By Jennifer Militzer-Kopperl and Meilani Dela Cruz

One of the primary concerns parents have when enrolling a child in Waldorf kindergarten is reading. Waldorf schools have a tradition of not teaching the alphabet in kindergarten and asking parents to wait as well.

Honolulu Waldorf School is pioneering a new approach in Waldorf kindergarten education: teaching the alphabet and other early literacy skills in a developmentally appropriate way. Doing so leads to greater success and aligns with Steiner’s indications.

The Sun Children Program

Honolulu Waldorf School adopted The Roadmap to Literacy: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf Schools Grades 1 through 3 to teach reading. It uses the traditional Waldorf practice of teaching reading in first grade rather than kindergarten. It includes benchmarks (standards) that show the level at which students should be reading by the end of each grade.

The school had been administering diagnostic reading assessments for years to track their students’ progress. The data showed that year after year students were not reaching the reading benchmarks in The Roadmap to Literacy. Additionally, students’ self-esteem began to suffer by grade three if they were not reading fluently.

In order for students to reach the benchmarks and feel confident about their abilities, the school’s literacy committee, headed by literacy specialist and dyslexia consultant Ms. Dela Cruz, analyzed the data and discussed what needed to happen for students to reach the benchmarks.

The school took several action steps. One step was to bring early literacy skills to kindergarten students in a developmentally appropriate, playful, and joyful way that aligned with Waldorf pedagogy.

The faculty collaborated to create the Sun Children Program, a supplemental literacy program for kindergarten students. Sun Children sing songs, play games, and participate in interactive stories and activities to develop four areas: 1) visual discrimination; 2) letter awareness; 3) letter/sound correspondence; and 4) phonemic awareness (i.e., the manipulation of speech sounds independent of letters).

The program begins with an imaginative story called “The Magic of Sounds” about a fairy who loves the sounds in human speech and makes a discovery that will help all of her animal friends be able to read one day. It concludes by telling the children that they will get to play the same fun games that the fairy and animals played.

During the year, the children play numerous multi-sensory games to develop the above-mentioned four areas. Each lesson includes “The ABC Song” and chanting the sounds for each letter with proper articulation and hand movements.

The children participate in five-minute Heggerty Phonemic Awareness lessons. They strengthen their visual discrimination by working with manipulatives and describing letters (e.g., the letter X has two diagonal lines).

Thanks to the Sun Children Program, all first-grade students at Honolulu Waldorf School begin first grade with a solid foundation in early literacy skills, including the alphabet. Ongoing assessments identify students who struggle to reach benchmarks, and they receive additional help in pull-out groups.

As a result, the percentage of students who learn to read has soared. Since using this program, at least 90% of each cohort of Sun Children can read fluently and at grade level by the end of second grade.

The Sun Children Program is only one aspect of a multi-pronged approach for developing students’ literacy skills and boosting self-confidence in reading. As evidenced by the ongoing assessment results, the program has been a resounding success at Honolulu Waldorf School.

Rudolf Steiner’s Indications

Teaching the alphabet in kindergarten contradicts some traditional Waldorf kindergarten practices, but it aligns with the indications of Rudolf Steiner, founder of Waldorf education. A close reading of Steiner’s indications reveals three recommendations that pertain to teaching the alphabet in early childhood and kindergarten: 1) singing; 2) painting the ABCs; and 3) writing and delivering letters to dolls.

First, Steiner recommends using children’s songs to teach in early childhood. He states that it aids human development when children are first given the opportunity to learn something by rote without understanding it and without any explanations of meaning (2000 81-82). Steiner also says:

It is important to realize the value of children’s songs, for example, as a means of education in early childhood. They must make pretty and rhythmical impressions on the senses: the beauty of sound is of greater value than the meaning. (1996, 23)

Thus, early childhood education could include songs that feature letters. When preschool and kindergarten children sing songs about the alphabet and letter sounds, they learn both by rote, which aids their development and prepares them for formal reading instruction when they are older.

Next, Steiner states that kindergarten students can paint the letters of the alphabet (1996, 56). He says, “It is good that they [children] paint the letters first by imitation and only later learn to understand their meaning” (1996, 22). In addition to rote instruction through song, kindergarten students get a visual, tactile, and movement experience of the letters as they paint them.

Finally, Steiner suggests that kindergarten students pretend to write letters to each other’s dolls and deliver them (1998, 80). This practice is an early example of Kid Writing. The students pretend to write by using squiggles and random letters, and then they pretend to read their writing.

Steiner’s version is a game that allows children to imitate what adults are doing (writing and reading) and use the letters of the alphabet in their play. Implied in this recommendation is that it is developmentally appropriate for children to experiment with pencil grip.

