when they get home they’ve just about exhausted the American Society of Pediatrics’ recommended media limits for the day.
Looking for the Quick Fix: Job Skills for Kindergartners
I started learning to type in a summer class during middle school, but the lessons didn’t really take until high school, when I took a school typing course in which all of the students sat at typewriters, the instructor up front calling out, “A space. J space,” as we clattered along, pressing the corresponding keys. Typing fast and accurately is a skill I used in college and at every job I’ve held since then. But do we really need to make 6-year-olds focus on future job skills?
Some experts see no developmental problem with kids typing young, comparing it to piano playing, while others say kids’ hands are too small to span the keys, or worry about repetitive stress injuries. As of yet, there’s no scientific consensus on the right age to begin to learn to type.
Dr. Brian Volck, assistant professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hospital Medicine at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said, “There’s insufficient data to make a definite recommendation. Some children may be ready at an earlier age than others, depending on such factors attention and manual dexterity.”
When I mentioned some of the uses of computers at my kids’ school, including the wrong-handed-mouse test, to Nicholas Carr, technology reporter and author of the Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains and the new The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, about the misguided rise of automation in education and other sectors, he responded in an email, “This is an entirely wrong-headed approach and runs counter to pretty much everything we know about child development. But technology promises a quick fix, and at the moment, in education and elsewhere, that seems to be what we want.”
I’m all for teaching kids about technology, which will be a part of their personal and work lives forever. But shouldn’t they learn how to write software programs rather than how to scan a text and answer multiple-choice questions on a screen? Shouldn’t they learn about how to assemble computer hardware, build an object with a 3-D printer, or shoot and edit digital video footage rather than passively watch as a computer reads them a book? Many studies suggest that when people read on a screen rather than paper, they read less attentively and retain less. So why aren’t schools using computers for what these machines are actually good at instead?
My daughter tells me that when she and her friends finish their required computer lab activities, they explore. One kid figures out a new trick and teaches the others — how to modify the background of their desktop or play music while they work on Typing Pal, for example. My daughter enjoys learning from her friends and teaching them how to program cartoon cat videos in Scratch. This is the kind of learning about computers I feel is more valuable than screen-reading and quizzes — and the kids are teaching themselves.
When I asked Briggs Gamblin why the Boulder Valley School District doesn’t emphasize programming more, he said, “BVSD staff are in the early study of enhancing computer science instruction and activities in elementary and middle school curricular offerings. BVSD staff recognize there is student interest in programming and developing computer/technology skills as part of 21st Century learning.”
At home, parents get the final say on screen time
Photo by Kelly Piet on Flickr and used here with Creative Commons license.
When my kids get home from school, they have about five hours before bedtime. Once they eat, do offline homework, practice sports, piano, or Lego building, eat again, and take a bath, that leaves us with about one precious hour. On most nights I choose to spend that hour reading stories to my kids and talking with them and having them read to me, rather than setting them up on the computer to practice literacy skills.
I don’t blame the teachers for having the kids practice test taking and typing — teachers are under a lot of pressure with the Common Core tests, and they are trying to make sure every kid is comfortable with computers. But at home, I can choose to unplug my kids.
I expect for as long as my kids are in school, teachers will continue to urge me to have them spend more time on the computer, and maybe my kids won’t do as well on the computer tests as their offline intelligence would suggest they should. But somehow, I think the kids will be all right.
Jenny Shank‘s stories, essays, reviews and satire have appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post and McSweeney’s. Her novel, “The Ringer,” won the High Plains Book Award.
Quote: “Still, she presented me with a 17-page printout of the results by a company called i-Ready. The printout includes four pages of advertisements for “Recommended Products from Curriculum Associates” — computer applications parents can buy to drill their kids on these tests, called Ready Common Core Reading Instruction.”
You’ve stumbled on one reason why so many state-level politicians were seduced by Common Core. They picked up on the fact that there were a host of businesses (including the publishing giant Pearson) eager to enter this new and government-dictated market and—most important of all—eager to give money to politicians who created that market for them.
–Michael W. Perry, co-author of Lily’s Ride (a young adult novel set in 1870s NC)
Interesting article but, the author should have researched what it meant to produce and onset and rime… the test is correct. It is not referring to a rhyme like rhyming words. It is a skill associated with developing phonemic awareness and early reading skills. It is teaching children to be able to break apart words into the beginning sound and the part of the word that follows. “The “onset” is the initial phonological unit of any word (e.g. c in cat) and the term “rime” refers to the string of letters that follow, usually a vowel and final consonants (e.g. at in cat).”
So…Phonics.
I am a teacher and my husband is a computer programmer in Silicon Valley. We have always severely limited our son’s screen time. You have made made excellent points in this article. Learning to type, read, and listen on a computer interface at a young age is an absolute misuse of technology, as is converting elementary instructional time from hands on, inventive play and tasks to screen practice test time. Students need to use their brains as well as their bodies when learning letters, visualizing math concepts, making categories in the world around us and practicing social tasks. I feel that too many of us have been complacent about this surge of technology use in the classroom, believing it must be good and that our kids will be left “behind” without it. While there are reasons to include some computer use in the early grades, particularly to expose students who have no computer in the home, teachers and schools must make sound decisions about its use, without the push of inappropriate computerized tests.
