If your child is starting Ontario kindergarten in September, you have likely come across the headlines over the past year and a half about the “new kindergarten curriculum.”
The province first announced this revised curriculum in January 2024, titling its announcement “Ontario Unveils a Back-to-Basics Kindergarten Curriculum.” Some headlines also used the “back to basics” language.
However, the revised 2026 kindergarten curriculum is an update to the 2016 program, not a replacement of its foundational approach.
Play-based learning, inquiry and the whole-child framework are all retained. What is new is a set of explicit literacy expectations grounded in literacy research, a more formal tiered support model and several new curriculum areas.
As researchers concerned with early childhood education and early literacy, and who also bring applied kindergarten teaching experience, we explain the changes and what they mean here, drawing on a detailed comparison of both curriculum documents.
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How do educators use curriculum?
A curriculum is a policy document that describes the knowledge and skills students are expected to develop. It gives educators a framework and a set of expectations, and allows them to use their professional judgment about how to meet those expectations. It does not give lesson plans or instructions that educators follow step by step.
In Ontario kindergarten classrooms with more than 16 students, an educator team is made up of an Ontario certified teacher and early childhood educator who work as partners to support your child’s learning.
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In addition, educators monitor each student’s progress through ongoing assessments and observations and adapt lessons and materials appropriately. The curriculum shapes the intention behind these choices, but it doesn’t tell them how to reach learning outcomes.
(Ryan Wallace/Unsplash)
Why the literacy change was necessary
The most substantive content change in the 2026 kindergarten curriculum is the introduction of explicit, systematic reading instruction. There are new expectations that children will learn phonemic awareness (isolating, blending and segmenting sounds in words); phonics (learning the relationships between letters and sounds); and reading and spelling simple words using phonics knowledge, as well as reading short sentences fluently with increasing accuracy.
This responds directly to the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read inquiry, released in 2022. The inquiry found that Ontario’s education system was not using evidence-based approaches to teach reading, and was failing students with reading disabilities, including dyslexia, as a result.
The evidence in support of systematic phonics instruction is well established. Research consistently shows it improves reading outcomes across different groups of children, and that beginning instruction early matters.
The 2016 curriculum’s approach allowed reading development to emerge through exposure and play-based learning in dialogue with educators. For many children, this worked. For others, it didn’t provide enough of the foundational literacy skills needed.
It’s important to note, however, that many educators and boards had already begun shifting toward explicit, structured literacy well before this kindergarten curriculum arrived, prompted by an understanding of reading research, the Right to Read report and the 2023 Grades 1 to 8 language curriculum.
Play-based learning was not replaced
The 2026 curriculum retains play-based learning, and importantly, defines it more precisely than the 2016 document did. The curriculum’s supporting online platform describes three forms of play:
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Student-directed play, in which children lead their own exploration with minimal educator involvement (for example, role play at a play kitchen);
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Guided play, collaboratively designed by students and educators (for example, creating a map for a constructed block city);
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Educator-directed play, in which the educator constructs a purposeful play-based context to support the development of specific skills. This could look like playing a matching game focused on initial sounds in words.
Student-directed play is described as the optimal context for social-emotional development.
Two forms of learning, on a continuum
Explicit literacy instruction and play-based learning are not in opposition but rather can be viewed along a continuum. The new curriculum asks educators to use both.
The approach of inquiry-based learning — which acknowledges that children build understanding by asking questions, investigating and sharing what they found, instead of only taking in information — was central to the 2016 program, and it remains so now.
The curriculum names initial engagement (when a question or problem sparks interest); investigation (when children explore and test ideas); and communication (when a child makes their thinking visible to others).
This might begin with a child noticing that some objects sink and others float at the water table, move into testing predictions together — and end with the group recording what happened.
What else is new
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Coding concepts, expanded number range, new explicit recall (pulling number facts from memory quickly) and a financial literacy section are some other new additions to the 2026 curriculum.
The updated curriculum also names the expectation of weaving in First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories, perspectives and contributions across the program. This is part of a provincewide program-planning section that also applies to kindergarten.
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Early reading screening in the second year of kindergarten is required. It was established through Policy/Program Memorandum 168 (issued in 2023) and became mandatory in the 2024-25 school year, intended to identify children who need additional support earlier.
Reading the document, not the headlines
There is a well-documented pattern in education where curriculum changes are filtered through policy and media narratives before educators open the document itself. Research suggests these narratives shape what happens in classrooms.
Analyzing a decade of Canadian news coverage alongside surveys and interviews with 101 Ontario kindergarten teachers, early primary scholar Angela Pyle and colleagues found that media coverage perpetuated a narrow definition of play, and that about half the teachers held that same narrow view, treating play and academic learning as separate. They argue this gap between how play is portrayed and what it actually involves has practical implications.
When the dominant message is that play is out and direct instruction is in, there is the risk that teachers begin adjusting their classrooms in ways not actually required — for example, dismantling play-based environments.
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‘Explicit instruction’ in kindergarten
It is also important to know that explicit instruction in kindergarten doesn’t mean rows of desks and over-reliance on worksheets (these in moderation are not a problem).
It can look like an educator gathering a small group, working through letter-sound relationships systematically through games and other hands-on activities, while also allowing time for children to engage in rich child-led, play-based learning.
A kindergarten educator might run a short phonics activity before children go off to explore at learning centres that have been purposefully set up to consolidate learning and support new lines of inquiry. This might be preceded by a morning story to build vocabulary.
One important thing educators, school leaders and interested parents can do before September arrives is understanding what the revisions actually say.
