Family Interviews
Since I am doing my research paper on trickle-down academics (pushing education on younger children), I spoke with two different parents who have children that could go to kindergarten next year to ask their feelings on the reasons why they are making the decisions they are about kindergarten for their child.
The first parent has a daughter who will be five on September 1. Our school district has a cut-off date for kindergarten as August 15. Her daughter is academically ready for kindergarten and she has attended two years of preschool. She has decided to keep her in preschool for another year because she herself is a teacher and has seen the impact that academics has on children at many levels. Currently she teaches kindergarten but in the past has taught 8th grade, 3rd grade, and 1st grade. She based her decision on the social readiness and the fact that as children get older, the age difference really starts to show in their maturity level as well as their academic skills. She stated that the children that are behind in kindergarten are the same ones that are behind in 3rd grade and the same ones that are behind in 8th grade. She wants to make sure her child succeeds in school and knows the importance of giving her time to grow and learn.
The other parent I talked to has a daughter who will be five on August 27. This parent has decided to push to get her daughter in kindergarten next year. She feels that it would be easier on her as she is a working parent and would like the benefits of placing her in the all day program. While I feel that this child is academically ready, I wonder if the parent is just looking at the "day care" benefits; she won't have to bring her to school and will have somewhere to keep her all day. She has been working with her daughter at home to get her ready for kindergarten and her daughter is very smart.
I wonder why some parents want to be in such a hurry for their child to grow up. They don't realize how fast the time goes as their child grows and before long they will be old enough to move out of the house and go to college. While I don't think that the second child will struggle in kindergarten, I wish I could convince the parent that it is just as important to allow her time to grow and develop socially and emotionally. I encourage all of my parents to visit kindergarten classrooms so that they have the opportunity to see how academic kindergarten is now compared to when they went to school.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Observation #3
Over the last 2 weeks, I have had many conversations with my internship supervisor about her feelings on the possibility of implementing a junior kindergarten. This is something that she is very interested in and would love to get the principal on board to start in our school. There are several children who are ready for more than a typical 3-5 year old preschool classroom but not ready for the academics of kindergarten. She also feels that this would be a great solution to parents who struggle with waiting another year to put their child in kindergarten.
We have been offered an opportunity to pilot a kindergarten program using Teaching Strategies Gold and she thinks that this would be a great opportunity to implement that program. The structure would be much less stressful on the children than the current kindergarten curriculum. I look forward to seeing how this process goes and if it proves to be implemented successfully. I hope it does because it would be a great benefit to the children.
Mrs. Walton feels that this would be a great service to provide for children who are not proficient in English, children who are just not developmentally ready for kindergarten, and for children who are not old enough for kindergarten but are more advanced in their thinking. She feels that this would provide a great balance of children so that the class did not just end up being the lower level children without role models.
I was also able to spend time with two kindergarten teachers who had breaks between parent/teacher conferences. They were sharing their feelings about the parents that do not come to conferences and how it relates to how their children are doing in school. They both felt that there is a direct correlation between lack of parental involvement and the child's success in school. Every year the children who struggle in kindergarten seem to be from families that lack the time or abilities to support their child in school. They would like to see some changes to this. They were both pleasantly surprised by the number of parents who have been attending a reading workshop that is being offered at our school at night. They hope that some of these programs can help make positive changes in the lives of the children attending our school.
Over the last 2 weeks, I have had many conversations with my internship supervisor about her feelings on the possibility of implementing a junior kindergarten. This is something that she is very interested in and would love to get the principal on board to start in our school. There are several children who are ready for more than a typical 3-5 year old preschool classroom but not ready for the academics of kindergarten. She also feels that this would be a great solution to parents who struggle with waiting another year to put their child in kindergarten.
We have been offered an opportunity to pilot a kindergarten program using Teaching Strategies Gold and she thinks that this would be a great opportunity to implement that program. The structure would be much less stressful on the children than the current kindergarten curriculum. I look forward to seeing how this process goes and if it proves to be implemented successfully. I hope it does because it would be a great benefit to the children.
Mrs. Walton feels that this would be a great service to provide for children who are not proficient in English, children who are just not developmentally ready for kindergarten, and for children who are not old enough for kindergarten but are more advanced in their thinking. She feels that this would provide a great balance of children so that the class did not just end up being the lower level children without role models.
I was also able to spend time with two kindergarten teachers who had breaks between parent/teacher conferences. They were sharing their feelings about the parents that do not come to conferences and how it relates to how their children are doing in school. They both felt that there is a direct correlation between lack of parental involvement and the child's success in school. Every year the children who struggle in kindergarten seem to be from families that lack the time or abilities to support their child in school. They would like to see some changes to this. They were both pleasantly surprised by the number of parents who have been attending a reading workshop that is being offered at our school at night. They hope that some of these programs can help make positive changes in the lives of the children attending our school.
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