jenmcadams
12-06-2007, 02:37 PM
WARNING: THIS IS LONG -- It actually helped me formulate my thoughts, so it was good for me to write it, but don't feel bad if you don't have the time/inclination to read this...
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I wasn't really sure where to put this thread, but I am looking for some advice and to hear about other people's experience, so I decided the Lounge was the best place.
My DD started full day K this year at our local neighborhood school. We're really fortunate that it's an amazing school -- small (2 classes per grade), beautiful facilities, amazing teachers, great principal, nice kids, etc. It's the type of school that people from outside the area try to choice in to and we're lucky that we can walk there. The community is nice and very supportive and while it's not at all ethnically diverse, there is some socioeconomic diversity which is important to me. On top of all that, it's consistently rated Excellent on a test score basis even though the school doesn't seem inordinately focused on testing. Her preschool experience was definitely pretty different than most of the kids in her class. She went to what is basically a lab school/daycare center at a local community college. The center is loosely based on Reggio Emilia philosophies and is not at all academic. The Center is pretty diverse (at least for Colorado) and is a mix of full time working parent families and part-time families (although they don't offer any part day programs). Kids leave the center with great social skills and just seem like nice, respectful kids. Most kids do fine in Kindergarten, but there is definitely some adjustment given the unstructured nature of the Center.
All of this build-up is to give you some context as to what I'm seeing now in Kinder. When Abbie entered K, she knew all of her letters and sounds. She could recognize all of her upper and lower case letters and could write all upper and some lower case. She was just starting to sound out some words (BOB books). She learned this through play-based activities at her preschool and through random activities and toys at home. I would say her level of skills put her smack dab in the middle in terms of knowledge coming in. She seems to be doing fine, but sometimes I'm overwhelmed by what the other kids are doing and my worries about her progress. They spent the first 2 1/2 months of school solidifying their knowledge of letters and sounds and after Halloween started in with "Book Bags" -- basically DRA-leveled readers with some worksheets and a few other activities. They work on these books in class during guided reading and bring home these book bags on those days for homework (normally every third day). Abbie spent a week in the DRA level 1 books and has been in the DRA level 2 books for a few weeks. The teacher is great about moving kids around constantly based on aptitude and advancement -- there are six reading groups of 4 kids each and most kids have switched at least 2-3 times since the beginning of the year. I volunteer in the classroom a few times per month, so I see the other groups and get to see how they work. I guess what's frustrating to me is that Abbie seems so bored by the books she's getting now -- there are very few hard words, the concepts aren't difficult and I don't see how they're helping her grow as a reader. She is by no means super advanced -- as an example, one of her little friends who she plays with frequently was at our house for a playdate and was showing me her bookbag and she is at a DRA level 6-8. Our school district's stated goal for the end of Kindergarten is to be reading DRA level 3 books, so Abbie is doing fine and I'm not worried about her not reaching her grade level goals, but she also obviously isn't at the same level as some of the other kids in her class who came into K reading.
We knew that Abbie's actual academic skills wouldn't meet up with her ability initially b/c we chose to take the play-based route for early childhood education. Her teacher consistently tells us how bright Abbie is, how amazing her vocabulary and reasoning skills are, etc. It's just hard to sit by and watch what seems like a slow pace of her reading progress without saying anything. I also don't want to be the parent who is pushing for my child to be moved up all the time. I'm not an expert on teaching reading -- the school has been great about involving us in the way they teach reading and all of the strategies they're trying to get the kids to use (they held a 3 hour workshop that all parents attended where we did all of the reading activities our kids do and learned about their approach to teaching kids to read). My gut instinct for now is that I'll wait until after Christmas to see if the challenge level picks up. When I work with Abbie's group when I'm in the classroom, they all seem at about the same level for reading and writing skills as she is, so she's not obviously in the wrong level group. I also don't want to supplement much at home b/c between K and her activities, I don't want to pile it on. Her only homework currently is the bookbag she gets every 3rd day which takes about 15-20 minutes. On non-bookbag days, she draws and writes and we read, but I don't want to formalize it b/c I'm not big on homework as it is.
Everything I've ever read says that by the time you're in third grade, things start to normalize and you'd be hard-pressed to pick out the early readers, but it's hard not to worry. My younger child has recently started at the same college-based Center my DD attended and I still love it and I know intellectually that a play-based approach to early childhood education is the best way to foster creativity and intellectual curiosity, but sometimes I wonder if I'm doing them a disservice by not having them more academically prepared for Kinder. Both my kids are the quiet, academic, please the teacher types, so they probably would have been/would be fine in a traditional Kindergarten prep type preschool and I wonder if it's fair that they have to start out behind the other kids. Any thoughts from Moms of Kindergraten kids or Moms of older kids (particularly those who have kids that attended play-based preschools and went to relatively academic Kinder)? I've always been such a huge advocate of play-based ECE that I intellectually know that it was the right approach (especially for my kids), but it's hard now that Kindergarten is here to wonder whether we should have done more academics
*********************
I wasn't really sure where to put this thread, but I am looking for some advice and to hear about other people's experience, so I decided the Lounge was the best place.
