I read with every student in my son's PS Kindy class today

[ondreeuh]

Out of 21 students:

 

1 reads at a 2+ grade level (my kid)

2 are approaching readiness to blend cvc words

18 are learning letter sounds and cannot yet distinguish between "the" and "and."

 

The teacher told me that an "advanced" student comes into kindergarten already knowing letter sounds and starting to blend. Our town has a relatively high cost of living and is pretty middle class, but most kids do not attend any kind of academic preschool. All of these kids speak English at home. There really isn't any pressure for early academics at all that I have seen. The local high school is an IB school and seems pretty rigorous though.

 

I don't know if my town is unusual, but it definitely surprised me after hearing people here on WTM say how much is expected in their kindergartens. Oh, I was describing PAL Reading to the teacher and he said that sounded just like what he does with the kids, since the adopted LA program is so slow.

[The Way of My People]

Wow! We homeschooled K, so I'm not speaking from experience, but that surprises me. I keep reading about how intense K standards have gotten. I just assumed most kids enter K at least blending CVC words.

[sunnyday]

We were told that *nice to haves* were recognizing all letters upper and lower, knowing *many* but not all letter sounds, being able to write their own name with upper and lower case. Anything else was gravy, and if children came in without this basic knowledge they'd work with them...I got the impression it was about 50-50 knowing any letter sounds at all. Young families with children in our area are probably on average a low-middle socioeconomic class; we're about 40% free/reduced lunch if I recall, and anyway the families who can afford it send their kids to Montessori through kindergarten.

 

The breakdown you describe is pretty close to where my son's kindy peers were at the *end* of the kindergarten year. I worked with two classes of kids, leading reading groups of 4-8 drawn from among nearly 50, and we worked steadily through phonics readers and sight word bingo; by the end several were reading simple texts and had their sight words pat, many were still barely sounding out CVC and missed their sight words or needed a lot of help. The kiddos who were strong natural readers at the beginning were still the only real readers at the end. (My son "clicked" somehow in the last few weeks of school, and blossomed over the summer into a strong reader at ~3rd grade level.)

 

In first grade they have started with a review of letter names. As far as my son reports and the weekly homework reflects, this is as far as they've gotten in three weeks.

[Momofeat]

I guess we'll see what others say, but I have a hard time believing that most beginning Kindergartners will enter K blending CVC words simply because they are not ready developmentally for such a task. Students cannot perform past their developmental ability.

 

Example: Both of my daughters read the entire Narnia series themselves when they were in first grade. My 2nd grade son, however, has not yet moved past CVC and CVCCVC words. He is every bit as smart as his sisters and is ahead of their pace in math. He has received similar reading instruction to them, if not even more intense the last few months.I know this because I was the teacher for all 3, and I have a background teaching children with dyslexia how to read. At 7 he is not ready developmentally to even come close to what they were able to do at age 6--and pushing him harder would make no difference. He can only do what he's ready to do.

[sunnyday]

Wow! We homeschooled K, so I'm not speaking from experience, but that surprises me. I keep reading about how intense K standards have gotten. I just assumed most kids enter K at least blending CVC words.

 

Kindergarten used to be about eating paste and taking naps and learning to behave in groups. First grade was for beginning alphabet and starting reading readiness. Now they need them ready to read by the beginning of first grade at the latest, so the kindergarten day is packed. My son's school had 2-3 reading groups daily. That's what's meant, I think, by the increased expectations in kindergarten. (And of course it is MUCH worse in high-stakes urban areas than our quiet little semi-rural district.)

[Korrale]

Learning letter sounds is about spot on for the 3rd-5th week of school. It is only the start if the year. Reading about 100 sit words and deciding CVC is pretty much where many (not necessarily all) kids will be by mid year.

But the end of the year they will be writing, experimenting with spelling and doing basic math.

[nature girl]

This area is upper-middle to upper class (high COL) and about half the kids come to school already blending CVC and CVCC words, many reading at 1st grade level or higher. It's a pretty high pressure area, with many successful parents. Letter sounds and blending are taught in many of the preschools here, and I'm guessing many of the parents work with their kids on reading well before K. If a child came to school not knowing his letter sounds, he'd be considered "behind." This brings up the question again about what it is that decides when children will begin reading...Partly exposure to books obviously, which leads to motivation on their part (which is probably the main reason my DD started early, she adores books.) But is the rest due to nature (brain readiness) or nurture (a parent guiding/pushing)?

