[blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

Tue Aug 21 17:08:06 UTC 2012

Yes, this is why my husband and I are looking into preschools that not only focus on language emersion but also the 3 R's.  Dawson is bursting at the seams already at 22 months with learning letters, numbers and his vocabulary is exploding.  Like you said, it's just fun to teach him and he has so much fun learning.  It's a shame that some don't take advantage of how spongy their little brains are, especially in the earlier years.  Learning a second and possibly third language won't be hardly any work for Dawson's young brain so why not stretch that muscle for life.  If any of you know a second language I encourage you to teach it to your child in addition to English because it will only help them in life.  It breaks my heart that my husband could be teaching our son German right now but his mother never learned it from her parents who spoke German.  It was just the times and folks were discouraged from that kind of thing, especially around WWII.  The police even showed-up at David's grandparent's door once because they tapped the phones and were concerned because they were speaking German with some friends and they wanted to know what they were talking about.  I know it's crazy to think that kind of stuff was happening in our country but people had a lot of fear about the power Hitler had during war times and people got stereotyped just for being German.  Okay, I'm done rambling.

Erin

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Veronica Smith
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 8:36 PM
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

Boy, you hit the nail right on the head!  I used to wonder the same thing, until Gab got there and guess what, there are still kids that don't have a clue in Kindergarten.  It's like their parents never opened a book, showed them a letter, much less a crayon.  It amazes me when a child can't sit in a chair.  I'm not talking about the kids that buz from this or that, but those kids that just weren't taught right from wrong, some even get to kindergarten not knowing how to feed themselves properly.
Maybe I was spoiled, gab not only was talking early, but reading, knowing her letters, playing lots an lots of word games but I didn't do that because anyone told me she needed it for Kindergarten, but because it was fun.
Kindergarten was the place where  kids learned ther alphabet, basic writing, coloring, but not any more, infact I think they even do basic math there.  You are so right, whats up with that?
And just think, when our kids are 40, hopefully they will remember what they learned way back when. Smiles!

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Jo Elizabeth Pinto
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 9:19 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: [blparent] First Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K, Preschool ...

My daughter started preschool a year ago; now she's in Pre-K. She goes two days a week and really enjoys her class activities. But I'm wondering about the trend of getting kids started earlier and earlier. When kindergarten came about, it was to prepare kids for the first grade. It was a half day a week, just sort of easing the kids into school and teaching them how to be students--share, cooperate, follow directions, the basics. Kindergarten isn't even mandatory in all states, but now there are year-long waiting lists to get kids into full-day kindergarten classes. And we have Pre-K programs at our preschools. And preschool is promoted to get kids ready for Pre-K, which will prepare them for kindergarten, which was meant to prepare them for first grade. The insinuation is that if your child doesn't have Pre-K, she'll not be on track for kindergarten, and if she doesn't do preschool, she won't measure up well in Pre-K. So when and why did everything get so competetive? When and why did we stop letting our kids be kids till they started school? What are we pushing them toward, and is it good for them in the long run?

As part of her Pre-K information, I was given a list of standards that most kindergartens hope their students will be on track with before they start.  They need to know all of their letters and numbers, as well as recognizing some common words by sight.  They need to know how to count to twenty and remember all the tens up to one hundred.  They need to know their colors and shapes by sight, and be able draw the shapes with a pencil.  They need to have basic skills with crayons, scissors, and glue.  It’s preferred if they can write their first and last names.  That sounds like first grade used to be.  I believe I remember learning my letters and numbers in kindergarten.

I just worry that our society has become too competetive with young children.  Besides that, if the standards are so strict for incoming kindergartners, then what are they teaching in kindergarten, and why isn’t the quality of our education system, particularly in America, rising when compared to that of students elsewhere in the world?

Jo Elizabeth

I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.--Stephen Jay Gould _______________________________________________
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