<p>As I said, my daughter’s Kindergarten class had a huge variation of skills on day one. But things worked out very well and kids were pretty much on the same level academically well before the end of the year. Meanwhile they were learning all the other stuff, how to cooperate in a classroom, how to raise your hand, how to behave in the cafeteria, etc., etc.</p>
<p>@oldmom, sorry, but I don’t buy that the kids were “pretty much on the same level academically well before the end of the year”. And it’s also wrong to imply that kids cannot learn appropriate academic skills AND work on the social/group/institutional skills. My daughter learned how to raise her hand and cooperate. She already knew how to add and subtract before she started kindergarten. She completed <em>all</em> of K-2 math in her kindergarten year while her peers were learning to count to 20, deemed not ready for simple one-digit additions yet. Reading wasn’t as much as a strength for her, but she was able to read things like Little bear when I know her public school peers were still being handed cards with 3-letter words on them. She was a shy and compliant kid. If we had sent her to that kindergarten, all you would have seen was her counting to 20 and reading the 3-letter words off the card. </p>
<p>I guess the public Kindergarten where you lived was different from the one my daughter attended.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how you would know what level the other kids were at. I know kids who read Harry Potter in kindergarten (not mine). They may have been dutifully reading those 3-letter words in class. Perhaps the teacher didn’t even know they could read. My younger daughter’s preschool teacher didn’t notice when she learned how to read, because my daughter thought the books they had in her preschool were stupid and boring and she refused to read in school. </p>
<p>Kindergarten has to be easy; I’m too busy taking the kid to enrichment classes in violin, piano, soccer, fencing, cooking, ceramics, math, Chinese, French, gymnastics, swimming and ice skating. ;)</p>
<p>I also dont buy that the kids were at the same level at the middle or end of the year.
So the kids who taught themselves to read at three, who were writing songs at four, just coasted for 6 months?
Didnt progress or learn anything new?
That is unusual.</p>
<p>I was in grad school in Mass. We were hired to test all the pre-K kids. Pay was low, lots of experience, and I am sure the kids and the schools benefitted. I t can be done. </p>
<p>Personally, I never spent much time teaching my toddler numbers or colors. I figured he could learn that stuff in school. He was more interested in animals and bridges.</p>
<p>My kids were/are in Montessori from the age of 3 through 8th grade It does the primary years (3-5, including kindergarten) very well. The kids all learn their letter sounds at the age of 3. As Mathyone pointed out, some kids learn earlier than others (some 3 year olds were reading) but the class structure allowed for the range of development. The teacher is a guide and children are active rather than passive in learning - they choose (with guidance) their own tasks or lessons for the day. Usually by the end of Primary, the children are reading but they are reading at different levels. Certainly, you have the Harry Potter children but you also have the Magic Tree House children and the Little Bear children. </p>
<p>Math is taught using materials that I would have loved to have had in school. Again, by the end of kindergarten everyone knows basic math: addition and subtraction but there are kids who know multiplication and division, and others who know the “chains” but haven’t yet put everything together to actually multiply.</p>
<p>None of the academics were forced into the child. They are able to work to their own level, independent of other students. Best of all, the focus was on learning and mastering the material rather than on grades and achievement (meaning, it’s okay to be at your own level - you don’t have to be the ‘best’ or ‘smartest’)
.<br>
We tried public elementary school for our oldest child, moving her out of Montessori. Way too rigid for us. There was absolutely no leeway for any deviation from the curriculum so we decided on Montessori through middle school.</p>
<p>I wonder if Montessori varies a great deal.
I originally enrolled my daughter in a montessori program when she was five, after she aged out of her preschool, that was to be only five year olds and science based. Unfortunately the director took it upon themselves to move her to the more traditional classroom because the fives classroom was all boys.</p>
<p>We tried it for a month but she was not a good fit in the mixed age classroom, fortunately we found another 5’s program that had space, which gave me a year to find an appropriate elementary school after the kindergarten teacher at our local public school suggested it. ( I had originally intended to enroll her at our neighborhood school and it took me by surprise that they couldn’t accommodate her)</p>
<p>In general however, i like mixed age classrooms. The school we chose had three grades in one room, or should I say there was three grades in two rooms, the teachers team taught, and they also had small groups.</p>
<p>My youngest went to an even smaller school which divided the students by age roughly, and had them move between four different classrooms. Language arts, science, social studies/history/math and art/ music.</p>
<p>Its a shame we dont have more choices in our school system.</p>
<p>Actually, my kids went to Montessori preschool as well. That’s where my older daughter learned to add and subtract. She also learned how to skip count all the numbers through 10 up to their cubes. The math materials are fantastic and she loved them. </p>
<p>However, Montessori can be rigid in their own way. It’s where my second daughter refused to read, because she found the little books they had to start with completely uninteresting, and when I explained this to the teacher and asked if she could get some different books from the school library, the teacher refused. She said they had to progress through those little books first. I don’t think they ever did get her anything more advanced, even after I told the teacher she could read. This teacher also refused more generally to give her kindergarten-level works to do even when she was clearly ready for them, because she was “not a kindergartener”. This was a different school than the older one went to, and it was one which prided itself on being more true to Montessori (eg they didn’t include any non-Montessori materials in the classroom, whereas the first school had plastic dinosaurs, etc. also). Even at the first school, the teacher told me “I won’t insult the kindergarteners by asking your (pre-K) child to help them with math works”. So much for individual progress and not worrying about grade levels. At both schools, I found an almost cultlike attitude–their implementation of Montessori was clearly the best implementation for every single child and if you didn’t buy into it 100% you were unwelcome.</p>
<p>Another example of rigidity–when my second daughter started at her school, I made sure that she could recognize her name, so that she knew which box of spare clothes and stuff belonged to her. What I didn’t anticipate is that this school insisted on using cursive, exclusively. My child couldn’t tell which box was hers. This caused some issues in the first months, and I asked the teacher to put her name on her box in print, so she could find it, but she refused. I also felt that insisting on cursive delayed her being able to read considerably, because all of the letter work in school was using the cursive alphabet but the books of course were all in print. </p>
<p>
Both of our sons knew how to hold a book by kindergarten, because they had been read to frequently and would bring their favorite books to bed. Their motor skills might not be fully developed but I’m talking about something as simple as knowing not to hold the book upside down. And if kids can hold a crayon, they can usually hold a pencil, maybe not perfectly, but adequately enough to get started (5 fingers instead of 3). It’s tough teaching kids who haven’t had what many of us think of as the most basic of parenting, especially when you have 32 students and no aide. </p>
<p>I provided my kids with materials, but I don’t have patience to teach.