[Korrale]

If you are in the US we now are adopting Common Core Standards. This is the authority that decides what a child should be doing in all grades and subjects such as Language Arts and Math. Most good teachers will let children work ahead. But their focus is to get every child to meet the minimums requirements.

 

http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

[Pamela H in Texas]

That sounds about right for 4 weeks into school.  

 

Our school wants kids to know their letters and primary sounds when they walk in the door.  That doesn't always happen.

 

By mid-November, they are asked to "stretch it out" to spell and are asked to write 4 sentence paragraphs with key words written on the overhead. They were to know 25 sight words, had a "little reader" at their own level (between pre-reader and 3rd grade) each week to practice at home.  My daughter, in December of Kindy (public schooled when a foster kid) wrote a cute 5-ish sentence story about a butterfly stuck in a chimney (other kids did Santa).  

 

At the end of the school year, the kids were very impressive with many of them reading the short chapter books like Arthur or Clifford. A few could read very well. Most kids were WELL past the level they had to be past in order to move on to 1st grade.  In March-ish, they each wrote a personalized positive letter to each student.  Only one student's handwriting was particularly rough, had trouble with spelling, etc.  Many were very nicely written in my daughter's compilation.

 

Here, I'd expect impressive by the END of the year, maybe even the middle of the year for most kids.  But it is normal for them to go INTO Kindy knowing little more than most letters and numbers.  

[mom2bee]

That sounds about right, they are at the beginning of Kindergarten, so learning letter sounds and recognizing letters sounds about right to me. Glad that your son is doing well. Now, if that were the end of Kindergarten, I'd be a little surprised. It will be neat to see where they are all by Christmas break.

[eleileen]

interesting! at my son's kindy class, I would guess that 15 out of the 20 kids attended some type of preschool. My son reads at about mid grade 1 level and we're working on more challenging books. most kids in his class could read CVC words pretty well.

[ondreeuh]

This really goes to show that "typical" kindergarten classrooms vary, and there is such a wide range of normal. I was basically told here that it is very common to have several strong readers in kindergarten so I was expecting that, and I am actually disappointed my son doesn't have kids at his reading level. I hope that other kids take off, but the teacher said that usually his highest kids end the year reading early-2nd grade readers, which my son is already past. He's not even necessarily gifted, but I think he is wired for language AND he got the benefit of early exposure & instruction.

 

His teacher prints off readers from Reading A-Z and reads with him while the kids cycle through centers (just like 10 minutes a day) and when he starts reading groups he will put my son with the highest kids, even though it won't be challenging. I am totally fine with that, as it will build fluency and be good practice with reading clearly out loud. I am VERY grateful that the teacher is so positive about my son being a good reader, and that the librarian is totally happy to help him pick out whatever he wants. This teacher's mother teaches 1st grade, so I might request her next year :).

[Nart]

Even if there were one or two more students in the class fluently reading, there might not be any difference in what the teacher ends up doing. My son was in kinder last year at a high achieving public school. My son and another girl in his class both entered kinder read fluently (around mid second grade level). There were a few others who were at beginning first grade level. The teacher at the first conference said she would put my son and the other girl together in a reading group so they could read at their level. It only happened a few times throughout the year. I don't think my son was ever pulled to read with the teacher the last three months because all of the time the teacher had went into helping the kids who needed more help meeting kindergarten standards. The teacher didn't let my son or the other girl read books by themselves or to each other at their level, instead they both had to complete the same worksheets as all the other children.  My son ended up loving kindergarten because of all the other activities - recess, music, art projects, etc., but academically he only progressed because of the afterschooling we did. 

[boscopup]

Sounds about like my son's private school K class at the beginning of the year. I think about half the students had gone to preschool, and half had not. My son (who hadn't gone to preschool or done anything formal at home either) was reading at a mid-2nd grade level at the beginning of the year. He was the only one like that. In first grade, he had a few other students who were reading "above grade level" with him. I remember one kid's mom posted on FB mid-year in K saying he had just read his first book. He's a very sharp kid, but reading didn't click until halfway through the year. By first grade, you couldn't tell that he wasn't reading at the beginning of K. He was in the top 3-4 students in reading now.

