Kindergarten Communication from Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

Schools with “large budgets” in weathy districts aren’t doing any better at teaching. It’s the same. The only difference and why the kids are all doing well is because of their parents at home and what they are exposing them to

This.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

I could have written this! I thought it was just a bad teacher and she was, but this was appeared to be district-wide issue (and maybe other nearby districts?), so we feared it wouldn’t be getting better anytime soon. In any case, after teaching DD to read at home and spending another year waiting for school to begin teaching kids to write proper sentences and spell simple words, we switched to Catholic school. I’m shocked - Her handwriting is SO much better and it’s only been a week.

I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

[Anonymous]

My daughter was in K in APS last year. No homework or textbooks. We got weekly newsletters. We had a fall parent teacher conference and a spring parent teacher conference. I imagine there would be outreach if any concerns.

[Anonymous]

There is pretty much no homework or textbooks in all of K-8…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming you’ve already taught her to read she will be fine. If you haven’t taught her to read yet then you should start now, using an actual phonics program.

Yes, I’ve taught him to read with a program. I’m just worried that I’m going to burn him out by expecting him to do enrichment after he comes home from a long day of school. I think that alone proves that I’m not a tiger mom. I really don’t think my parents would’ve cared about my level of exhaustion. Haha

Even just 5-10 minutes daily of Phonics will make a big difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are you a tiger mom? Kindergartners should be learning through play.

I’m the child of immigrants, but my spouse who isn’t is also concerned. I don’t think it’s a Tiger Mom thing, but a generational shift.

Does the country your parents come from not know anything about child development? At the kindergarten stage playing is the best way to learn. Not with textbooks, not with sitting and doing homework, not drilling a kid over and over.

Play is not a substitute for teaching. Colors, numbers, and alphabet need to be taught. Phonics needs to be taught so kids can decode English. Early reading with CVC words needs to be taught.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

There are alternatives to using an after school center. Many parents will supplement/reinforce at home. We supplement at home, using the Kumon workbooks from Barnes & Noble. That said, it is not an accident that many local suburbs do have Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, and Kumon centers. Those businesses would not survive if they did not have customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was in K in APS last year. No homework or textbooks. We got weekly newsletters. We had a fall parent teacher conference and a spring parent teacher conference. I imagine there would be outreach if any concerns.

We are in an FCPS area.

APS uses CKLA for language arts, which I think is much better than Benchmark which is what FCPS uses.

Mind, Benchmark is wildly better than the Whole Language/ Balanced Literacy junk that FCPS previously used.

[Anonymous]

OP your kid had only been at school for 5 mins. Take it down a notch. He doesn’t need enrichment he needs free time to play after school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No textbooks, and we did have some "homework" eventually - a packet that was sent home on Fridays to be returned the following Thursday or Friday - one page of ELA and one page of math concepts a day, usually. But the truth was I never had any idea where she was with her learning or whether she was on track. And even at the PT conferences it was not clear at all - I'd hear "oh, she got a 576 on I-ready" but that means . . . nothing to me? And when I asked what she needed to work on the teacher would pull up the test and go to look at the questions she got wrong and say "Oh, we haven't gotten to that yet, we haven't covered this yet" so I'm not sure WTF the testing was even supposed to be covering since it's not what they've learned?

My advice as a parent of a now-rising 1st grader - work on reading, writing, and math basics at home. This is all stuff you can teach your kid and if you wait for the teacher to tell you where your kid is falling behind you'll probably be disappointed. I was shocked by both 1) how little reading progress DD made in Kindergarten, and 2) how few weeks it took me this summer to get her from a handful of sight words to staying up late reading chapter books by herself. Her teacher sucked but luckily it wasn't a statistics or calculus teacher. I can still teach whatever she needs to learn at age 5.

A lot of people here claim that their children learn nothing in elementary school, no basics. I’ve only seen that at poorly performing schools that are overcrowded and underfunded. Your typical school is not like that and schools with large budgets in wealthy towns are doing fine.

I’m don’t understand how your kid only had some sight words if you have been reading to her all along. Or maybe something clicked this summer and it came together for her. It can’t be that every kindergarten is failing.

If you think your child isn’t where he should be then ask questions.

I have a child at a top performing wealthy public school and can confirm they spent lots of time on screens and don’t learn much at school apart from socialization and apps. They watch movies all the time and it’s all special events like assemblies and party days with no written work I’ve seen at home. It’s all on screens and they drag and click answers or play math games on IXL. I didn’t know this until 1st grade, but it turns out everyone goes to Kumon / tutoring / supplements at home.

You do NOT have to do the Kumon thing to have a kid do well in school. That is just competitive parenting and anxiety.

There are alternatives to using an after school center. Many parents will supplement/reinforce at home. We supplement at home, using the Kumon workbooks from Barnes & Noble. That said, it is not an accident that many local suburbs do have Mathnasium, RSM, AoPS, and Kumon centers. Those businesses would not survive if they did not have customers.

well, that is a little obvious. But you really don’t have to do that unless you are incapable of doing it yourself. It isn’t rocket science in the early grades. Parents just want to outsource what used to be considered parenting. Those companies want to make money, so they (and parent peer pressure) make you think you need to, but if your kid is average to smart, it is really easy to reinforce at home.

Here is another news flash: those for profit schools want your money and will act like your kid needs more help and that the schools aren’t doing a good job so they can get your money.

I”m a fan of school homework. I had kids at 2 different elementary schools in the area. One gave homework, one didn’t so I supplemented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could DM you - I have googled Catholic schools multiple times in the last 18 months and I never thought I'd consider parochial school.

We are Protestant. We carefully bought an house in a “good” public school pyramid (think W) with every intention of public schools all the way through. We now also are looking at local Catholic schools.

The ones near us have smaller class sizes than our public - low 20s of kids rather than 30+ kids/classroom. Much less screen time. Mainstream textbooks for math, science, history at the Catholic. Phonics-centered reading instruction. Explicit spelling and grammar instruction. I never thought we would be looking serious at Catholic schools, yet here we are.

Yeah, why not, indoctrinate your kid in Catholicism like JD Vance. It is way more important to get textbooks, the Bible and that all important gold cross necklace these days anyway that to like support some kind of public entity.
Times have changed and you have got to put the Bible and supporting religion first.

[Anonymous]

why would a kindergartener have homework???