Waldorf in the Home

Sitting children down and teaching them to write the letters and to read when they are four or five uses a kind of intellectual energy that Steiner indicates is still needed in early childhood for the healthy formation of the internal organs. The baby teeth are the last to be "re-formed," and when they are pushed out by the adult teeth, it is a sign that this process has reached a point where the energy is now free for learning-although still imaginatively, not in a dull, rote fashion. Neuropsychologists also recognize this same rapid proliferation of brain cells around age 6-7 (as reported by Jane Healy, Ph.D. in Your Child's Growing Mind).

In addition to potentially weakening a child's later health, early academics also wake the him or her up prematurely. This awakening comes naturally around age 7, but when it is rushed-as it can be with bright children-they lose a couple of years of the imaginative, creative realm of early childhood without gaining anything in terms of being better readers at grade 5. And many children simply lack the eye-hand coordination and the ability to sit still for lessons, so they are labeled as having learning problems that wouldn't exist if teachers waited until the children were developmentally ready for reading and writing.

What about the bright child, who is eager to learn? My suggestion is always to relate with enthusiasm and anticipation ("When you go to the big school, you'll learn that," or "Next year we'll be studying all the letters and their stories at home."). But I wouldn't sit down with a five-year-old and start lessons just because she wanted to learn to write. Many times teaching a child to write his or her name is enough to satisfy their desire, before they are on to other interests. And the really smart ones will learn to read from the STOP signs while driving or through osmosis from being around an older sibling.

The guiding principle according to Steiner is not to address the intellect directly in early childhood. Children up until the age of six or seven need to be in movement, learning through movement games and through play and expressing themselves through the arts, not sitting at desks tracing letters and numbers, memorizing math sums, or learning to read. This makes Waldorf out of step with the mainstream push to teach reading and writing at ever younger ages, but the results are fewer reading problems and children who love reading real books, rather than becoming burnt out on years of simple readers.