In the rush to raise academic standards and ensure college and career readiness, policymakers may have overlooked the developmental needs of the youngest students. Common Core State Standards, adopted by most states in the early 2010s, were designed to set consistent learning goals across the country. However, for children in kindergarten through second grade, these demanding benchmarks have often translated into less play, more frustration, and a diminished love for learning.
The Origins and Intentions of Common Core
Common Core arose from a genuine desire to fix a fragmented and often inequitable educational landscape. Before its adoption, each state had its own set of standards, leading to vast disparities in what students were expected to know. The initiative promised a clear, shared roadmap that would prepare all students for college and careers. In theory, it made sense: if a child moved from Mississippi to Massachusetts, their educational experience would be seamless. The standards emphasized critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills over rote memorization, a shift many educators welcomed.
Yet, the architects of Common Core primarily focused on middle and high school outcomes. The standards trickled down into elementary grades without sufficient adaptation for early childhood development. Kindergarten, once a garden of exploration, was now expected to produce readers and mathematicians on a strict timeline. The assumptions behind this pushdown—that earlier is always better and that all children develop at the same pace—have proven deeply problematic for the youngest learners.
The Disappearance of Play-Based Learning
Walk into many kindergarten classrooms today, and you might mistake them for first or second grade. Desks are often arranged in rows, worksheets abound, and the dress-up corner has been replaced by a word wall. The culprit? Standards that require kindergartners to “read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding” and “compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones.” Such skills demand direct instruction, leaving little room for the imaginative, hands-on play that research shows is critical for cognitive and social development.
Play is not a break from learning; it is learning for young children. Through building with blocks, they grasp physics and spatial reasoning. Through dramatic play, they negotiate roles, develop language, and build empathy. When the school day is squeezed to meet literacy and math benchmarks, these vital experiences are marginalized. The loss of play is not merely a nostalgic concern—it has measurable impacts on executive function, creativity, and emotional regulation. As we documented in our piece on The Death of Play-Based Kindergarten, the shift represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how young minds grow.
When Math Becomes a Source of Anxiety
Common Core math standards for early grades are ambitious. Kindergartners are expected to count to 100 by ones and tens, understand addition and subtraction as “putting together and taking apart,” and work with the foundations of place value. First graders tackle word problems involving addition and subtraction within 20, understand the meaning of the equal sign, and partition circles and rectangles into halves and fourths. While some children handle these concepts with ease, many are not developmentally ready for such abstract thinking.
The result is often confusion and anxiety. Young children who are still in the preoperational stage (according to Piaget) think concretely. They learn best through manipulating physical objects and real-world situations. But Common Core’s emphasis on multiple representations and explaining one’s reasoning—while valuable in later grades—can overwhelm a six-year-old who is still building number sense. Teachers report students crying over timed tests, developing a fixed mindset (“I’m just bad at math”), and losing the natural curiosity that makes mathematical exploration joyful. Instead of fostering a strong foundation, the standards may be planting the seeds of lifelong math avoidance.
“I’ve watched kindergarteners who used to love counting blocks now dread math time. They look at the worksheet and just shut down. We’re asking them to do things their brains aren’t ready for, and then we wonder why they think they’re failures.” — A veteran early childhood teacher
The Narrowing of Reading Instruction
In literacy, Common Core requires a 50-50 split between literature and informational texts by fourth grade, with the balance tipping toward nonfiction in later grades. This has had a ripple effect downward: even kindergarten and first-grade curricula now include a heavy dose of “close reading” of informational passages. The classic picture book read-aloud, once the heart of the early elementary day, is being sidelined by a focus on “key details” and “text features.”
The problem is not with nonfiction per se—children need a rich diet of texts—but with the way it is often taught. Deep analysis of text structure and author’s purpose is developmentally inappropriate for five- and six-year-olds. The joy of being swept away by a story is replaced by dissection. A first grader who should be falling in love with Frog and Toad is instead tasked with identifying the main topic of a paragraph about the life cycle of a butterfly. Such practices risk turning reading into a chore rather than a source of wonder, and they ignore the profound role that narrative plays in building empathy, cultural literacy, and a lifelong reading habit.
What the Research Says About Readiness
A growing body of developmental science contradicts the push for academic rigor in early childhood. Studies confirm that children’s brains develop sequentially, and forcing skills before the brain is ready can lead to frustration and superficial learning. For example, reading requires the integration of phonemic awareness, visual processing, and language centers—a feat that typically comes together between ages five and seven, but with wide individual variation. When standards mandate that all kindergartners meet specific reading benchmarks, they ignore this natural variability.
Similarly, executive function skills—the ability to focus, remember instructions, and inhibit impulses—are better predictors of later academic success than early reading or math scores. Play-based, child-directed learning strengthens these skills far more effectively than drill-and-practice. Countries like Finland and Sweden, where formal academics begin at age seven, consistently outperform the United States on international assessments. Their youngest children spend their days in play, outdoor exploration, and social development, yet they achieve higher levels of literacy and numeracy in the long run. The message is clear: slowing down can actually speed up deeper learning.
Teachers and Parents Pushing Back
In classrooms across the country, teachers are caught between mandated standards and the children they serve. Many spend hours trying to make lessons “developmentally appropriate” while still covering required content. They report spending less time on art, music, and physical movement—activities that not only enrich learning but help children self-regulate. The pressure trickles down to parents, who receive benchmark reports showing their child “below grade level” and panic, sometimes hiring tutors for kindergartners.
Parent advocacy groups have sprung up, pushing for play-based learning and a reduced emphasis on testing in early grades. Some districts are responding by integrating more exploratory time within the constraints of standards. Others have begun to question whether the standards themselves need revision for K-2. At Sheridan CCA, we recognize these concerns and host regular Upcoming Events where parents can discuss educational philosophy and practical strategies to support their children at home. Change may come slowly, but the conversation is growing louder.
Moving Toward a Balanced Approach
The youngest victims of Common Core need not be casualties of a one-size-fits-all system. Educators and parents can advocate for classrooms that blend necessary foundational skills with rich, play-based experiences. This does not mean abandoning all standards, but rethinking how they are implemented. For example, math can be taught through cooking, block play, and games, with paper-and-pencil practice introduced later. Reading can incorporate phonics instruction while preserving the magic of story time.
Some schools are pioneering “kindergarten readiness” programs that prioritize social-emotional growth and motor skills. Others are adopting a “workshop” model that weaves small-group direct instruction into a longer block of self-directed activity. Resources like our Blog and community events such as the Annual Golf Scramble (which supports enrichment programs) provide ways for families to engage and promote a healthier educational environment. The goal is not to lower expectations, but to align them with the science of how young children truly learn—and to ensure that the earliest years of school leave children curious, confident, and ready for the challenges ahead.
As we continue this dialogue, we encourage you to explore related topics in our 6 Top Tips for a Tip-Top Blog and join us at Spring Fundraisers to support programs that bring joy back to learning. The youngest members of our community deserve an education that sees them not as data points, but as growing human beings with an innate drive to discover the world on their own terms.