<p>The day that my own son finished kindergarten, I remember thinking (with tears in my eyes), "There will never be a better year than this one." Although the jury is still out on whether or not that is true (there have been some pretty great ones since and more, I hope, to come), I would not want to change a thing about those wonderful ten months. </p>
<p>I do admit that there were subsequent years in elementary school when I thought that the math was dumbed-down too much. But, call me old-fashioned, I still reject the idea of making the kindergarten curriculum any more academic than it already is (which is WAY more academic than my own kindergarten experience was). Do other parents agree?</p>
<p>Interesting question, Sally. I have European friends, who went through academically rigorous European school systems, who are SHOCKED by how much is expected of American kindergartners. The idea that you want a 5 year old to be reading is considered too demanding, especially by those from countries where first grade starts at 7 years old, and not 6 like in the U.S. These friends inevitably tell me that the US expects too much from kindergartners and 1st graders - and too little from middle/high schoolers. </p>
<p>The system needs to be developmentally appropriate for children at each age. 5 year olds have some capacity for learning, but most of them learn best through hands-on activities and play rather than traditional academic teaching where a teacher lectures to seated children. While many are capable of doing more at this age, it often comes down to which children have been exposed to reading, letters and numbers in the preschool years. An individualized approach is best at this age to account for the differences.</p>
<p>I didn’t read that article as being about increasing the amount of academics in Kindergarten, I read it as shifting the kind of academics in Kindergarten, so that kids are working on things that are challenging and will be useful in higher grades.</p>
<p>We’ve made similar shifts in the PK and K programs at our school. Relative to many public PK and K programs our school has lots of time for indoor play, recess, PE, art, music, dance etc . . . but we make sure that the time we do spend on academics integrates basic skills into more advanced activities. </p>
<p>I am for mixed age classrooms because the years 0-7 are so variable.
I dont feel it is appropriate to expect all kids to be on the same page @ 5 years old because of the developmental variation. Even the rate at which they pick up small motor skills vary.
I also don’t think it necessarily comes down to exposure as both my kids grasped different things at different times. Neither one attended a classroom that looked like my half day kindergarten I attended in public school when I was 4.
Ugh, school was so excruciating.
I was reading when I was 4, but forced into plodding through controlled vocab books in 1st grade.
And that was without owning any appropriate books myself, my mother did go to the library often however.</p>
<p>Well, duh.
The caveat to this is that there are plenty of kindergartners who have never even seen a book and sure as heck have never had parents read to them or start their education at home. </p>
<p>I almost think Kindergarten is too young to have kids in school anyway and am NOT in favor of making it more academic. Let the kids be kids. Let them learn through play and exploration not in making sure they get as far ahead as possible. IMO, it’ll only serve to continue the widening of the achievement gap. </p>
<p>The more we turn education into a race, the more we’ll lose kids along the way and continue to underperform on a global scale. We’re way, way too worried about “getting ahead” and not nearly as worried about making sure kids actually understand the material. It’s already starting to bite us.</p>
<p>Many kids are already in full day child care when they are 3-4 yrs old, having half day K, is going backwards and requires more juggling by working parents.
Our district charges for full day K by everyone except those with FRL.( which is a very low bar, many families cant afford to pay for it, but the district does not have half day programs, although you are allowed to pick up your child before lunch)</p>
<p>The ironic thing is that “play and exploration” is far more likely to develop an understanding of the kind of advanced content that the article talks about than drill and kill type activities.</p>
<p>A kindergartener who spends time in the library center reenacting a story on a flannel board or “reading” a familiar book to the stuffed animals, or who plays with the Goldilocks props in the Housekeeping corner is going to have a deeper understanding of literature, than one sitting on the carpet as the teacher shows alphabet flash cards. </p>
<p>One of my favorite activities we do in PK is making graham cracker dominoes. Take a graham cracker, spread it with something sticky (soy butter, cream cheese . . . ) divide it in half with a pretzel stick, and then using 5 raisins make different combinations, compare yours with your neighbors, and then eat. When we do this, the kids get lots of practice counting and subitizing (that’s teacher speak for looking at a set, like the dots on a dice, and “knowing” how many it is without needing to count) within 5, which are some of the “basic” skills the article talks about. But they’re also getting exposure to concepts like combining sets, and the commutative property (hey, his “5” looks just like mine, only backwards). Each kid takes what they can handle from it, but even the kids who still need the basic practice in numbers benefit from a preview of basic addition concepts. </p>
<p>The more academic you make kindergarten, the older the kindergarteners will get. When we lived in Vienna, Virginia there were seven year olds in kindergarten – which I think kind of defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. I know another family in Nashville, Tennessee that has a six year old in junior kindergarten at the preschool. She will start kindergarten at seven. Then her parents will come in and complain that Sally is bored and "not being chall-enged . . " and the standard will ramp up yet again. Our kid’s experience was that kindergarten was a bizarre chaotic environment which included both kids who were barely toilet-trained and kids who were doing multiplication worksheets and complaining that they were bored. </p>
Are kindergarteners expected to learn how to read? My little sister was in kindergarten a few years back, and they just taught the alphabet and numbers.</p>
