OK, I promise this is the last post about kindergarten. For awhile.
Remember when I was so happy that David was going to half-day, morning kindergarten? It was perfect for him, because he’s a morning person, and at 5 1/2 years old he still takes a nap every afternoon.
Well, that’s so last week
David is now going to all day kindergarten.
Yeah.
Long story.
Wanna hear it?
It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tell it anyway.
David was given a test the second week of kindergarten to assess his reading ability. More like projected reading ability considering they haven’t learned to read yet.
David’s test scores flagged him as a kid who might have trouble reading. So the teacher recommended that I enroll him in Kindergarten Plus, an afternoon class that gives him extra help with reading. An additional half day of school. Every day.
When the teacher informed me of this, I was, I must admit, surprised.
David? My David?
I’m not saying he’s in line for the Noble Prize, but David?
The kid who builds traps, and pulley systems with rope and laundry baskets. That actually work?
The kid who reasoned that toad stools make better umbrellas than stools?
The kid who so cleverly nicknamed his 7 day old brother The Wade-a-nator, and made him sidekick to his superhero alter-ego Mad Magnet?
David is smart, he’s articulate, he’s quick, he’s clever.
How? How could HE have trouble learning to read?
I must have failed as a mother. I should have read more books out loud to him. We should have gone to the library more often. I should have forced him to sit at the kitchen table and practice letters and sounds more days, more hours.
I. Didn’t. Do. Enough.
Or, maybe the test is just wrong. One thing David does not do well is pay attention. He blew the test because he was messing around. Also, he was sick that week. He blew it, because he didn’t feel good.
And he can’t go to school all day. Not yet. He isn’t ready. It will kill him. He won’t get a nap, and he’ll be so tired, and then he’ll get cranky, and he’ll get in trouble. {Hyper-ventilating.} And he won’t eat his lunch, and he’ll be hungry, and that will make more cranky, and he’ll get into more trouble!
AHHHHHH!!!!!!
Then I talked to the woman who teaches the K-Plus class. She is a lovely woman. I was at once impressed with her, and the way she described how she runs her classroom. And I thought, that wouldn’t be so bad for David. Even if reading isn’t a problem for him, it wouldn’t hurt for him to work on listening skills. It wouldn’t hurt for my child, who is so easily frustrated when he doesn’t get it right the first time, to receive some extra encouragement.
Then the teacher told me the part of the test David scored low on was picking out individual sounds in words.
That didn’t surprise me so much.
I had David’s hearing tested recently, because it seemed like he didn’t always hear words right, and as a result mis-pronounced them. He has a large vocabulary. He knows the meanings of words, but they don’t always come out of his mouth correctly.
According to the hearing test resutls, his ears work just fine. There must be more to it.
So I sent David off to school for a whole day. A long day. He get on the bus at 7:45 am, and doesn’t get home until 10 past 4.
David is tired when he gets home. Sometimes he’s cranky. I try to send him out to play right away. Otherwise he won’t get to play outdoors now that it gets dark earlier, and that is his favorite thing to do.
Part of me feels like these extra hours of school are steeling precious moments of his childhood that are already too fleeting.
Then after playtime we eat dinner, and do homework. If David stays awake. Last night my tired little boy fell asleep right after he ate dinner.
When homework is done there may be some time for TV or a game, then it’s bath, story and bedtime.
David says he loves the afternoon class. I think he likes it better than his regular morning kindergarten. He’s doing very well in it according to the teacher. So it does seem to be good for him.
Still I wonder if I did something wrong. I think that’s just a mom thing. We can’t help it.
And so it is that David goes to kindergarten. All. Day. Long.
You are being so hard on yourself. Sounds like he will do very well. Listen. You are his MOM. Not his teacher. You were with him as a MOTHER and of course you did lots of things that helped his learning along the way. It is normal for kids in kinder to need a little boost. Honestly, it’s probably just because the expectations for kinder is so much higher nowadays than we were ever used to.
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I suspect the State curriculum isn’t teaching what David needs as a kindergartener because they assume he would have received the teaching in preschool. Phonics is one of the fundamentals of kindergarten which should be in the lesson plans to come, instead of an expectation for the child to already know before being taught. I know plenty has changed since my kindergarten days and The Letter People. But, The Letter People were my first introduction to phonics. Please, don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s the new system that you can “beat up”. Skipping the basics is never a good idea.
What Deborah said! I’m seeing the SAME thing happening in our school district.
And you didn’t do a diddly dang thing wrong.
