Kindergarten Assessment
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"Circe" guav...@yahoo.com
Julian goes in tomorrow at 9am for his kindergarten ***essment. From what I understand, they just want to know what the kids already know so they can balance the cl***rooms with advanced, average, and slightly behind-the-curve kids. As far as I know, they've never prevented a child from entering kindergarten based on the ***essment. I'm pretty sure that Julian will fall into the advanced group on verbal stuff and right around average on everything else, so I'm not worried about his "p***ing" or anything, but I am curious to hear from other parent's about their children's kindergarten ***essments. What were they like and how did the kids feel about them?
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Be well, Barbara (Julian [7/22/97], Aurora [7/19/99], and Vernon's [3/2/02] mom) "The only problem with babies is they don't keep worth a darn." -- My Mom
"Sarajoyo" notmyrealaddr...@earthlink.net
I know the kids I nannied for thought the whole thing was a total joke.
They were asked to count 10 little green squares, which was way easy for them - they apparently looked at the lady like she was nuts. Then the lady wanted to know what color the squares were. One of the girls apparently told her something like 9 of them were emerald green and 1 was kelly green or something to that effect, but she did differentiate between the greens.
The other girl copied the lady's nametag while she was working with her sister, and apparently they drew quite elaborate pictures of their families for the ladies - no stick figures for them, lol! But while they're very bright and were reading and writing well before kindergarten (I taught one of them to write her name by herself before she was quite 3, and they also know the states and capitals and the finger alphabet for sign language, also courtesy of the Sara-nanny), they were a bit nervous about seeing all of the other kids.
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-Sara:) Mommy to Laura Anne, 3-4-02 ...
"Sue" sburke148...@comcast.net
Our kindergarten ***essment was not a big deal at all. It was mostly for the kids to see the room and meet the teacher. They first talked with us parents while they took the children and did a very minor ***essment of their skills. They wanted to see how many could recognize their name, what letters they knew and numbers. They got a snack. The whole thing lasted about 45 minutes. For the parents, it was also a time where they could fill out any paperwork that was needed and have any questions answered.
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Sue mom to three girls ...
clhi ...@syr.edu (Chris Himes)
Our school district has used two different systems. Under the "old" system a child met one-on-one with a teacher for 20 minutes or so.
They used some child development screening test (copying shapes, writing some numbers and letters, draw a man, etc.). The school also did some vision and hearing screening and met with the parents to explain paperwork, immunizations, etc. The kids were all a little nervous, but excited. At the end the parents got a chance to talk with the teacher about any concerns or issues. I think the goal was not to really screen kids out, but to get some idea of what the incoming cl***es would look like and identify any concerns.
Now, the school has the kids meet with the teachers in groups of 6.
They listen to a story, do some cutting and coloring, have a snack, and then do the health screeings. I think the teachers decided that the old system took way too much time and didn't really help them.
This new plan gives them some idea of how the kids act in a group and their interactions with the other kids. Again, the goal is not to screen out kids, but to identify any problems, give some information for balancing the cl***es, and give the kids and parents a short introduction to the school.
Chris, mom to Doug and Evan
"Circe" guav...@yahoo.com
Well, the ***essment was a lot more pressured than I had anticipated.
Although the teacher was very nice, they were testing for a *lot* more than I expected. In addition to letter recognition--which Julian can do easily--she expected him to know the sounds that go with all the letters and wants us to work on that this summer. He's also supposed to write his name without putting a line on the top of the "J". (Like this matters in the scheme of things? Geeze!) His writing/drawing is also a little wobbly (which we knew).
The teacher told me that while what he doesn't know wouldn't in any way keep him out of kindergarten, they are expected to be able to write three sentences, complete with capital and lower case letters, spaces, and punctuation, by the end of the kindergarten year. She confirmed what I already thought, saying that kindergarten is now like first grade in terms of the curriculum. Ye gods and little fishes, what's the world coming to? I told her I thought the K curriculum has gotten too advanced for 5yo's, and she basically agreed that all the K teachers are complaining about it, but it is what it is.
<Sigh> No wonder so many parents are keeping their kids back a year!
If they are doing the work of 6yo's in kindergarten, why would you send a 5yo to do it?
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Be well, Barbara
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"Frisbee?®, MCP" bhile...@dasi-software.com
Not to take sides, but it does matter. Better to instill good habits early, or nip bad ones in the bud.
This worries me a bit. Our twin boys have one more year of pre-K, and I'm worried that they might not be up-to-speed in time, but I'm hopeful. They both recognize letters, and only miss a couple when reciting the alphabet.