 

You'll see some kids jump ahead mid-year and toward the end of year. My son found the first semester of K to be really boring, and he got in trouble for talking a bit (this is normally a very compliant kid - not a talker!). Second semester, when many in the class were now starting to read, it got more interesting. He still didn't learn anything new, but he wasn't getting in trouble for talking as much. :D

 

[MistyMountain]

I think it varies by area but I think it is more common to be working on letter sounds at the beginning of the year. Kids aren't really expected to read before kindergarten. Dd's school is academically ahead of the neighborhood schools and they only were doing letter sounds in the first weeks of school. DD started kindergarten able to sound out cvc and other words but she wasn't fluent at all yet. The teacher said that with those skills she was at the top of her class. There were a few that were reading really well but there were plenty that probably didn't even know letter sounds. They all were writing letters and numbers recognizably though.

 

Reading clicked for dd right after Christmas break and she read her first real book. By the end of the year she was the top reader in her class. She made rapid progress once it clicked but there were a few that were really good readers and could handle chapter books at Christmas break. Some probably started reading chapter books but most were not. All the kids had some reading ability at the end of the year and most were reading well above the minimums. They came a long way from letter sounds, shapes, number recognition and learning math terms and following directions in the beginning of the year. By the end of the year the kids were writing sentences, reading, doing addition and subtraction, recognized, wrote and counted to at least to 100 but most knew higher, skip counting by 2s, 5s, 10s, 25s, and time and coins etc. My friend volunteers in a high income school in the same town and the levels at the beginning of first grade varied from level A and B to the second grade level which is a lower range then dd's school.

[kubiac]

Thank you all for posting this. I hear a lot about "half the kids starting K are reading chapter books!!!" so this was a very interesting thread!

[amyrobynne]

At the parents info session shortly after my son's private kindergarten started, we were told that usually, a couple kids entered fluently reading. By Christmas, they expected most kids to be reading CVC words.  This is at a school where most kids go to the very academic pre-k in the building and the vast majority of students are either upper class or teachers' kids (mine was option b).

[8filltheheart]

This is the sort of thing that gives me a panic attack when I think about sending dd to PS. She hasn't ever been, and we have no plans to send her there. However, now, she's in 2nd grade and still could not independently write a 5 sentence paragraph. She could dictate it to me, but she couldn't actually put words to paper. And I don't understand how they go from basically recognizing letters to writing 5 sentence paragraphs within a few months?? But I believe that they do. They must constantly have a pencil in hand. My dd was reading on a 3rd ish grade level when she entered K (One reason we hs). Her strengths are definitely on the decoding end of language, not the encoding :)

 

If you don't plan on sending her to school, why worry about it?   What a child is writing in K or even 1st and 2nd is absolutely arbitrary in terms of long term educational success. 

 

FWIW, none of my kids could write a 5 sentence paragraph in 2nd grade.   I have never even attempted to request it.   In 2nd grade they are building their understanding of how writing works (sentence construction, basic grammar, mechanics) through copywork.   By the time they are writing paragraphs independently, they are solid in how paragraphs are constructed with topic sentences and supporting details and write well.

 

By the time my kids are in middle school, their writing is solid.   It is articulate and well-reasoned.   I cringe when I read what passes as "good" for most high school students.   I have never had one of my kids not make a solid A on their college level writing assignments (composition and otherwise.)   The end goal is all that matters.   Don't worry about getting hung up on the myopic vision of ps standards.  IMNSVHO, it is a cart before the horse approach and ends up ingraining poor habits that need to end up being unlearned.   (I think the same thing about book reports.   When kids who have spent their younger yrs writing book reports start writing literary essays, they have to be taught to not spend so much time including plot/storyline and focus on the essay topic. It is painful to read some kids' essays b/c they cannot make the switch.)

 

[boscopup]

This is the sort of thing that gives me a panic attack when I think about sending dd to PS. She hasn't ever been, and we have no plans to send her there. However, now, she's in 2nd grade and still could not independently write a 5 sentence paragraph. She could dictate it to me, but she couldn't actually put words to paper. And I don't understand how they go from basically recognizing letters to writing 5 sentence paragraphs within a few months?? But I believe that they do. They must constantly have a pencil in hand. My dd was reading on a 3rd ish grade level when she entered K (One reason we hs). Her strengths are definitely on the decoding end of language, not the encoding :)

 

They use and encourage invented spelling at the K age, so the kids are willing to write more. They don't have to think about how a word is spelled. The teacher wants them to spell it like it sounds. One thing that held my oldest son (went to private school for K-1) back in writing in the younger years was that he's a perfectionist and didn't want to misspell a word. It terrified him to write on his own! Invented spelling didn't help his spelling skills either - just ingrained wrong spellings. :tongue_smilie: He also could not write a paragraph in 2nd grade. Now in 4th grade, he can pretty easily write a paragraph, retell a story, etc. What a difference a couple years makes! We've had to work up to it, but when I see examples of 4th grade "writing" from public schools, while it is much more in quantity, the quality... I just can't even imagine my son writing like that. When I look at examples of paragraphs in 4th grade writing workbooks... blech. I'll take the less writing but better quality any day.

