Kinder curriculum APS

[Anonymous]

How is APS kinder these days. I believe they have tossed Lucy Caulkins, and are returning to phonics. I heard they use DreamBox for math in kinder, which surprised me. Aren’t they reducing iPad usage for the lower grades now?

Can anyone give feedback on how much screen time/apps are used in kindergarten and 1st?

[Anonymous]

All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

[Anonymous]

I had understood that APS was switching to a phonics curriculum this year, but my kid reports a great deal of emphasis on sight words. This matches the worksheets she brings home. Lots of sight word worksheets.

I had also understood that APS was dropping Lucy Culkins, but my kindergartener is still doing writer's workshop and still bringing home the same assignments my older daughter did in kindergarten. That doesn't seem to have changed.

Both Dreambox and Lexia are one of the centers the kids rotate to during math and language arts. I was annoyed at the first half of the year because the teacher was always assigned to the Lexia/Dreambox station to help the kids use the program. This left no teacher available for actual instruction. Now, at the end of the year, the kids do Dreambox and Lexia independantly but it took until after X-mas break to get to this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

What does supplement mean, they are in school 6 hrs, 1.5 hr for lunch and 2 recess, I would think most of the day would be instruction.

Do you mean supplement at home?

[Anonymous]

Tip of the day: buy Saxon Phonic K for homeschool. Spend 15 minutes a day over the summer doing the lessons. Your child will be reading in no time at all, with a strong foundation in phonics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

What does supplement mean, they are in school 6 hrs, 1.5 hr for lunch and 2 recess, I would think most of the day would be instruction.

Do you mean supplement at home?

No, I mean Lexia and dream box are independent activities that students do on their own at their own pace. The class isn’t all at the same place for either program. They move through the skills as they are ready, with teachers alerted and intervening if they consistently have difficulty on a particular skill. They aren’t the whole-group core instructional program.

[Anonymous]

You probably already know this, but learning sight words and phonics are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Take the worth "the" for example. In K, every kid learns the sound for "th". They just have to memorize the e. My school makes kids learn over 100 sight words. But about 70% of these can be sounded out easily (words like "not, and, can, see, did, run"). They're called sight words, because we want kids to sound them out to learn them initially, but after a while, they should become automatic (thus the term "sight" word).
Words like "where", "love" and "do", while not completely decodable, are partly decodable. Since the first 100 sight words make up 25% of all written material, it does make sense to learn to decode these words to the point they are automatic and recognized on sight.

The problem becomes a big one when a) students aren't taught the phonics of these sight words and b) are expected to just memorize them all without the phonics and c) they aren't taught the phonics of all the other words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You probably already know this, but learning sight words and phonics are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Take the worth "the" for example. In K, every kid learns the sound for "th". They just have to memorize the e. My school makes kids learn over 100 sight words. But about 70% of these can be sounded out easily (words like "not, and, can, see, did, run"). They're called sight words, because we want kids to sound them out to learn them initially, but after a while, they should become automatic (thus the term "sight" word).
Words like "where", "love" and "do", while not completely decodable, are partly decodable. Since the first 100 sight words make up 25% of all written material, it does make sense to learn to decode these words to the point they are automatic and recognized on sight.

The problem becomes a big one when a) students aren't taught the phonics of these sight words and b) are expected to just memorize them all without the phonics and c) they aren't taught the phonics of all the other words.

It would be one thing if the words were at all grouped to match phonics lessons where possible. But they're not. They're taught as words to memorize. I have never seen and phonetical readers or phonics worksheets come home ever.

I haven't asked a teacher because I taught my kindergartener phonics myself and she is easily reading at a 2nd grade level, but I haven't been impressed by APS's supposed switch in teaching methods to supposedly have a phonics base. It's still a lot of what I saw 3 years ago with my oldest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

Some schools use Fundations instead of 95%. But yes, it’s all phonics based. My kinder entered school knowing letter sounds but that’s about it and he can read now- he has a lot of sight words but also sounds out things phonetically. Writing is the same- he writes words how they sound phonetically which I understand is normal for kids that age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had understood that APS was switching to a phonics curriculum this year, but my kid reports a great deal of emphasis on sight words. This matches the worksheets she brings home. Lots of sight word worksheets.