<p>I believe that Kindergarten is fine as it is. Putting more educational stress on the children, in my opinion, will halt their future progress rather than accelerate it. The ages 0-7 in general are the ‘learn through experience rather than through academics’ years and depriving children of this by directing them towards more rigorous math and reading exercising could alter their perception of the world for the worse.</p>
<p>Students make bigger gains when they’re taught things they don’t already know? Who would have guessed? As long as we have parents who, in 5 years, never got around to teaching their kids letters and basic counting, then teachers will have to devote kindergarten to teaching these basic skills which can be learned by nearly all preschoolers. And the kids who already knew those things will learn nothing other than that school is really boring.</p>
<p>My H teaches 1st grade in a Title I school. In the last couple of years, their district office has drastically changed what kids are expected to know in each grade. I was shocked when I looked at the vocab words he was printing out for the first graders - they were much more advanced than what I remembered our own kids learning at that age. And many/most of these kids do not come to kindergarten knowing letters and numbers. Some don’t know which direction to hold a book or how to hold a pencil. For the most part they have not been in high quality (or any) day care or pre-k, with many being raised by grandparents, or aunties or uncles. There is no support to get the kids from where they are to where the district thinks they should be. The changes are being sold as meeting their Common Core curriculum. I truthfully don’t know if it’s Common Core or just this district’s idea of Common Core. I don’t think they’re doing the kids any favors. “Oh, here are the new standards. Have a nice day.” H is concerned that the children get discouraged when they don’t “get it” and get turned off from school. </p>
<p>My daughter loved Kindergarten. She had homework every night–usually either an idea about which she would draw a picture and write a few sentences using invented spelling, or a few arithmetic problems.</p>
<p>The classroom also had a “kitchen,” dress-up corner, etc., and they had music, art, science and computer classes every week. It was terrific. There were kids who, on the first day, had never held a pencil or crayon and kids with parents with graduate degrees. But they were pretty much on the same level by the middle of the year. </p>
<p>I think that either Kindergarten curriculum should be made more demanding or that kids should have the opportunity to be separated on ability starting even in kindergarten. When I started kindergarten I was reading full-length chapter books, and yet I was still in a classroom with kids who only kind of knew their letters. As the years went on, most of the kids were brought closer up to speed but I still wonder where I could be if I hadn’t had other people holding me back throughout my education and making me relearn things time after time. I firmly believe that there needs to be more separation in our education system to give every kid the ability to work and learn to their full potential, not just those who are struggling. Even now as I take all the AP classes I can, I find that most of them are too slow and that there needs to be a higher level AP class for kids who don’t need everything explained to them five times. As a high school student, I’ve had at least 3 honors/AP teachers approach me to apologize because they could tell that their classes were too slow for me and not challenging. Ever since kindergarten I’ve been bored, so I really support the concept of making kindergarten more difficult - or at least making it an option.</p>
<p>There is a difference between letter recognition (name the letter) and recognition of the letter with it’s associated sound. “B” is not “bee” but “buh”. Learning word sounds leads to reading skills and simple letter recognition does not. It doesn’t require more of the child but it does require more of the teacher. No more “alphabet song”–we’ll need to create the “alphabet letter sound song”.
Same with numbers–as long as you’re learning to count and learn numbers you may as well extend that to simple addition. “1,2,3…1,2,3…count them all–you get 6”. It’s a very easy extension and better in the long run. It doesn’t mean kids are strapped to their desks (unless it’s not taught right). The graham crackers fit right in! </p>
<p>I do think tweaks in what and how it is taught would yield higher results than what is being done in most places.
I don’t believe the things I mention are “more advanced” (meaning harder for a kid to grasp) but will (in the long run) make later concepts easier.</p>
<p>As for "“All I learned in kindergarten”…RF learned lots of important stuff—international relations (play nice, keep hands to yourself), health and hygiene (wash your hands), band (rhythm instruments), chorus (Mary Had a Little lamb). I happen to think that’s important stuff!</p>
<p>“Don’t know how to hold a book or hold a pencil”</p>
<p>Why should they? Fine motor skills aren’t fully developed at that age. Remember those huge pencils we used to have so long ago? Good reason for it. That’s why we didn’t do cursive until third grade.
And to know how to hold a book means you need to have one first.</p>
<p>Vocabulary lists? No idea how that works. But it’s a list and I’m not sure how things get standardized. My thought is that kids should be READ to at a much higher level than they can actually read.</p>
<p>@caitiann, I agree completely, but it’s not politically feasible for most public schools to separate kids based on ability, until high school, when suddenly everyone accepts that of course we should have honors and AP classes for the better students. Bizarre. Schools should be trying to give everyone an appropriate education, but they don’t.</p>
<p>We bought a house near one of the best schools in our area, intending to send our kids to the local public kindergarten, but after sitting in on a class and talking with the school, it was clear that our preschooler already knew more than they were going to “teach” her in kindergarten (the academic goals were to learn to read 3-letter words, and to learn to count to 20)…and much of first grade as well. So, with great disappointment, we coughed up money for private school.</p>
<p>We had the same experience mathyone, and it is one of the best elementary schools in the city.
Three blocks away & neither of my kids ever attended.</p>
<p>Yet, if schools would test the incoming kindergarteners to see who already knew letter sounds, or even could read; to see who already knew how to count, or even could add and subtract, and then tried to put kids in an appropriate class where they would work on skills at their level, then there would be a huge outcry. </p>