They know their numbers, too, except they get confused in the teens. My boys are developmentally delayed, but progressing nicely.
I was only four when I entered Kindergarten, didn't turn five until December 29th of that year. I was always the youngest in my cl***. Like you, I don't recall anything but play-like learning in Kindergarten. Kindergarten was meant to be "learn the rules of playing and cooperating" only back then.
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Bill Hileman Dad of Twins Dustin & Dylan!
"I've been to war. I've raised twins.
If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war." [G. Dubya Bush]
hill ...@hillary.net (Hillary Israeli)
*and wants us to work on that this summer. He's also supposed to write *his name without putting a line on the top of the "J". (Like this But, doesn't a printed capital J have a line on top of it, as seen in this chart http://writing.englishclub.com/abc2.htm ???
Why can't he do that?
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hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net i...@hillary.net "uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est." newly minted veterinarian-at-large :)
"Circe" guav...@yahoo.com
Well, I think not putting a line on top of a capital J is a pretty nit-picky thing, especially since that's the way he was taught to do it in pre-K. Given that there's a line on the top of a capital J in most typefaces, I think it's out-and-out peculiar to insist that it must not be there when he prints it.
The fine motor issue WRT writing and drawing has concerned me for some time, but it's improved markedly in the past few months, so I think with a little work, it'll clean up by the time he's in school. One problem we have with him modeling the way I write is that I'm left-
handed and he's right-handed, so I think that factors into it. He's only just learned how to grip a pencil/pen/crayon properly, so I think it's to be expected that it'll take a little time for him to get it completely under control.
It also occurred to me when I was talking to my husband about it that Julian knows more of the sounds for letters than her test showed.
It's just that he doesn't know it in the format she tested. What she was doing is saying "What sound does "T" make?" He'd say "tee" instead of "t" (if you see what I mean). But if she'd asked him what letter "truck" starts with or what letter his name ends with, I suspect he could have told her quite easily. He's always ***ociating sounds with letters. For example, he realized the other day that "Elmo" has a letter "l" in the middle, just like his name, even though he hadn't seen it written out. (Aside: he always says a word starts with a letter, even if he clearly knows it's in the middle or at the end.) He realized quite some time ago that baby brother Vernon's name ends with an "n", just as his does.
Julian used to get mixed up in the teens, as little as a couple of months ago, but can now count all the way to 49 quite easily (he can't remember that the 50s come next and so has to quit there). The teacher only tested for counting to 20, so of course she doesn't know that he can get twice that far without blinking.
My kindergarten experience was probably a bit more like the "standard" experience now because I was in a gifted program and learned to read in kindergarten (other kids didn't start until 1st grade). I don't think I was taught to write sentences, though.
FWIW, I think the degree to which you find your kindergarten's curriculum has accelerated depends a great deal on how well it's doing on standardized tests and community expectations. I believe I am encountering one of the down sides of being in a school that is in the top 10% in testing. Given the incredible (and IMHO ridiculous) pressure schools are under to continue to improve, a school in the top of the rankings can really only improve by continuing to accelarate the curriculum so that, when kids take the first grade test, they are already working on second grade material and will thereby score better on the test. A school in the 50th percentile, by contrast, can improve its scores simply by ensuring that more of the kids are grasping the first grade curriculum. (This is especially true in California, where the test is nothing more than a ranking test and not tied directly to the curriculum in any way.) My husband and I agreed that we feel Julian is ready for kindergarten, although we are a bit concerned about some of the requirements (not just for *our* kid, but for all of them). What we don't want is for Julian to feel discouraged or like he can't master the material, so we will pay close attention to what's going on in the first months and if there's any sign that he's having difficulties that could be addressed by taking him out of kindergarten and returning him to a pre-K program, we'll do it in a heartbeat. But I personally doubt that's going to happen.
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Be well, Barbara
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"Circe" guav...@yahoo.com
That's what I want to know. At the time, I couldn't remember whether the line is there in typeface, but now I can see it most certainly is.
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Be well, Barbara
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agreen1 ...@cs.comnospam (AGreen1209)
But I never understood personally why all little children were expected to learn to write exactly the same, when everyone's handwriting is different. My handwriting is and always has been legible, but I have my own way of doing things. I don't like all the loopy curvy stuff, and I don't write like this.
Even though I was a straight-A student all through school, in handwriting I frequently got C's and even a D once, just because I couldn't understand, and don't to this day, why my handwriting had to exactly match the handwriting sample in a book.
