kindergarten curriculum rant....

[meemee]

my dd is in a preschool now and will be K age next year. am kinda undecided what our edu option is going to be.

so some of her friends who grad. ps started K in august and some will start next week.

OMG! OMG!! this was the first time i had heard of the ps curriculum. OMG!!! i was sooooooooooo shocked. within a month they were doing 3 letter sight words. now i hadnt really thought about what they do at K so this was a total shock to me. a shock i havent got over.

so i went to meet teh director, owner and teacher at my dd's ps to figure out what i was thinking about for her is what they were thinking too or not. she is in a playbased ps and this is what the director told me. many K teachers have told her they expect kids to already know 50 - 60 sight words BEFORE they start K. :!!!! i totally believe her. she has had to tell many, many k that preschool is not a bootcamp for K.

there is a private elementary school here that advertises K as getting ready for college. start young. and they do a bunch of workbooks and total pushing. of course they also call themselves a gifted school - totally misusing the term when all they do is drill. there is hardly anything non academic there. it gets lost among academic stuff.

this has been eating me for the past few days. finally i just had to vent. i got feedback from about 7 different schools and in none of those schools was there any kind of guidance on social-emotional issues. apparently hte director told me the children should have already learnt this at ps. *sigh*

[mccelticmom]

This is absolutely the hardest time, isn't it? Everyone's kids are learning this and learning that and you think in your mind : Kindergarten, fun, finger painting and learning the alphabet, counting to ten. Only to find out : they have to go in almost learning to read!

I can't tell you how many time I've tried to *force* my little man to drill a work book back when he was 5yo *thinking*..he's got to learn this NOW! All the other kids are...blah, blah, blah...only to pop in those LeapFrog DVDs and two weeks later, he's learned all his sounds.

So, I understand your rant. Breathe in, breathe out and do what's best for your child.... You might want to hold her back another year...don't stress, we all learned to read didn't we?

[meemee]

that was just a general rant. and it touched me more so because my dd hates anything academics. she is the kind once she learnt anything she never wants to go over it again or show someone she knows it. she is not a performer in the sense asking her to do something in front of a group really bugs her. she will either not do it or do it completely wrong. i remember how much i hated performing as a littlle child so i have never requested her to show her knowledge in front of others. BUT her grandparents have tried and i see the difference.

so with someone like her going into such an academic type scares me to bits. i am hoping my situation will change so i am not forced to send her to that kind of school and can actually choose where i send her to school.

i was so upset i was in tears for 5 year olds. it seems we are pushing our kids to grow up earlier and earlier. life is no longer fun anymore. inspite of all the academic push the scary part is K is still supposed to be 'fun'. it isnt k that scares me but first grade.

there are so many fun things to do in elementary school - experiments, projects. to me it seems such a waste to insist on reading and writing when really 7 - 10 is when kids really pick up on reading and writing. i can see why they stress on reading and writing .... but why at the cost of the fun things too. some great teachers are able to balance both. but many are not able to do that.

[lilyka]

it doesn't sound too far fetched to me. I went to kindergarten 25 years ago and most kids were reading well before they left. there was still plenty of time to play. and we were only there for half days.

I think more important than what the resut of the curriculum is woud be how that resut is achieved. what happens if they don't hit the mark? and all of that.

[wildmonkeys]

Well, I would avoid the private "gifted" school.

My son is in first grade and lots of kids are reading by the end of kinder - it is sort of like riding a two wheeler or potty-training or whatever - it just sort of clicks for lots of kids at that age. I was amazed to see how far ds and many of his classmates progressed during kinder.

OTH many other kids are not reading in first grade and I haven't gotten the impression that the school views them as "behind".

BJ
Barney & Ben

[quaz]

Ah.... you know my opinion on this one. :

This is why I also have such concern for my oldest.... b/c as ya know, SOOO not into academics. At least with that September bday... I have the option of waiting until she is six.... I think it's the other reason people are waiting to put their kid's in K. B/c K is becoming first grade.


Tammy

Editting to add...
Yah, and did you read this thread a few down about the child in K needing additional help 3 days into school? This is what I'm afraid will happen with dd. She doesn't fit the 'mold' of what is required and suddenly labeled as 'behind'.

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...10#post5943410

Tammy