When is a Child Ready to Start Grade School? By Kristine Fiskum,
on behalf of the DVWS faculty To answer this question we must
look at a child’s natural, chronological development. Much like
a pregnancy, each and every child goes through stages, and at
certain points new processes occur. Rudolf Steiner, founder of
Waldorf Education, was a pioneer in the area of developmentally
based, age-appropriate learning, and many of his insights and
practical applications were later borne out by the work of
Gesell, Piaget, Gardner, and others. The Waldorf approach
recognizes that children younger than seven years learn best
when taught concretely through movement and example, whereas
school-age children (ages 7–14) learn best when they are engaged
imaginatively and artistically. Then, when children reach high
school, around age 14, their growing ability to analyze and
think abstractly has a rich body of experience on which to draw.
( Rahima Baldwin Dancy, Waldorf educator and author.) The first
stage is the time of adven