Steiner also lists some things that are not developmentally appropriate. First, kindergarten students should not be taught to sound out written words (i.e., decode) before they lose their first tooth.

Second, instruction should not come from devices. Children should always be taught by human beings, ideally those with an understanding of human development. Age-appropriate education promotes healthy development in all children, including children in early childhood.

Caroline von Heydebrand’s Indications

If teaching the alphabet in kindergarten matches Steiner’s indications, where did the idea originate that it is antithetical to Waldorf early childhood education?

The idea came from Caroline von Heydebrand, one of the first Waldorf teachers, in her highly influential book The Curriculum of the First Waldorf School.

Heydebrand states “If the child is introduced at once to the conventional writing, he becomes prematurely senile” (1989, 1). [A new translation states “If you place the child immediately in front of conventional writing, you make them prematurely geriatric” (2021, 15).] Heydebrand goes on to state that the alphabet is taught over two consecutive grades: uppercase in grade 1 and lowercase in grade 2.

The Curriculum of the First Waldorf School leaves the reader with the impression that the alphabet is harmful to children: It should not be introduced at all in kindergarten; instead, letters should be introduced slowly, over the course of two years.

This aversion to teaching the alphabet was carried over to Waldorf kindergarten, the tenets of which were created after Steiner’s death, and to Waldorf education in general as Heydebrand and other Waldorf teachers brought Waldorf education to England and other countries in Europe.

Heydebrand’s tenets are so strongly associated with Waldorf education today that they form a parallel curriculum. It would not be wrong to state that there is a Heydebrand-Waldorf curriculum and a Steiner-Waldorf curriculum.

In the Heydebrand-Waldorf curriculum, the alphabet is harmful to children, and Waldorf teachers safeguard students from it. In the Steiner-Waldorf curriculum, knowledgeable early childhood teachers (and parents) can bring the alphabet in a developmentally appropriate way, one that enhances the health and development of the children and prepares them for success in the grades, as Honolulu Waldorf School has demonstrated.

Conclusion

Mainstream education knows that children who receive explicit, direct instruction in the alphabet and phonemic awareness in early childhood have better outcomes than students who do not. Its mistake is to push all kindergarten students to read and spell words, often before the children are developmentally and/or academically ready for this next lesson in literacy.

Waldorf parents who teach the alphabet prior to the start of first grade have the right idea. Their challenges are to avoid the use of tablets, cell phones, and educational videos as well as to wait to teach children to sound out words until after they have lost their first tooth.

The Sun Children program at Honolulu Waldorf School achieves a healthy balance: it brings early literacy skills in a developmentally appropriate way for Waldorf kindergarten children through games, songs, stories, and activities. In so doing, it meets the needs of all its students and achieves the promise of Waldorf education: joyful, healthy, and effective education.

To learn more about the Sun Children Program, contact Meilani Dela Cruz, M. Ed, at mdelacruz@honoluluwaldorf.org. The Roadmap to Literacy is designed so it could be used off-grade in kindergarten. To learn how, contact author Jennifer Militzer-Kopperl at jennifer@renewalofliteracy.com.

Bibliography

Heydebrand, Caroline von. The Curriculum of the First Waldorf School. Translated by Eileen Hutchins. Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, 1989.

Heydebrand, Caroline von. The Curriculum of the First Waldorf School. Translated by Daniel Hindes. Longmont, Colorado: Aelzina Books, 2021.

Militzer-Kopperl, Jennifer. The Roadmap to Literacy Renewal of Literacy® Edition: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf Schools Grades 1 through 3. Carmichael, CA: Renewal of Literacy, 2022.

Steiner, Rudolf. The Child’s Changing Consciousness as the Basis of Pedagogical Practice. Translated by Roland Everett. Anthroposophic Press, 1996.

Steiner, Rudolf. Faculty Meetings with Rudolf Steiner Volume1: 1919–1922. Translated by Robert Lathe and Nancy Parsons Whittaker. Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1998.

Jennifer Militzer-Kopperl is a remedial educator, author, and the creator of Renewal of Literacy®. Her books are The Roadmap to Literacy: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf Schools Grades 1 through 3, Continuing the Journey to Literacy: A Guide to Teaching Language Arts in Waldorf Schools Grades 4 through 8, and The Roadmap to Literacy Renewal of Literacy® Edition. She is passionate about using her background in Waldorf education and Lindamood Bell reading remediation to help Waldorf students, teachers, and schools thrive. renewalofliteracy.com.

Meilani Dela Cruz, M Ed., is Interim Head of School at Honolulu Waldorf School. Her background is in early childhood and elementary education as well as literacy instruction and intervention. Meilani has enthusiastically taught hundreds of children in her twenty years in education. Her mission is to equip students with effective strategies and tools to become confident, life-long learners.