71 Things Your Child Needs to Know Before Kindergarten (degree, exam, course)

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by LLN

Many 8th graders cannot do a lot of that. Especially follow instructions. You moms need to relax. Your kids will do fine if you show steady, even, consistent interest in education, K-12. To much interest to early will backfire.

Can't or won't..HUGE difference. Other than kids with severe learning disabilities, 8th graders most certainly can follow instructions. None of the things on that list are over the top expectations for a 5 year old.

Originally Posted by malamute

The problem is -- the schools will accept those kids who are completely unready for kindergarten -- so this list is good but it's not practical. The only real question the school will need answered is the birthdate of the child.

There have been schools who have tried to say that kids had to know a few basics in order to be enrolled, but if a 5 year old doesn't know the colors and cannot sit still for 10 minutes, he's still going to be enrolled. And they usually drop any other requirements because those parents who failed to expose their child to much of anything won't be doing much with a whole extra year, then it's a 6 year old that doesn't know colors and has never seen a crayon.

Then schools need to step up earlier and make sure kids are on track for kindergarten. In our state all 4 year olds have to do the pre-school screening, much of which is on this list. They can identify problems and have a year to work on them as needed. There are also birth to kindergarten programs so kids with bigger issues identified by their doctors, day care providers or parents can start with intervention early. Also, kids at that age are just little sponges. They do catch up quickly. It's also beneficial for those kids to do all day kindergarten too.

[stan3186]

Originally Posted by malamute

I was surprised myself -- but my daughter was also frustrated with how little they knew and the fact that they would just laugh like it was funny when they didn't know something they should have known. I found it hard to believe but another former teacher here tried to teach 10th grade biology and said the kids didn't even know how to read graphs. She had been educated until college in another country and was horrified with how kids here are completely unprepared for high school level courses.

I would have thought understanding graphs would be intuitive, but maybe not, maybe in other years, they taught it so early that you really can't remember actually be taught them.

Something is truly lacking today.

I think it is mostly society today and not taking the time to actually get involved with your children. Spend some time with them at home when you can. Turn off the television and cell phones. Spend at least an hour a day reading to your children. Children today are basically abused by neglect.. Parent don't seem to have time to work with their kids. If you don't have the time or desire to work with your kids and teach them, then get a goldfish.

[lhpartridge]

One problem in our area is that so many of the children have parents who are children themselves. School readiness is problematice when the parents of the 2- to 4-year-olds are only in their middle teens. Many of these teen parents were also born to teenagers. It's not unusual here for 5-year-olds to start kindergarten with the language skills more typical of a child two years younger. The achievement gap starts in the home and widens as the amount of experience of the wealthier children continues to outstrip that of poor children.

It would be wonderful for the state to screen all four-year-olds, but there just isn't the money or the political will to do that.

[Spazkat9696]

Originally Posted by lhpartridge

One problem in our area is that so many of the children have parents who are children themselves. School readiness is problematice when the parents of the 2- to 4-year-olds are only in their middle teens. Many of these teen parents were also born to teenagers. It's not unusual here for 5-year-olds to start kindergarten with the language skills more typical of a child two years younger. The achievement gap starts in the home and widens as the amount of experience of the wealthier children continues to outstrip that of poor children.

It would be wonderful for the state to screen all four-year-olds, but there just isn't the money or the political will to do that.

It wouldn't really help to screen all 4 year old children. Sending them to school a year earlier is not going to make up for the lack of exposure to books and educational stimulation they have lost out on since birth. It may help some, but where does it end? The next thing you know we'll be screening all children at one.

Parents need to learn to be parents. They need stop letting children raise themselves. Children need parents who take an interest in, and prioritize education so that it has meaning to them. How we solve that issue I can not even begin to fathom, but until we do the achievement gap will always exist.

[nana053]

Originally Posted by Spazkat9696

It wouldn't really help to screen all 4 year old children. Sending them to school a year earlier is not going to make up for the lack of exposure to books and educational stimulation they have lost out on since birth. It may help some, but where does it end? The next thing you know we'll be screening all children at one.

Parents need to learn to be parents. They need stop letting children raise themselves. Children need parents who take an interest in, and prioritize education so that it has meaning to them. How we solve that issue I can not even begin to fathom, but until we do the achievement gap will always exist.

While I agree that parents need to learn to be better parents, many of the at risk kids are well-loved, but have parents who are working two jobs (or even three). These might even be part time jobs. When parents are so tired and stressed, they have little time left over to help with the kids education.

The other problem is that they may not be able to read themselves much beyond a very basic level. How can we expect them to read to the kids if they can barely read themselves.

I have a friend who is currently a reading specialist in the inner city in Chicago. When she taught first grade, she had the kids bring a book from home at some point in the year. In her early years, most of the kids brought in a Bible, a cookbook or a magazine. They simply had no books at home. She had a program to take them to the library and get them library cards, but that did not help much as the parents could not get to the library due to working or other problems. So we started a lending library in her classroom and she leveled the books so the kids got books they could read at home. At the end of the year, she always gave each child one book they could have for themselves. We bought these at a large garage sale that always had a big end of sale box of books for $10 (as many as you could fit into a large box). Well, after many years, she had the children of her first few classes and those parents did read to their own kids. She now has the third generation of kids and we are hopeful that these kids may actually escape from the ghetto and begin to go to college and have careers. It takes a long time and the effects in this case were only on a small number of parents and children.

As a country, we need to make the effort to do this for all of these kids.

[jsimpson89]

Originally Posted by Natsku

They didn't even know north, south, east and west? Wow.

I just find that hard to believe. I don't really have a survey of kids that age but my kids love looking at maps and globes and I can hardly imagine kids not knowing north/south/east/west at that age.

[Athair]

I laugh at the comment that not everyone has 20 minutes to spend with their child... But I also laugh at a silly list on the internet.

[dianashaw]

Something that really helped my kids in school was early reading skills. I got my kids started early to read…before they ever entered kindergarten. I can’t say overstate how much it helped their overall confidence level in all subjects. My boy started reading at age 3. As he entered first grade and they told me he was reading on the 5th grade level. Kids love reading when they can learn with no pressure.

But just as important, the confidence he got from learning to read early helped him socially and in all other subjects. He's a sweet little boy, but he kinda has this look on his face when dealing with challenges in class that says, "I know, I get it. Stop talking now...just let me do it."

[lhpartridge]

I have seniors who can't locate the US on a world map even though I've shown them many, many times. I want to get the all beach ball globes like the ones my kids had.

[rizzo0904]

I think it seems reasonable as well. My son is in kindergarten and can do all except use appropriate amounts of glue . The 7 piece puzzle struck me as odd. He does 100 piece puzzles.