As far as kindergarten, at the end of kindergarten we were expected to know our alphabet, plus the sounds the letters made, how to print our name, and count to twenty. That's it. I learned to read the summer after kindergarten, and was *way* ahead of all the other kids by first grade.
And why the rush??? My husband teaches HS, and by the time the kids get there, they are so burned out they don't do anything. The curriculum from middle school on has been basically dumbed down so that these kids still get decent grades. Plus, most schools are being pressured to teach "state standards" and teach to standardized tests, rather than allow the teachers to teach the students. My husband has very little say in what he can and can't teach. He basically just stands up and rattles off what the state tells him to teach. Can you tell I'm not at all happy with the public school system? Truth is, I am a licensed teacher, and was looking for a job until I saw what DH was going through. That's when I started working a factory job. I can't be a part of something I don't believe in.
Amanda mom to Elijah - 10/9/99 Expecting Baby #2 6/22/02
"Frisbee?®, MCP" bhile...@dasi-software.com
Again, I don't want to split hairs here, but...
There are lines in many capital letters in typeface, but what is being attempted to be taught to the children is printing. A capital "I" for example, looks like a small "L" without the lines above and below, yet I don't think children are being taught to draw the little lines above and below it.
I understand both sides of this issue, I just think that the schools are trying to teach as close to a "standard" as possible for consistency in and of itself. My printing is MUCH more legible than my cursive writing, probably because there is not as much "lee-way" (sp?) in printing. I do, personally, tend to break a lot of rules and be inconsistent when I print, however. Like I will do a small version of a capital "M" or "N" instead of the curvy version we're supposed to use, but I'm not even consistent in that. Thank goodness for keyboards :-)
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Bill Hileman Dad of Twins Dustin & Dylan!
"I've been to war. I've raised twins.
If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war." [G. Dubya Bush]
LFortier the_forti...@mindspring.com
Yup. I suspect it has tons to do with "accountability" and the current be all and end all of education, standardized test scores.
Color me cynical.
Lesley
hschin ...@aol.com (H Schinske)
They're not??? Okay, maybe the I and J on the little printing worksheets don't have the lines on them, but my kids certainly put them on anyway (at least on their I's, not sure about the J's) and I never heard a word about it from their teachers.
If I were the teacher, I might correct them if they added serifs to their printing worksheets when the model didn't have any, but I can't imagine correcting a child for adding a serif in an ordinary piece of writing.
Now, in second grade, one of my daughters has started putting loops on her small Y's, and the teacher hasn't complained, even though it's obviously not standard practice.
--Helen
hschin ...@aol.com (H Schinske)
That's why lots of folks are saying now that it would make far more sense to have testing that happens at the beginning and end of a calendar year, so that as far as possible you're measuring what's being taught to the same kids, and judge the school based on how much the kids improve in a year. That way, all teachers would be judged fairly, no matter what level students they had. (It would also improve accountability for teaching gifted students -- if you had a second-grader who was testing at the fourth-grade level in math skills at the beginning of the year, you couldn't just let her coast for the whole year.)
--Helen
Ericka Kammerer e...@comcast.net
As with many other things, there are various handwriting methods, with ***orted considerations going into their design (i.e., legibility, transition to cursive writing, etc.). Some have serifs and others don't. Most likely, the school uses a particular manuscript method and will be teaching that method (with ***orted props and worksheets) and they want him to have as little to unlearn as possible. That's not necessary a *good* reason for enforcing uniformity, but I suspect that's what it is.
Best wishes, Ericka
Banty Banty_mem...@newsguy.com
Yep. The standardized tests (which are immediately published in our local papers and are put up on prominent bulletin boards in the real estate offices!) are pushing the curriculum down into the lower grades, while teachers scrutinize little kids and recommend delayed entry at K or retention in the primary grades in order to sit a higher and higher proportion of appropriately-matured kids for these curricula and standardized tests.
It would make some kind of sense if, therefore, high school finished with 11th grade. But, no; what we'll see instead is a crop of 19 year olds who have long outgrown sitting on their butts listening to teachers expected to stay in school and out of trouble.
Sometimes I think much of a parent's job is to, as well as be a partner with the schools in their kids' education, to also figure out how to keep them from being too caught up in this current madness.