My DD started full day K this year at our local neighborhood school. We're really fortunate that it's an amazing school -- small (2 classes per grade), beautiful facilities, amazing teachers, great principal, nice kids, etc. It's the type of school that people from outside the area try to choice in to and we're lucky that we can walk there. The community is nice and very supportive and while it's not at all ethnically diverse, there is some socioeconomic diversity which is important to me. On top of all that, it's consistently rated Excellent on a test score basis even though the school doesn't seem inordinately focused on testing. Her preschool experience was definitely pretty different than most of the kids in her class. She went to what is basically a lab school/daycare center at a local community college. The center is loosely based on Reggio Emilia philosophies and is not at all academic. The Center is pretty diverse (at least for Colorado) and is a mix of full time working parent families and part-time families (although they don't offer any part day programs). Kids leave the center with great social skills and just seem like nice, respectful kids. Most kids do fine in Kindergarten, but there is definitely some adjustment given the unstructured nature of the Center.
All of this build-up is to give you some context as to what I'm seeing now in Kinder. When Abbie entered K, she knew all of her letters and sounds. She could recognize all of her upper and lower case letters and could write all upper and some lower case. She was just starting to sound out some words (BOB books). She learned this through play-based activities at her preschool and through random activities and toys at home. I would say her level of skills put her smack dab in the middle in terms of knowledge coming in. She seems to be doing fine, but sometimes I'm overwhelmed by what the other kids are doing and my worries about her progress. They spent the first 2 1/2 months of school solidifying their knowledge of letters and sounds and after Halloween started in with "Book Bags" -- basically DRA-leveled readers with some worksheets and a few other activities. They work on these books in class during guided reading and bring home these book bags on those days for homework (normally every third day). Abbie spent a week in the DRA level 1 books and has been in the DRA level 2 books for a few weeks. The teacher is great about moving kids around constantly based on aptitude and advancement -- there are six reading groups of 4 kids each and most kids have switched at least 2-3 times since the beginning of the year. I volunteer in the classroom a few times per month, so I see the other groups and get to see how they work. I guess what's frustrating to me is that Abbie seems so bored by the books she's getting now -- there are very few hard words, the concepts aren't difficult and I don't see how they're helping her grow as a reader. She is by no means super advanced -- as an example, one of her little friends who she plays with frequently was at our house for a playdate and was showing me her bookbag and she is at a DRA level 6-8. Our school district's stated goal for the end of Kindergarten is to be reading DRA level 3 books, so Abbie is doing fine and I'm not worried about her not reaching her grade level goals, but she also obviously isn't at the same level as some of the other kids in her class who came into K reading.
We knew that Abbie's actual academic skills wouldn't meet up with her ability initially b/c we chose to take the play-based route for early childhood education. Her teacher consistently tells us how bright Abbie is, how amazing her vocabulary and reasoning skills are, etc. It's just hard to sit by and watch what seems like a slow pace of her reading progress without saying anything. I also don't want to be the parent who is pushing for my child to be moved up all the time. I'm not an expert on teaching reading -- the school has been great about involving us in the way they teach reading and all of the strategies they're trying to get the kids to use (they held a 3 hour workshop that all parents attended where we did all of the reading activities our kids do and learned about their approach to teaching kids to read). My gut instinct for now is that I'll wait until after Christmas to see if the challenge level picks up. When I work with Abbie's group when I'm in the classroom, they all seem at about the same level for reading and writing skills as she is, so she's not obviously in the wrong level group. I also don't want to supplement much at home b/c between K and her activities, I don't want to pile it on. Her only homework currently is the bookbag she gets every 3rd day which takes about 15-20 minutes. On non-bookbag days, she draws and writes and we read, but I don't want to formalize it b/c I'm not big on homework as it is.
Everything I've ever read says that by the time you're in third grade, things start to normalize and you'd be hard-pressed to pick out the early readers, but it's hard not to worry. My younger child has recently started at the same college-based Center my DD attended and I still love it and I know intellectually that a play-based approach to early childhood education is the best way to foster creativity and intellectual curiosity, but sometimes I wonder if I'm doing them a disservice by not having them more academically prepared for Kinder. Both my kids are the quiet, academic, please the teacher types, so they probably would have been/would be fine in a traditional Kindergarten prep type preschool and I wonder if it's fair that they have to start out behind the other kids. Any thoughts from Moms of Kindergraten kids or Moms of older kids (particularly those who have kids that attended play-based preschools and went to relatively academic Kinder)? I've always been such a huge advocate of play-based ECE that I intellectually know that it was the right approach (especially for my kids), but it's hard now that Kindergarten is here to wonder whether we should have done more academics