Shen 1 Tianyi Shen Kristen Foster CO150.

401 23 October, 2013 Should we impose pressure, mainly academic stress on children at their early ages? An Annotated Bibliography This annotated bibliography was compiled in order to discuss the increasingly exigent and controversial topic of nowadays how much academic pressure early-aged children are facing and whether it is proper or not. I was astonished when I learned my four-year-old brother taking chess, painting and telling stories classes at weekends instead of spending these times with toys and cartoons. However, it is fairly reasonable and understandable, as the saying goes, Lagging behind leaves one vulnerable to attack. Our parents worry about their little son and do not want him to be lagging behind and being attacked, so they choose to start much earlier than peers. As the sister of the 4-year-old boy I mentioned above, as well as one should probably consider this issue in the future when I have my own child, this topic seems to be worth researching and interesting to me. The research question that guided my research is this: Should we impose pressure, mainly academic stress on children at their early ages? Between the dates of October 2nd, 2013 and October 12th, 2013, I conducted the research that appears in this annotated bibliography. Here included four sources, two of which are scholarly articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The two remaining sources include an article from Instructor, which is a trade magazine for teachers published by Scholastic according to Wikipedia and another article that discusses this issue out of the United States, as well as my home country.

Shen 2 Combi, Chloe. "Yoga and Latin? Give Them a Break." Times Educational Supplement 5023 (2012): 42-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. This scholarly article was written to appeal to parents to let the children have a happy childhood watching cartoons and playing with peers instead of learning things such as yoga and Latin. The author mainly uses personal experiences and stories from others about their experiences as the evidences. She describes her experience seeing a child younger than 8 asked to practice Latin verbs by her mother before yoga class. The author claims that an eight-year-old child deserves a break at weekends, spending time with toys, dolls and cartoons. In addition, Combi gives several examples that the students hide their interests from their parents because those are what their parents dont like.

Several factors contribute to the credibility of the source. According to theguardian.com, the author Chloe Combi is an education consultant, scriptwriter, journalist and founder of the educational charity Write Club, which makes this source reliable. Moreover, it was published in a peer-reviewed journal, which ensures all the informations reliability. However, the article doesnt have references to other key works, so it might be her opinion, which makes this source lack knowledge of the literature.

This source helps answer my question by presenting me how those parents that care about their childrens academic performance a lot act, as well as what the gove rnment that does not care about that too much do. Whats more, the two groups are both stakeholders of my research.

Shen 3 Curwood, Jen. What Happened to Kindergarten Instructor 117.1(2007): 28-32. Web. 11 Oct 2013. This article mainly uses quotations to describe the present situation in kindergarten to parents, teachers and those people who care about kids. The author claims that one of the reasons why there is more work than play in kindergarten is the increasing awareness of the importance of making children learn earlier and being more capable. However, the children are taking the risk of losing other skills such as self-reliance and problem-solving while they are learning how to read or do math. Curwood also describes her own experience deciding to send the kid to school when he was age-eligible, as a teacher and a mother of a five-year-old kids-who is one of the subjects of my research.

This source is credible. According to the website of the University of Sidney, the author is a lecturer in English education and media studies, which makes this article trustworthy. Moreover, it includes a research published by The Society for Research in Child Development, which is a professional society for the field of developmental psychology, focusing specifically on child development according to Wikipedia that increases the credibility of the source. However, one limitation is that it was published in 2007, which decreases the reliability of this source as recent publication.

This article helps my research by presenting me how other people (such as teachers, educator) think about this issue. For example, psychologist Erik Erikson, who is one of the relevant stakeholders, states that play is vital as it has influence on later learning. That gives me multiple perspectives to have a better understanding of this issue.

Shen 4 Scoop News. Present Education in India Put Kids Under Heavy Pressure of Achieving Higher Results groundreport.com. CreativeCommons, 18 Dec 2009. Web. 2 Oct 2013. This article was written to present the education situation of Indian kids to teachers, parents and educationists mainly by quotations from J&K Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah. The author states that kids in India are facing heavy academic pressure in order to achieve good academic results. Because of this, governments are now paying more attention to develop childrens personality by offering different kinds of curricular and extra-curricular activities.

This source is credible because it was published in GroundReport.com, which is a global citizen journalism platform that enables anyone to publish news reports and videos and earn a share of ad revenues according to Wikipedia. However, it has several limitations. For example, it was published in 2009, which decreases its recency. Moreover, it doesnt write anything about the outcome of curricular and extra-curricular activities, which makes the readers wonder whether this method helps develop childrens personality or not.

This source helps me answer my research question, as the author writes, fierce competition among young children to get better marks in order to be admitted into higher classes and good schools has shorten their childhood. It indicates that imposing academic pressure on children at their early ages does harm to them. And it writes about how schools, as one of the stakeholders, act under such circumstances. Moreover, it presents the situation in India, the third country except the United States and China in my previous research, which ensures that the topic is commonly seen at present.

Shen 5 Weil, Elizabeth. When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten? New York Times. New York Times, 17 June. 2007. Web. 12 Oct 2013. This scholarly article was written to discuss with the educators and parents to answer the question When should a kid start kindergarten? Throughout the article, the author uses the experience of Anderson, a willowy 11-year teaching veteran (Paragraph 3), to help with her argument. The author refers to a new terminology-redshirt, which means holding kids back to start schools later. According to Weil, redshirted children are generally more capable than others who are not redshirted. For example, as she writes, By far the fastest runner was the girl in class who had been redshirted. (Paragraph 4) Weil says that as a result, states are trying to delay the kindergarten entry year to enable kids to perform better in the later years.

Several factors contribute to the credibility of this source. First of all, it was published in New York Times, which information included is validated to be authentic. Moreover, according to the article, the author Elizabeth Weil is a contributing writer for the magazine, which makes it trustworthy. One limitation of this article is that it doesnt include the disadvantages of redshirting, which seems to be not comprehensive enough.

This source helps me answer my research question by providing me a different way those parents choose to let kids start school later instead of pushing them to be perfect as early as possible. It also presents me the perspectives of educators and teachers, both of which are stakeholders of this issue.

Shen 6 Works Cited: Combi, Chloe. the guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Combi, Chloe. "Yoga And Latin? Give Them A Break." Times Educational Supplement 5023 (2012): 42-43. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Oct. 2013. Curwood, Jen. Faculty of Education and Social Work, the University of Sidney, 11 April. 2013. Web. 9 Oct. 2013. Curwood, Jen. What Happened to Kindergarten Instructor 117.1(2007): 28-32. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. "GroundReport." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. "Instructor." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 22 Mar. 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2013. Scoop News. Present Education in India Put Kids Under Heavy Pressure of Achieving Higher Results groundreport.com. CreativeCommons, 18 Dec 2009. Web. 2 Oct 2013. "Society for Research in Child Development." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2013. Weil, Elizabeth. When Should a Kid Start Kindergarten? New York Times. New York Times, 17 June. 2007. Web. 12 Oct 2013.