Questions to Ask at Kindergarten Roundup
roundup is coming up at the local public school. What are some things we should
be looking for, and questions we should be asking?
It would be smart to attend at least
two kindergarten roundup sessions in both a public and a private school. Then
you can compare notes on their answers to these questions.
Most kindergartens, whether in
public or private schools, are "child-centered." That means that they are more
like a play room than a schoolroom. This is considered appropriate, unless it
goes overboard into a chaotic, glorified day-care type experience. On the other
hand, kindergarten shouldn't be overly structured, either. It's a bad sign if
there are worksheets, desks in rows all the time, or other evidence that the
kindergarten is going to consist of a lot of "seat work." Kids this age need to
move around and enjoy unstructured play for a lot of the day.
As for differences, public schools
are, of course, offered at taxpayer expense and are free of charge to each
student, while private schools charge tuition that parents have to pay and are
not taxpayer-subsidized. It is much easier to find half-day kindergarten
programs in private schools than in public schools, and many child development
experts prefer half-day to full-day experiences. You may have to enroll in
private school if you want your child to go for the traditional half-day.
A second key difference is that most
private kindergartens offer early reading instruction with a systematic,
intensive, explicit phonics curriculum, while most public kindergartens do
little, if any, specific instruction in the multisensory phonics skills. Those
include the specific skills of listening, speaking, handwriting and reading,
Public kindergartens expose children
to reading and writing, of course, but it is in a much less systematic way that
they believe is more age-appropriate and doesn't rush the child into reading
too early, fearing bad reading habits. Some parents like that, but others want
their children to have basic academic skills early on, since a larger
vocabulary and better spelling stem from a solid foundation of basic literacy
skills in the early years of school, and they don't believe that the 20 minutes
per day that it takes to teach a child to read with phonics in kindergarten is
too much to ask.
So you should be thinking about
these differences as you attend at least two roundups, because your child's
start in school is very important.
The changes in our society and in
our families have created a staggering amount of diversity in kindergarten
readiness in many school settings. You will see a child who is reading "real"
books and able to write his or her name right next to a child who is sobbing
because he or she has never been away from home before, doesn't speak clearly,
doesn't know the alphabet or names of colors, and can't sit still.
Because of those challenges for the
kindergarten teacher, if you have a child who is in good shape for learning, and
already reading or about to, it might be a wise move to look carefully at a
private school, at least for your child's kindergarten year or beyond. The cost
is usually not as prohibitive as a private high school tuition might be, but
that tuition can serve as a "gatekeeper" that can put your child in a classroom
that is less diverse and easier for the teacher to handle.
But if having your child go to a
public school is an important value for you, or if you want your child to make
friends in kindergarten and go all through school with them, then you'll
probably be like most families and enroll your child in the local public
school, come what may.
Kindergarten roundup isn't usually
designed as a marketing experience - the teachers assume that you are going to
enroll your child there and aren't trying to "sell" their system - but you can
treat it as a fact-finding experience on top of any books you might want to
read on kindergarten, or online research you might want to do.
Sample roundup questions for the
the children come to you at such extremes in terms of kindergarten
readiness, do you group them by reading readiness levels?
- Do you
have systematic, intensive, explicit phonics curriculum? (If they say there isn't time:) How
much time per day do the kids spend on reading instruction? They say
proper phonics takes only about 20 minutes a day on top of the regular
storytelling time in kindergarten.
does time management in full-day kindergarten differ from half-day
kindergarten? How is that extra time being utilized, and what evidence is
there that it pays off for this district's children?
we know that good handwriting comes from teaching children the position of
the hand in gripping the pencil, correct posture, the position of the
paper on the desk, and many other precise factors, how can the "child-centered"
kindergarten classroom, with no desks, be a good place to learn how to
write? Can't they sit at desks for a few minutes a day for handwriting
percentage of the students in seventh grade in this district are reading
at grade level? If the kindergarten teacher doesn't know, ask what kind of
feedback the school district gives to the kindergarten teachers for
success or failure on down the road. To be honest, in a lot of middle schools
around the country, educators are blaming society and the family for the
fact that a majority of the kids are not reading at grade level. But the
real problem, truth be told, is what is NOT happening in those
kindergarten classrooms. And what NEEDS to be happening there is proper
phonics instruction . . . the most cost-effective way to teach children
how to read and write.
Kindergarten roundup is supposed to
focus on learning, after all. So ask these questions . . . and maybe this time
it will be the TEACHERS who learn something!
may never again be satisfied with the slowed-down philosophy of most
public-school kindergartens after you read the book, The Writing Road to Reading by Romalda Spalding.