Pre-School and Daycare

picked up a sheet that had "what they should know by kindergarten"

and it seems that even without attending preschool my 4 year old has only 4 things out of their list of maybe 25 yet to really work on.   she can't go to school for another year and half (kindergarten) thanks to a january birthday.   we'll do preschool next year--but does anyone else ever worry about what their kid will learn if they already know so much??

i get nervous about if she will stay focused or be challenged enough.  and then i take the time to sit back and go "well we can slow down our at home learning" but really it isn't that easy (is it??)   

does anyone else have these concerns?  

Re: picked up a sheet that had "what they should know by kindergarten"

  • so worried about it.  I try to stay up to day on the latest homeschooling your preschooler though so we 'work' on a lot of stuff here.  DS is almost 4 and they have no Pre-K in our area :( and since we will be moving away from here (military)  a few months after he should start kindergarten I'm just doing the homeschool thing until we get to wherever we're going next.   It can be tough though making sure they are up to date with all their milestones.
  • See post below: "help me think this thru... when to start DE #2 in pre-school". Similar concerns!
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  • When I saw the Prek 4 curriculum, I had a similar thought.   My DD's rote memorization skills are incredible and she loves learning.   She didn't need to work on on colors, shapes, letters, numbers, etc.  She knows all that and she was the youngest in her class (August Bday) with a Septemeber cut-off.   However, I have a learned at that a great teacher (and luckily DD had one) and cater to a vast audience.  In DD's class there was a girl that is this year being tested for G&T and a non-verbal child on the autism spectrum.   Despite this, my DD learned so much in PreK 4 and continues to learn in K despite reading at the 1st grade level.  While you maybe teaching her very well at home, there are so many different was to go about doing so, some you have not have thought about.  I was entranced by all the things DD learned about letters/numbers:   she had a song about every letter, knew words that started with that letter, knew the phonentic sound that letter made, they made that letter with their bodies, wrote the letter, learned one on one correspondence, began adding, etc.  There was a different letter for each weeks.  Furthermore, some of the most important things kids learn in K and PreK aren't acedemic but are structural & social.   HTH ease your mind!  GL!


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  • Using your logic my DD should skip K all together since she has basically mastered all the K objectives already. But school is so much more than academics, they need to learn how to play and work with other kids, how to listen to adults other than their parents, how to follow rules and schedules. DD is bright and already reading quite well she will do two years of K because she misses the public school cut off so she will do private then public K, I have no doubt she will be fine As a teacher I have never ever seen the urban legend of the bored because they are so bright kid.
  • agreeing with Andrewsgal...they learn to work together towards a common goal, how to be part of a group, how to be an individual within a group, how they identify themselves amongst peers, improvement and fine tuning of fine/gross motor skills, development of  special interests, learning their strengths and weaknesses, how to cooperate, manners, assertiveness, mastery of successful communication in a variety of settings/contexts, routines, self control when things are tempting/social pressures, improved sustained/alternating/divided attentional skills, problem solving/reasoning with a variety of new factors, sharing, participating willingly in non-preferred activities, perseverance and dedication, independence during meals, more competent self help skills, overall emotional maturity, story telling/recall, etc, etc.

    I could seriously keep rattling them off at a rapid rate.  Most bright kids don't get bored.  In fact, they really often don't know what bored is until WE plant that seed.  Additionally, one skill that needs to be developed is the ability to NOT get bored...the ability to figure out how to self stimulate and explore without the direction of another person.  Think about it, if you are creative and inventive, you really don't get bored.  And it certainly takes down time to develop those skills.

    Lastly, it is pretty likely that your child will not be the only one with many "mastered" kindergarten/kindergarten readiness skills.   Worry about this if you are half way through the school year and discover your child is in fact bored.  Because right now you are wasting your worry and I am 99% sure this will be a non-issue if she is in a solid school program.

     

  • imagedionnemd10:

    "well we can slow down our at home learning" 

    and that is totally and completely ridiculous - there is no reason to do that!

  • In addition to the PP's comments, remember that your list is things they shouldknowto be READY for kinder, not things they will learn there. In other words, even if your child knows/can do everything on that list, it doesn't mean that's all they would do all year in kinder so now that year will be boring for them. Google your state's kinder standards and you'll see that there's a TON of stuff they learn there that go beyond readiness skills, knowing letters and sounds, etc. Even if a child enters school already reading, they can be in a leveled reading group, work on comprehension skills, making inferences, reading for information, writing sentences or even simple paragraphs...a good teacher will take any child at their current level and advance them from there, not let them sit idle until the majority if the class catches up to them. So, no worries!

