First Grade Prep...

[BikeBookBread]

Please don't ask me "why" we are dropping homeschooling for this fall, or I'm liable to cry :( We haven't given it up on homeschooling forever, but I'm not sold on the public school idea first grade; however DH is definitely not out of line in his reasoning...it is just a very personal and tender spot right now...

 

So it's almost a done deal :( DH really wants to put PDG into public for first grade (we would love private classical, but can't swing it financially -- the classical academies with which I have inquired in Northern Virginia are just financially unreachable). I looked at one Montessori school, and almost had a heart attack. (I think that Montessori would be a great fit for PDG, even better than classical (gasp) as a non-homeschool choice.)

 

So, I was looking at the end of year benchmarks for kinder and mid-year benchmarks for first grade at some of the schools near where we are moving, and PDG surpasses some of the goals, and is nowhere near others.

 

For example, her reading is great, but her writing is awful. She can spell amazingly accurately from dictation, but only I can read it. Some areas of math are beyond the benchmarks, some behind; for example, she can read analog time, but can't do some basic addition; she is learning place value, but has a hard time counting to 100.

 

Until recently I just hadn't been too worried about benchmarks because we were well, home-schoolers, and I knew she'd pick it up when she picked it up. Besides, homeschool curriculum is often really advanced in one area, and teaches things in a (more logical) though not the usual order (especially in math - we attempted Miquon and then switched Singapore, saving Miquon for later).

 

I'm sure this is normal, but what will it be like for her in first grade? I'm just worried that most of the 1st graders will have come out of public or private Kinder (Kinder attendance seems to be the norm) and she'll be behind. I know she'll catch up, but I'm just stressing. I know I also have a lot of time to catch her up, but with the move coming up quickly, I know we're going to start to be a bit less regular in our schooling.

 

ETA: WAHHHHH, PDG just came in practically begging me to do school....I wish DH could have seen that.

Edited April 28, 2010 by BikeBookBread
clarity of thought...

[RoughCollie]

I will never forget two things. The first is when DH decided the boys had to go to PS for 1st grade. He basically chickened out of homeschooling, even though I had already bought the materials and had the year planned. The second is when DH suggested that we take the kids out of first grade halfway through the year.

 

I don't think you need to worry about whether your child is prepared for first grade. The benchmarks are goals. If the majority of children actually knew all the information the benchmarks say they should, those kids would all be scholars of the first degree.

 

First graders are a group with varying individual levels of knowledge. According to the first grade teachers I talked to, this is what makes first grade hard to teach, despite how adorable the children are.

 

Our public school system was very highly rated and won awards for excellence. Their standardized test scores were very high. I was really worried. My boys could not read because I was of the opinion that they should enjoy their preschool years and not do formal academic work until first grade.

 

During that first grade year, I taught my kids how to read and I taught them first grade arithmetic. Me. By myself. No help from the school.

 

They were making E's (for excellent) on their report cards. I tested them at home halfway through the year and discovered that they had not learned anything they didn't know previous to entering first grade.

 

They knew how to read as far as the school was concerned, for example. Wrong! They had memorized the books. If I took away the picture cue, they could not read the words.

 

The many, many worksheets they completed in school were done correctly. Unfortunately, my kids had a problem: They completed the worksheets meant to take an hour in 10-15 minutes. Then the teacher would get mad at them for doing nothing for the rest of the time. She, meanwhile, was occupied with a small group. The entire class learned reading in small groups due to varying levels of ability. While a small group was meeting, the rest of the class completed worksheets.

 

Their homework was for parents because it was not material first graders could complete. I would have been impressed and concerned, had we not had 6 neighbors whose kids were in 1st grade and went to the same school. Their mothers were doing the homework for them, too. The funny thing was that the school knew it -- everything was in the mother's handwriting. It was essentially the school's way of making sure that parents spend time with their children after school doing something productive. (I will spare you my rant about that.)

 

In essence, I need not have been worried about my boys being prepared for first grade. I had to do so much teaching after school that DH realized that the boys were wasting their time in school and decided homeschooling was preferable.

 

Also, the science, history, and literature the kids were taught was all information my kids had already learned in the ordinary course of life. They were unhappy about that, and disgruntled because if they had a question about a science topic, for example, their teacher did not know the answer. But she didn't say that -- she told them to concentrate on the material at hand and did not answer their questions or tell them how to find the answer themselves.

 

I don't think you have a thing to worry about vis-a-vis whether your child is prepared for first grade. Keep a sharp eye on the curricula used and on whether your child is learning anything in first grade. That's what you need to be concerned about. (I greatly disliked the school's method of teaching math, reading, spelling, handwriting, and art, along with the materials used to do so.)

 

RC

Edited April 28, 2010 by RoughCollie

[Chris in VA]

Pls remember that benchmarks are goals to be met by the END of first grade. They constitute what will be learned, not what they should already know at the beginning. :001_smile:

 

Are you going to be near me, by any chance?

[BikeBookBread]

Pls remember that benchmarks are goals to be met by the END of first grade. They constitute what will be learned, not what they should already know at the beginning. :001_smile:

 

Are you going to be near me, by any chance?

 

I PM'd you.

[Momling]

I totally agree that first grade is notoriously difficult to pin down. In the class will probably be kids who can only write their first name and only recently learned the alphabet. And there will be kids who are reading full-length novels. Some kids will barely be able to count, others will know how to multiply.

 

I'm sure wherever your child is at, is absolutely within the realm of normal first grade.

[JudoMom]

I don't have any advice for you, but wanted to give you a :grouphug:.

[Heidi7Sue]

I went to public school, but I think I was effectively homeschooled, and school was where I went to be bored for six hours a day. My parents, bless them, taught me so much just by answering my (endless) questions that I didn't learn anything in school until they put me in private school for third grade. (And in math, I think it was still 4th or 5th grade before I learned anything new.) The situation was obviously not ideal, but it wasn't the end of the world either. I hated school, but I still loved learning, my problem with school being that I didn't learn anything there, plus I was always getting in trouble for being off in my own mental world.

 

All of that is to say that while I don't know why you are doing the public school thing, it can be ok, and I hope it turns out that way for your kids.

:grouphug:

[LibraryLover]

:grouphug: