How much info expected to retain?

[NicAnn]

My dd is 5 and in Kindergarten. I'm wondering how much I can reasonably expect her to retain? Each unit we study, for instance, I ask her to recite 3 things she has learned. She can do this, but I'm not sure how long she retains this info. I understand at this age we are just planting seeds, for the most part.

 

I'm curious what realistic expectations are.

[Mom22ns]

Are you looking for retention in a specific subject?

 

In K, I want kids to get the building blocks of reading, letter and sounds. I want them to be able to read and put words on paper in a basic way. I also want the same kind of math skills I want them to count, recognize numbers, understand the concepts of adding and subtracting using manipulatives. It is important that they retain those building blocks.

 

There are some other basics, like days of the week, months of the year, and seasons, that I would use in daily life and expect to be retained. However, I am not looking for any long term retention in history or science. For example, next year when you study insects again, I don't care if she can still tell you they have 3 body parts or not.

[athena1277]

I do history and science with my K'er, but I don't expect much retention. It's mainly a year-long intro to those subjects. We do some review at the end of each chapter, but if he doesn't remember much, it's ok. As long as the "reading, writing, and arithmetic" is going well, the rest just gets him more ready for 1st grade.

[Ellie]

I don't "expect" much to be retained, because we're going to do anything really important multiple times over the years, in different ways; more of it will stick the more that we do it, lol.

[Clear Creek]

I expected my children to learn skills at this age (reading, counting, etc.) but not to retain random bits of information. They would sometimes remember things that interested them, but I didn't quiz them or anything; they would just bring it up during a conversation. Everything they learned outside of those specific skills was just for fun and to spark their interest in a variety of subjects (and to answer the never-ending question of "why?", LOL).

[NicAnn]

Ok, great. This is what I was thinking/expecting.

[Hunter]

Homeschool parents expect so much more retention that PS teachers and tutors do. Sometimes moms need to cut themselves and their children some slack. Sometimes it really is okay to check the box that something was taught, even though the child appears to remember nothing.

[Rosie_0801]

Was it Charlotte Mason who said it is not how much they know, but how much they care? My kiddo is language delayed so I can't have the same expectations as I would for a kiddie without such problems, so I'm keeping that idea in mind. As long as her reading, writing and maths improves, I'll be happy if she's interested enough in the content subjects that she troubles herself to learn some relevant vocab. I expect she'll be able to find a few more countries on a map, know a picture of Saturn and the Sphinx when she sees them and tell me which critter on the Charlie's Playhouse time line is the trilobite. But that last one only because I bought one at the rock show last month.

[boscopup]

At that age, it's just developing a love for the subjects, not retaining necessarily (though there will be some retention of high interest things). The things I expect retention of would be phonics/reading, math, and how to write their letters. ;) Anything else is just an introduction, and I really don't care about retention. When they get to high school, I expect a lot more retention. ;)