I had also understood that APS was dropping Lucy Culkins, but my kindergartener is still doing writer's workshop and still bringing home the same assignments my older daughter did in kindergarten. That doesn't seem to have changed.

Both Dreambox and Lexia are one of the centers the kids rotate to during math and language arts. I was annoyed at the first half of the year because the teacher was always assigned to the Lexia/Dreambox station to help the kids use the program. This left no teacher available for actual instruction. Now, at the end of the year, the kids do Dreambox and Lexia independantly but it took until after X-mas break to get to this point.

They didn’t drop the work shop model for writing, and it’s Caulkins. It’s terrible for the same reasons reading workshop is crap. None of it is explicit, and it relies on the idea that kids learn by osmosis and that this just comes “naturally.” Nope, especially if you aren’t getting primed and reinforced at home. Guess who isn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

What does supplement mean, they are in school 6 hrs, 1.5 hr for lunch and 2 recess, I would think most of the day would be instruction.

Do you mean supplement at home?

Even in kindergarten teachers are breaking the kids out into small groups. So while the teacher is meeting with a small group to give them siecifuc instruction (maybe this group is already reading, or maybe they all need help on a specific skill), the other kids will be doing some independent work which can include iPad apps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All grades use dreambox and lexia in APS elementary. It’s not the main program it is a supplement.

Kinder uses Heggerty for Phonologocal awareness, and 95% group for core phonics instruction. We are getting a new math program for the fall.

What does supplement mean, they are in school 6 hrs, 1.5 hr for lunch and 2 recess, I would think most of the day would be instruction.

Do you mean supplement at home?

Even in kindergarten teachers are breaking the kids out into small groups. So while the teacher is meeting with a small group to give them siecifuc instruction (maybe this group is already reading, or maybe they all need help on a specific skill), the other kids will be doing some independent work which can include iPad apps.

Except the first half of the year the teacher station is the teacher helping the kindergarteners learn to use the apps or doing beginning of the year assessments. They don't start actual small group instruction with a teacher until March, as Jan-Feb is taken up by mid-year assessments.

[Anonymous]

My kindergartener is at a Title I and is not targeted for intervention. He has between 20-40 minutes a day for Dreambox (math), Lexia (phonics), and Seesaw (worksheets). I am generally anti-tech for young kids, but I have been impressed with these apps. They do have iPad time for indoor recess on rainy days that really bothers me.

I spent a ton of time on the reading wars and I have been pleasantly surprised that it is all phonics-- no sight words or three cuing at all. And he loves it and has learned so much.

[Anonymous]

Also, they do writers workshop which I agree is absolutely ridiculous. But, for my kid, it really got him comfortable writing and he is very willing to write cards and letters because he practices writing every day (Even when he couldn't write out a single word and still struggled forming letters)

[Anonymous]

Our K doesn't seem to use iPads as much now in the second half of the year as they did in the beginning of the year (based on what I am hearing and the battery level at the end of the day).

It does seem to be an independent activity (one of the "stations") as a PP mentioned, and then they can do it at home. I do think in the beginning of the year and around the holidays, there was a lot of instruction on how to use the iPads for Teams, etc. in case classes needed to shut down (which fortunately didn't happen, and hopefully will not be a concern next year). So some of it may have been Covid circumstances. I also think at this point in the year they've gotten through the K levels in Lexia and Dreambox, so they're less encouraged to do it.

I found it jarring in the beginning of the year how much focus was on using the iPads, but it seems to have evened out. One of the other things that surprised me early on was how much they use the big TVs in the classrooms for brain breaks, Go Noodle, music videos, etc. But we're almost through the year and my kid is thriving, so I'm happy with how things have worked out overall and I trust my kid's (very experienced) teacher.