They taught themselves quite a lot, although I did read to them quite a bit so I guess I did teach them books were for reading.
I was in school myself and was a nanny for the rest of the day, so I was fairly wiped out by the time they went to bed and morning came early.</p>
<p>I was attracted to montessori ( also Waldorf) but each seemed much more rigid than necessary.
I think many kids could benefit from a more loosely run classroom, but with large class sizes, it is difficult for everyone to fit unless they stay in a box.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered about my experience with learning to read, because I went from one of the worst readers in my grade to one of the best sometime during 3rd grade. We attributed it to being diagnosed with ADD and beginning ritalin that year, but now I wonder-- because I know I did not even begin to read words or do math problems until 1st grade. Kindergarten was all about socialization, fine and gross motor skills, letter sounds but no words, counting, and learning how to write and spell my name semi-legibly-- which was about where I was at at the time. And my mom read to me (and with me) and I had two years of pre-school under my belt. Apparently I went to an atrocious pre-school and was horribly behind today’s standards. Besides math, I always got good grades. I don’t remember ever practicing knowing how many of something there were without counting, and in fact I only just recently discovered that is possible. </p>
<p>I assume I am in for a shock in a few years when we have even pre-school age children.</p>
<p>Many variables. Gifted son’s preschool was Montessori but too much rote “learning”- it didn’t stick. Fortunately his teacher let him do reading differently- he did 1 1/2 books in the series then diverged, some kids were at book 17 but not the reader he was. Maria Montessori set her system up to help slum kids, hijacked by the upper classes!</p>
<p>He went early entry to public kindergarten (turned 5 that October) by the end of the year the two afternoon classes split into 3 groups (they had an extra special ed teacher) based on reading progress. Son got a student of the week award that winter for reading aty the 5th grade level- improved from his entry testing for early entry. The school library had books with a grade level on the spine to help kids choose their books. Didn’t mean he did not read age level instead of ability level books, however. I was room mother and saw such variability, some due to past experiences and other due to parental involvement (I was helping kids who hadn’t learned their address, phone number… because no one at home spent time drilling them).</p>
<p>In our state (Wisconsin)- my age and son’s in different districts public schools were known to have smaller class sizes and better academics than the private ones (mainly parochial). I saw a letter to the editor here in Florida (miss those location lines where I put WI-FL) saying the area private schools had smaller classes and better academics. Guess that’s one reason WI taxes were so high …</p>
<p>I agree with all the research and our personal experiences that show time and again how variable development is in young children. </p>
<p>One of our kids was reading at age three while the other was six before she and her cousins could read. One of the “late readers” is getting her PhD from Cornell at age 27 (something about growing heart valves); the other is getting her podiatry degree at age 26. </p>
<p>I also agree that middle school was pretty dreary for our kids and could have been much more academically enriching than it was. </p>
<p>I personally don’t feel that pushing young kids in K will benefit them or us as a society. It could have well turned them off from school and learning. </p>
<p>I think kids play and learn a lot before kindergarten schooling.
We should provide the environment and let the kids pull and enjoy instead of pushing them. My kids wanted me to tell stories and read them books long before kindergarten. Sometimes I had to find ways to get away.</p>
<p>Kindergarten should be about socialization and promoting curiosity & a love for learning-- the tools kids will need to equip themselves to deal successfully the grind in the higher grades.</p>
<p>One of my kids went to private K and one went to public K. Both were Montessori-based (hands-on learning and exploration). The public K was a Title I school and there were kids of very mixed ability. I was very happy with the experience. No homework, no grades, no pushing children. (Both kids graduated in the top 10 of their HS class and are in “Honors” colleges) Contrast my nephew’s experience in a public K in a high-achieving suburb. The kids did worksheets, had homework every day and were expected to be writing sentences and reading. Not only do I feel that it was too academically based, but my nephew had headaches and anxiety at 6. (He is now working on his PhD in Russian Literature) Difference experience, same outcome.</p>
<p>What GMTplus7 said. </p>
<p>Another vote for GMTplus7’s comment. And Sally is right, kindergarten is the best year. The children still think their parents and teachers are superheroes! That doesn’t last </p>