Even if David had gone to preschool, there’s no guarantee he would have known all the letter sounds by the time he started for kindergarten. Among the kids in my youngest son’s preschool last year – and it was an excellent program – some did and some didn’t. When my oldest started kindergarten, he knew probably only about half of them, and he, too, had gone to preschool. He could sing them all to the tune of the Zoophonics song, but he didn’t really *know* them.
Here’s the dirty little secret that comes into play: Kids learn when they’re developmentally ready to learn. Our kindergarten teacher this year said as much at back-to-school night: Some kids simply won’t be ready for everything kindergarten throws there way. Heck, many kids won’t be “ready” to read until they’re 10. But under our current cookie-cutter system, when testing starts in second grade, we have to make sure everyone is in lock step, even if it’s anguishing for the kids.
I’m glad that David loves the supplemental class – it sounds like the teacher is making it fun and not just drudgery. But it also makes me more than a little angry that we have to crack the whip so early on children who still sleep with their teddy bears at night.
And testing in kindergarten makes me want to throw up.
I feel you. My son is on the younger spectrum (August birthday), so we agonized over whether to send him to Kindergarten or Young 5’s last night. We ended up sending him to Kindergarten. And then at the end of last year? His teacher passed him, but I wasn’t comfortable, so we again agonized over the decision to have him repeat Kindergarten or move on to 1st grade. He is repeating Kindergarten. And it’s the best choice we could have ever made.
As a child who easily frustrates when he doesn’t get something right the first time, and tends to be a follower, I’ve seen him grow tremendously and we’ve only been in school a month.
I agree, you’re being to hard on yourself. My oldest has an early september birthday and she went to half-day K at the daycare/preschool/kindergarten where I work the year before she was old enough to officially start. Then when it was time for her real K at closer to age 6, she went full days. She also has a hard time paying attention, especially for me, but she was still not doing incredibly well in reading by the end of the year, and she had 2 years of K. It seemed she was so uninterested in anything reading.
I think they are requiring so much more out of Kindergarteners nowadays and some of them simply are not developmentally ready yet. She is in 1st grade now, since that’s the obvious next step 🙂 and she is already improved 1,000% It’s like a little light went off in her head. I am impressed with how well she is doing and it’s only October. I think she is just finally ready developmentally. David will get there, don’t beat yourself up!
Oh goodness. I think it is crazy that they even have tests like that. Can’t believe we are testing them so young; just seems bizarre to me. But I am sure you had nothing to do with how he tested and whether or not he will learn to read well or not. I am sure he will surprise everyone and be a superstar! I mean a working pulley system? He’s a genius!
Stopping by from Hedgehog day#7. I love how you have all the ways to find/contact you right at the top on the right side with the logos. Makes it very easy for new readers to see where all they can find you.
I’m glad David is liking the second part of his day. Who knows if he really needs it? He seems super smart to me! I feel bad for him being so tired, poor thing! And also a little jealous cause he was still taking naps, lol!
I agree with the others that you are being hard on yourself~ but I think that’s what we moms do! I think ‘they’ are pushing kids so much so young, and I’m amazed at the expectations put on our wee ones! My oldest is in Pre-K, and I am constantly surprised by the expectations. Rest assured you have done what you needed to do~ you love and care for a bright boy!
Stopping by from the hedgehog tribe~ you have a lovely blog!
I think this would have been a hard call for me. Since the teacher really thought it was right I would have done it too.
When will they start a “New Tech K?”
Might be the next move here!
ok this breaks my heart!! I cant believe they are making him go the whole day, poor little guy and poor mommy.
You are being way to hard on yourself.
I hate these kind of tests. It seems ridiculous to me that a test can predict the future. If a child hasn’t even started to learn to read, how can a test determine that he MIGHT have a problem with it sometime in the future? He’s not a machine you can run predictive maintanence on. So many factors go into how he will learn certain subjects in the future and those factors will change over the years.
Do you remember having similar tests when we were younger? We did. They thought I was going to be some genius and they thought my sister was going to be a slow and not a particuarly great student. My sister graduated high school with honors. She even took college courses her senior year because she was so far ahead. She made the Dean’s List every year in college. I was a decent student throughout my entire life: one or two C’s, mostly B’s and some A’s. My sister has always outperformed me in school.
Those tests might get it right every now and again, but I think that’s pure luck. Wait until he starts learning to read, then worry over whether or not he’s moving at the right pace.
Still say it’s way too early to test kindergarten kids. Plainwell Schools are not the authority on if you can read or not, teach the kids the basics first before you test them on the basics. They are putting the cart before the horse. David is as smart as a whip, don’t let anyone tell you any different.