Rediscovering Kindergarten: Embracing Play and Joy in Learning

Kindergarten should be a year defined by curiosity, joy, and the kind of playful, rigorous learning that lays a foundation for everything that follows. Instead, for too many young students, it is overly scripted, under-resourced, and features few experiences that matter most for young learners. A new book by New America Senior Fellow Laura Bornfreund makes the case for changing that, showing why high-quality kindergarten is both possible and necessary. Rediscovering Kindergarten: Embracing Play and Joy in Learning takes you inside more than 50 classrooms nationwide. It shows how educators, administrators, and policymakers can address long-standing achievement gaps while also allaying academic pressures in the early elementary grades.

Please join New America’s Early and Elementary Education Policy program and the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading (CGLR) for a conversation with Bornfreund and Hechinger Report’s Christina Samuels. It will be followed by commentary from national leaders in early learning and an award-winning kindergarten teacher.

A wine-and-cheese reception and book signing will follow at 4:30 pm at New America’s offices.

This event is put on in partnership with the Campaign for Grade Level Reading.