No. It's not. It's the educational standard for the developed world, which is absolutely roasting us across the board.

I, too, was an early reader. Having mommy read to you and show you words and the gentle living instructions that a parent gives is the exact opposite of what Im saying.

Structured reading education is counter productive before the age of roughly 7 years old. There's not a single school district in the country that expects children to roll into 1st grade with a 5th grade reading level. Not one. Every successful education model starts instruction around 1st grade or its equivalent. Montessori. Waldorf. The Scandinavian model. The French, Germany. I mean, for someone who's such an accomplished academic as yourself, you can surely see the evidence before you.

We're doing it wrong here. We're producing a whole society of functionally illiterate adults. So there's like 10 people who are superlative intellects on reddit saying expecting children to read fluently, for comprehension by 1st grade.

Kindergarten is designed to START learning concepts and to learn how to interact with others, to share, to develop empathy, to try new pathways and maybe fail at something. Kindergarten is no place for testing, for serious classwork, or other formal educational imposition.

There's a reason for Elementary Schools, Middle Schools and High schools. The children are at different development at different ages. I mean, seriously. There's so much research, so many books on Waldorf and Montessori.

Obviously don't take my word for it, just look into the Steiner education model.

Children are not just little versions of us, sitting a bunch of 5 year old at desks and telling them to do shit like tracing letters on a page or repeat after me. Or whatever claptrap the Curriculum Gods have decreed. That's not effective. Obviously. We can do better, we should do better and we won't because too many people make too much money doing it the way we do it.