    I teach kinder and while I appreciate a parent's desire to teach their child as much as they can, I think trying to turn home into a classroom and achieve a lengthy list of learning objectives can be overwhelming and unnecessary for the parent and the child (unless the child is being exclusively home schooled, of course!) Reading together, pursuing the child's own interests, and playing together are really all a parent needs to do to support the things they will be learning at school.
  • imageCubbyMama:


    I teach kinder and while I appreciate a parent's desire to teach their child as much as they can, I think trying to turn home into a classroom and achieve a lengthy list of learning objectives can be overwhelming and unnecessary for the parent and the child (unless the child is being exclusively home schooled, of course!) Reading together, pursuing the child's own interests, and playing together are really all a parent needs to do to support the things they will be learning at school.

    Amen!  I just think people get so wrapped up in 'teaching' at home, when really, unless one is homeschooling during the 'formal' learning years I think that your last sentence there hits the nail on the head.  I have strong feelings about homeschooling unless one has a degree of higher learning...however, that is a different post lol.  I also love what a pp said about the 'urban myth' of a child being bored at school because they are too smart!!

  • Fear not!  I am a parent of 2 kids who could read very well prior to entering kindergarten.  While the class was adding words like "I" and "see" to the word wall, and counting from 1 to 31, my kids were reading chapter books and starting to figure out number concepts like the fraction 2/4 = 1/2.

    Both of my kids still ADORED kindergarten and weren't bored at all.  In both their classes there were many kids who were way beyond the "what your child needs to know before kindergarten" and a few who were in the same ballpark as far as reading and math skills.

    Although most kindergarten classes are far more academic than when we were little kids, there's still a TREMENDOUS amount of learning that takes place in the emotional, social, and even physical spheres.  

    Now, the jury's still out on my son, who is in kindergarten this year.  My DD did eventually become very bored with the regular school curriculum -- but not until she was in 3rd grade. Prior to that, she just enjoyed school and loved being considered a good, smart student.  I often fretted that the school curriculum wasn't challenging enough for her, but I just tried to keep the learning going at home. After 3rd grade, though, my DD switched to a G/T magnet school, which was more appropriate for her.  

    So, I would just focus on keeping the good times rolling at home, and enjoy having a kiddo who enters school well-prepared! 

    High School English teacher and mom of 2 kids:

    DD, born 9/06/00 -- 12th grade
    DS, born 8/25/04 -- 7th grade
  • First of all, I absolutely think it's important to make education a priority with our children and I think it's important to prepare them before they enter kindergarten. However, I think you shouldn't worry about it quite so much, OP. Not only will your child be ready for that kind of level of learning when she's five or six and will make greater strides than at age four in that department, but she'll most likely already be ahead of her peers simply because of the amount of interest you're showing in her now. You'd be surprised at how many children are going into kindergarten completely unprepared - can't even recognize letters of the alphabet or cannot speak a word of English, and yet their teachers do very well for them and they learn an immense amount in a short period of time. Definitely stay involved in your child's learning as you are, but try not to lose sleep over it. Your daughter will do wonderfully in school!
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  • My younger dd, 2 1/2, is pretty darn smart. But, she has learned everything through just teaching her through play. Nothing too formal. That is all it should be right now. My ds is 4, and will be entering kindergarten this fall. He has high functioning autism, verbal, and has been on a pretty intense 14-18 hr a week therapy program, including ABA, speech and OT for over a year now. He has the smarts now to pretty much succeed in kindergarten academic wise because of this. He actually has his first kindergarten assessment tomorrow morning for a private school we are trying to get him into. I see him having no problem with this, but, the big thing for him will be the other part, social, sitting still and paying attention in class, sharing, etc.

    I want my dd to enjoy being a kid. Once she starts school, there won't be any turning back for a long time. So, I let her be. I guess it is partly because of the guilt I feel for taking so much "kid" time away from my ds.

  • My son started reading when he was 2.  I definitely worry that he wouldn't be challenged enough in a regular school environment.  He is doing great in Montessori preschool and we are really hoping to be able to keep him in Montessori for elementary so that he will keep being able to go at his own pace. 
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  • imagesusanmosley:
    imagedionnemd10:

    "well we can slow down our at home learning" 

    and that is totally and completely ridiculous - there is no reason to do that!

    Yeah, that one mystifies me.

  • imageskittles_123:

    I want my dd to enjoy being a kid. Once she starts school, there won't be any turning back for a long time. So, I let her be. I guess it is partly because of the guilt I feel for taking so much "kid" time away from my ds.

    I love this and agree wholeheartedly.  Your child has the rest of his/her life to work and will never have the opportunity to simply play and have fun ever again once school starts except for a brief time in summer break.  I want my baby to enjoy herself.

     And by the way, it's called being environmentally advantaged.  Most studentes catch up these children by 3rd grade which is why most school don't test for girfted until that age.

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