Early Childhood Education: The Word Gap & The Common Core

Given states’ difficulties in implementing the Common Core State Standards thoughtfully, many early childhood educators have begun to worry bout what the NAEYC refers to as “a downward pressure of increased academic focus and more narrowed instructional approaches.” But, as the NAEYC’s statement on the CCSS also observed, that “threat also provides an opportunity” for early education to exert more positive, “upward pressure” on the K–12 system. Could the recent attention to the “30 Million Word Gap,” by Hillary Clinton, The New York Times, the Bloomberg Foundation, and others, including the Shanker Institute, represent one such opportunity?