Banty (whose son just finished the New York State regent's tests - the real estate offices will have the averages and spreads before I get my son's individual results)
hschin ...@aol.com (H Schinske)
So how come at the *same time* as all this is going on, the curriculum is being dumbed down? How come my second grader is being tested for reading comprehension on Henry and Mudge stuff, and filling out worksheets that go "I smell with my (knees, nose)" where THE ANSWERS ARE PROVIDED and you would have to be illiterate or brain-dead to get the question wrong? (Or inclined to make a joke, as I suspect happens to a lot of kids -- it's a whole lot more fun to say that you smell with your knees.) How come we're at the end of the year and she's still *reviewing* subtraction without borrowing? (They did a little subtraction with borrowing, and then it was felt necessary to *review* subtraction *without* borrowing. HUH? Doesn't doing subtraction with borrowing exercise the EXACT SAME SKILLS?) I've been *terrifically* thankful that my kids were born in late summer, actually, as that's meant they were granted the next thing to a grade skip. I can't even begin to imagine what things would be like if they were only finishing up first grade this year.
Sorry, this became a vent. I'm not actually arguing with you, y'know -- just taking off from what you said.
--Helen
"Sue" sburke148...@comcast.net
Wow, doesn't sound anything like what is expected in the very beginning of kindergarten here. They don't really put much emphasis on writing until first grade in our district. They work on reading skills in kindergarten and writing their last name and first name of course, but most can write their first name. Every subject is brought up, but only at their level. Your district definiately sounds like too much stuff is expected for 5-year-olds.
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Sue mom to three girls ...
"Sue" sburke148...@comcast.net
Here in Michigan, they don't do the standardized testing until first grade.
Kindergarten isn't included in the testing at all.
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Sue mom to three girls ...
LFortier the_forti...@mindspring.com
And we don't do it until 3rd grade. But still, K-2 is pressured to make sure the kids have the skills going into 3rd grade to be successful. Because goodness knows if they've done the equivalent of 3rd grade work at the end of 2nd grade, then a test on 3rd grade skills a year later should (in theory) be a piece of cake.
Lesley
"Donna Metler" nospam_dmmet...@bellsouth.net
And the other problem is that standardized tests happen with a good part of the year to go, yet cover a year's material-here the kids took them in early April-and school isn't out until June 5. So you have to cram the material in earlier, and since kids lose a lot over the summer, 3rd grade material gets taught in 2nd so that the teachers can review in 3rd.
Then, after the tests are over, the rest of the year becomes one big party-with all the field trips and special events which have been put off because the test was too important. I don't think I have seen all my cl***es in the same week since TCAP ended-and next week I have three programs and field day, in four days!
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Donna DeVore Metler Music Integration/Orff Specialist Mother to Angel Brian Anthony, 01/01/02 (22 weeks, severe PE/HELLP syndrome) ...
"Sue" sburke148...@comcast.net
LOL, yep that sounds like what is going on at my girls school. The first grader and third grader just finished the testing. Grrrr!!!! I will keep the testing rant to myself. Now we are in the last daze of school craze.
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Sue mom to three girls ...
Banty Banty_mem...@newsguy.com
But the point is - the school district, which is under scrutiny with these tests, are designing the curriculum and ***essments *from Kindergarten onward* with an eye to performance on them.
Banty
Banty Banty_mem...@newsguy.com
Oh, I know I know. :-) Cheers, Banty
"Circe" guav...@yahoo.com
> >Here in Michigan, they don't do the standardized testing until first grade.
> >Kindergarten isn't included in the testing at all.
> But the point is - the school district, which is under scrutiny with these
> tests, are designing the curriculum and ***essments *from Kindergarten onward*
> with an eye to performance on them.
Actually, I'm strongly considering not allowing my kids to take the standardized tests here in California, at least not until they are actually objectives-based tests of curriculum. Right now, the tests are more like IQ tests--the whole point of the SAT9 is to put kids on a bell curve based on their scores. As soon as too many kids start knowing the material and the bell gets messed up, they change the test. I think this is an absolutely absurd way to ***ess school, teacher, or student performance and I really don't want my kids to be a part of it of perpetuating what I think is a *horrible* system.
As it stands in California, the tests are not mandatory, although most people don't realize it. The tests don't factor into children's grades, whether they go on to the next grade, or whether they graduate. So, I've been thinking that during the week they do SAT9 testing, we'll take our family on a nice, week-long educational holiday. My only concern about doing this is that it may stigmatize my kids in school (they may be unpopular with the teachers and their cl***mates may be envious). I also don't want my kids to get the impression that I don't think school is important or that I think *all* testing is bad--neither is the case.
Thoughts?
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Be well, Barbara (Julian [7/22/97], Aurora [7/19/99], and Vernon's [3/2/02] mom) "The only problem with babies is they don't keep worth a darn." -- My Mom
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