 

[Kakids]

I don't really know what they do with reading here in kindergarten because the focus seems to be on writing.  I suppose they are expected to be reading, because they are expected to write.  My logic could be off there.  They start spelling tests within the first month of school and language arts includes sentence writing.  It seems a little excessive to me.  Letter and number formation, while not completed dropped, seem to be left at the wayside.

 

I don't want this to be venty, but I'm having a hard time leaving it out.  Preschool seems to have become a mostly academic environment.  Woe betide the three year old not ready to sit at a desk and learn to write their letters and numbers.  That child will be behind.

[8filltheheart]

Woe betide the three year old not ready to sit at a desk and learn to write their letters and numbers. That child will be behind.

Which is absurd. No they won't be. That "truth" exists only according to a broken bureaucratic system.

[SKL]

I would not expect most kids to be reading when they start KG.  I think that is something seen in only a minority of school districts.

 

What I do expect is that they are reading easy material by the end of KG.

 

My kids' KG class didn't introduce reading until around the beginning of November.  But the kids learned 220 sight words plus CVC decoding and a little bit more (blends, basic punctuation) by the end of the year.

[ondreeuh]

See, I only expected many kids to be reading at least a little when they enter kindergarten because that's what I've read here so many times. I have heard here many times that their child's kindergarten class included several kids who began the year reading chapter books. I posted last spring that my son's preschool teacher was just amazed that he could read a "hard" book by himself, and I asked if it was really that unusual to have a child reading when entering kindergarten, and I was basically told it was not usual, but common in their schools. So I figured there would be a few fluent readers, many emerging readers, and just a few kids who needed to learn their letters. Well obviously the reality here doesn't match that at all. So many parents on the WTM forums worry their kids are behind if they are not at least recognizing some sight words and starting to blend by kindergarten, but in my school those are the "advanced" kids. I just had my parent-teacher conference, and I asked whether readers from other classes could possibly come together to form a little reading group. The teacher said that out of 120 kindergarteners, mine is the only one reading at that level. He's surpassed the end-of-year goals for letter & sound recognition (the only standardized assessment they do so far).

 

Like I said in my OP, I don't live in a tough neighborhood or anything - many families are military & professional. People choose to live here and commute 40 minutes to work rather than live in the city. We are so far geographically from the Ivies that there isn't a huge push to get kids accelerated in preschool so they can get into the top private schools, so there's that ... but there really aren't "disadvantaged" kids around here because it's too hard and expensive to live here if you are struggling. So academics don't seem to typically start until kindergarten, but the kids are stimulated at home and are well cared for.

 

Since I read with the kids every week, it is really cool to see their progress already. Many of the kids were primed and ready to go, and are picking reading up easily. Out of 20, there are only 5 who are really still figuring out the letter-sound relationships and we just finished our first quarter. 10 are segmenting CVC words and picking up the sight words. They are using the pre-decodable books in the official reading program. 4 are blending CVC words fairly easily and have the sight words down pat. The teacher prints out his own decodable books for those kids. My son reads those books too, but then has 1:1 time with the teacher where he works on an advanced reader. The teacher loves it, thank goodness.

 

Here is the "kindergarten report card" showing the goals for the year. http://www.matsuk12.us/cms/lib/AK01000953/Centricity/Domain/105/Report%20Cards/Kindergarten/FY14%20Kindergarten%20SARC%20-%20Blank.docx

[SKL]

I wonder if one reason for the regional discrepancy could be the average age of the kids in the class.  I mean, if parents are afraid to send their kids to KG until they are closer to age 6 than age 5 (not due to individual shortcomings), it seems natural that the percentage of kids entering KG with reading skills is going to be higher.

[ondreeuh]

I wonder if one reason for the regional discrepancy could be the average age of the kids in the class. I mean, if parents are afraid to send their kids to KG until they are closer to age 6 than age 5 (not due to individual shortcomings), it seems natural that the percentage of kids entering KG with reading skills is going to be higher.

Sure, that makes sense. I don't think there is much red shirting here, although one Kindergartener just turned 7! She looks it, too. I'll try to remember to ask my son's teacher next week.