Increasing demands in state tests is one of the many reasons why extending the kindergarten program to full day is a good idea, according to officials with the Bethlehem Area School District.
A number of studies, including one by the U.S. journal "Education Next," however, say that by mid-first-grade, students who had half-day kindergarten were on par with their full-time counterparts.
So why bother?
Some, like Mark Wolfmeyer, an assistant professor of education at Muhlenberg College in Allentown and an expert in education policy, said the real benefits go way beyond elementary school.
“In a full-day kindergarten, you can actually bring back some of those lost opportunities the way a kindergarten used to look. Those might include free play, socialization skills, art, music, social studies. Those kind of things that are now lost with an increase in math and literacy,” he said.
Wolfmeyer added that, due to the increased standardized testing and emphasis on literacy and math, a day that lasts less than three hours isn't enough for students.
"By the end of kindergarten, it's expected that they're either beginning readers or very close to reading at the end of kindergarten, and that used to be the first grade standard," he said.
A 2007 study done by an economist professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, found that full-day instruction did yield "short-term positive effect... but by the end of the first year, it was essentially gone."
"While I may agree with those studies, that in the third grade, maybe there isn't much a difference on those test scores. I think that the things that I'm talking about can't be tested," said Wolfmeyer.
Things like socialization, emotional learning, critical thinking, working along with peers and self knowledge, according to Wolfmeyer, can all be gained through a full-day kindergarten program.
"I think a full day kindergarten program that prepares people for the economic future as well as engage their intellectual development, their emotional development... leads to a better community," he said.
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