My husband became a good programmer and systems analyst because of his time spent as a youth building things, studying historical processes and social systems, reading fiction, and having lots of free time to do so. He did not ever study computer science in school, but the skills and knowledge he gained from real life learning and a rigorous focus on the humanities were an asset for him in this field. What he does regret is not having taken a typing class in high school in which he practiced the skill of using ten fingers on the keyboard and practicing by rote the placement of each key stroke. He is a slow two finger typer, and from what I have seen, this is an essential tool that is bypassed in our “computer based” learning schools.
The author brings up important points that are worth discussing, but yes, if she ridicules the “misspelling” of the term rime, without even bothering to look it up, it casts some doubt on the rest of her opinions. She could have just googled it!
she knows what rime means, she used the term hoarfrost later in the article in regards to the term rime. not everyone knows the phonemic meaning as well.
Oh no, a harried teacher forgot to ask which kids were left-handed while preparing the test materials? Missed a misspelling in the hand-out? How terrible! Lets harp on it over and over for emphasis of how horrible the system is. The point about kids being exposed to too much screen time is a good one, that was made about 12 times in this piece. It is written like someone was trying to reach a mandatory word-count with insufficient material.
FYI: Onset-Rime: The onset is the part of the word before the vowel; not all words have onsets. The rime is the part of the word including the vowel and what follows it.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with the point of this article, the author
should understand that “rime” and “rhyme” are NOT the same thing. And
because I don’t believe this is common knowledge, here is the
difference:
“In reading education, “rime” refers to the vowel and
the letters that come after the vowels in a syllable. For example, sit,
spit, and split all have the same rime (-it). Words that rhyme often
share the same rime, such as rock and sock (-ock). However, words that
rhyme do not always share the same rime, such as claim and fame (-aim
and -ame). Additionally, words that share the same rime do not always
rhyme, such as tough and though (-ough). Rhyme and rime are not
interchangeable, although they often overlap.”
So, please, educate yourself before gleefully proclaiming to being pedantic.
Websters online doesn’t include a definition for “rime” that has to do with anything other than ice and encrustation. Could you provide a source for “rime” used in this way?
Google “onset-rime”. Or, better yet, have your kid do it for you.
I think that even if “onset-rime” is a thing, it is still a great metaphor for the absurdity of 5 year olds on computers… and I as a parent have never heard of it. It sounds like the teachers did not explain it to the parents which is even crazier in my book.
I, too, was put off by the fact that, as someone who claims to be pedantic, she doesn’t know that “rime” is a word!
Let’s be kind about mistaking “rime” for a misspelling of “rhyme” — many dictionaries (including Oxford, Merriam Webster, American Heritage, and Dictionary.com) do not include the linguistic meaning of the word. I also stumbled at the phrase “onset and rime” — but for me, it didn’t make sense that “rime” could be a misspelling of “rhyme,” and then my curiosity led me to investigate further. And I certainly understand and have experienced myself how false assumptions or readings of a situation can negatively affect communication, so I know what it’s like to be in the author’s shoes. The sad thing is, if the author had brought up the ‘misspelling’ at the time she noticed it, things might have been cleared up for her. In my opinion, in her article she not only raises important points about children’s exposure to computers/electronic devices, but, through her mistake, highlights the importance of good communication between those who teach our children and the parents of those children.
Good points, but rime was spelled correctly. Onset-rime is different than rhyming words like (cat.. bat). Onset rime is a part of early literacy where students break up the sounds in words. Please do your research!
Good luck keeping your kids unplugged as they get older. By 5th and 6th grade, virtually all of my child’s homework has to be done online. All of her writing, and most of her research and reading is via google docs and the like. It forced us to buy another computer.
I have a child in a BVSD high school. She has at least six hours of screen time per day at school. Plus online homework at home. It’s impossible to avoid.
I work in tech and am a self described techie. I admit to having fallen under the spell that too much screen time is not harmful. While I would argue that the screen time isn’t the problem, but what was being done on the screen, I freely admit I didn’t practice what I preached by being really engaged and making sure a good chunk of that screen time was “good” screen time. My kids recently went to South Africa for 4 weeks with their dad. During that time I set each of them up with a desk and personal computer, but ironically I also decided to start really putting restrictions on screen time and what is allowed during that time. My boys came home to less screen time than before they left. I use a combination of Norton Family and Microsoft Family to limit when, how much, and what is being done on those screens. We also have a “homework” user with severely restricted access, but enough to do homework that requires a screen. I agree with the author that online learning “games” and quizzes are not a substitute for other forms of learning. My younger 2 dabble with these programs encouraged by their teachers just for the expisure, but it is certainly not part of our daily routine. I am skeptical that more than 20 minutes a couple times a week on these platforms has much more impact than the limited time we devote to them. When they finish their class work early they get to use these programs as a reward anyway. I am also a firm believer that expiramentation and exploration of general computing can be even more beneficial, especially when it is collaborative.
Excellent article. I just saw this posted on social media. You may be interested to the know that Andrew Moore, the Director of Technology for BVSD is planning to distribute Chromebooks to all students, charging parents a $45 fee. The phase-in will start in high school.