What exactly is a prepped kid?

[Anonymous]

Mother of 5yo kindergartener. We have a few workbooks from Toys R Us and Barnes and Nobles. Workbook exercises include reading, writing, patterns and beginner math.

Would this be considered prepping?

I thought I was teaching my kid how to read, write and do math. I can't even say it is doing math yet. He is coloring corresponding number of objects and connecting lines to correct numbers with items.

[Anonymous]

I don't think "prepping" is the issue. I think it's how you do it and the impact it has on your kid.

We don't do workbooks, but we do prep quite a bit. We play a ton of games, sing a lot of songs and read for meaning - while covering the same items in a workbook.

Yesterday, I handed my child her play shopping card and asked her to fill the cart with items that start with the letter "s". I was surprised at how many items she found - one's I hadn't even considered. Her cart was overflowing, I had moved on to something else, and she was still searching for "S" items.

Then we played a game where I started to write a letter on her blackboard and she had to guess what letter it was before I finished. Then she did the same and I guessed the letter.

I also encourage her to draw and "write" (letter to Grandma, picture of what she did that day, etc). She "signs" (writes) her name on her artwork and writes alphabet letters in her letter to Grandma.

So, we cover the same things as a workbook just in a different way. My daughter loves it and begs for another "game" (lesson).

[Anonymous]

Prepping is sending your kid to Kumon (eg) and only enrolling him in academic camps in the summer. Having do Singapore math at home every night for an hour, practicing an instrument every night for an hour... Having a tutor to help him get ahead and not to address a problem. Picking their instrument and sitting in their private lesson. It is not reading to your child every night, taking him to museums, practicing arithmetic in the car, buying a few workbooks...

[Anonymous]

I think the issue is that most of the AAP tests are IQ tests. IQ tests are invalid if you have taken one in the previous year, so if a kid sees "practice tests" or does a lot of problems of the type used on IQ tests, their results don't reflect IQ, but rather the fact that they are upper middle class.

[Anonymous]

"Prepping" is a direct reference to working with your child on material he or she will encounter on the NNaT or CogAT tests, so as to make sure they get a qualifying score for AAP admittance. It's extremely dishonest and unfair to those kids who were never prepped by their parents, and it's misrepresentative of the child's actual abilities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is sending your kid to Kumon (eg) and only enrolling him in academic camps in the summer. Having do Singapore math at home every night for an hour, practicing an instrument every night for an hour... Having a tutor to help him get ahead and not to address a problem. Picking their instrument and sitting in their private lesson. It is not reading to your child every night, taking him to museums, practicing arithmetic in the car, buying a few workbooks...

All that sounds like trying to give your kids the best education you can. I think on this board preppingng usually means giving your child practice tests for the NNAT or CogAT, or sending them to classes specifically aimed at going over questions like the ones on those tests. I don't consider giving your child private music lessons anywhere near prepping.

[Anonymous]

Prepping is engaging in activities that have no intrinsic value beyond getting a certain score. Taking your kiddo to children's theater in Alexandria, to see the Nutcracker at Christmas, taking music lessons, pottery, building, etc. is not prepping because the kid gets an experience that makes them a more well-rounded person. THe same cannot be said for spending a summer day inside doing workbooks.

Prepped kids end up less interesting and the group as a whole suffers since they contribute less to a classroom environment in terms of ideas, enthusiasm, etc. The little girl who makes up a song is contributing in class in a way that the boy who recites the multiplication tables to impress the teacher, while not being able to tell you which number is larger -- 35 or 42 -- does not. But we all know who will get into the gifted program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is sending your kid to Kumon (eg) and only enrolling him in academic camps in the summer. Having do Singapore math at home every night for an hour, practicing an instrument every night for an hour... Having a tutor to help him get ahead and not to address a problem. Picking their instrument and sitting in their private lesson. It is not reading to your child every night, taking him to museums, practicing arithmetic in the car, buying a few workbooks...

All that sounds like trying to give your kids the best education you can. I think on this board preppingng usually means giving your child practice tests for the NNAT or CogAT, or sending them to classes specifically aimed at going over questions like the ones on those tests. I don't consider giving your child private music lessons anywhere near prepping.

Not just private lesson, but sitting in the lesson every time AND making them practice every day for an hour. It is the magnitude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is engaging in activities that have no intrinsic value beyond getting a certain score. Taking your kiddo to children's theater in Alexandria, to see the Nutcracker at Christmas, taking music lessons, pottery, building, etc. is not prepping because the kid gets an experience that makes them a more well-rounded person. THe same cannot be said for spending a summer day inside doing workbooks.

Prepped kids end up less interesting and the group as a whole suffers since they contribute less to a classroom environment in terms of ideas, enthusiasm, etc. The little girl who makes up a song is contributing in class in a way that the boy who recites the multiplication tables to impress the teacher, while not being able to tell you which number is larger -- 35 or 42 -- does not. But we all know who will get into the gifted program.

Do you really think there are kids who recite multiplication tables but don't know that 42 is larger than 35? Also, the false dichotomy of kids who do extra academic work versus creative thinkers is ridiculous. I don't send my kids to Kumon or academic camps in the summer, but I also don't begrudge those who do, as I don't begrudge those who have their kids in countless hours of travel soccer. Each family makes its own decisions.

[Anonymous]

PP seems to think that anything that she doesn't do is prepping. I do about half of what she mentions, but we don't even live in an area that has AAP. We do it because we value education and my dc likes it.

[Anonymous]

Yes. There are lots of kids in my D's kindergarten who can recite multiplication tables but who have no idea what it means. If your kid does Kumon, there is an activity where they get points for reciting multiplication tables and there is no requirement that the child have any actual understanding of numbers.

In my kid's kindergarten class, on the free writing exercise on Mondays, there are kids whose parents have taught them three specific sentences and who have spent the weekend practicing those sentences. It defeats the point of the exercise which is for kids to sound out words and try to write them down, to struggle a bit, etc.

The problem is with parents who don't agree with the philosophy and pedagogical goals of certain exercises. Their kids do ruin it for everyone else. A lot of exercises in elementary school are based on the constructivist educational philosophy which emphasizes that kids learn concepts through applying them, working with them, struggling with them a bit. When parents pre-teach the material, have kids practice it over the weekend, etc. then that environment in which everyone is experimenting and working with the material is changed.
I can't imagine how challenging it would be to be a teacher in that kind of classroom environment. It would throw off the timing of everything you had planned for the classroom for that day, would throw off the group dynamics, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. There are lots of kids in my D's kindergarten who can recite multiplication tables but who have no idea what it means. If your kid does Kumon, there is an activity where they get points for reciting multiplication tables and there is no requirement that the child have any actual understanding of numbers.

In my kid's kindergarten class, on the free writing exercise on Mondays, there are kids whose parents have taught them three specific sentences and who have spent the weekend practicing those sentences. It defeats the point of the exercise which is for kids to sound out words and try to write them down, to struggle a bit, etc.

The problem is with parents who don't agree with the philosophy and pedagogical goals of certain exercises. Their kids do ruin it for everyone else. A lot of exercises in elementary school are based on the constructivist educational philosophy which emphasizes that kids learn concepts through applying them, working with them, struggling with them a bit. When parents pre-teach the material, have kids practice it over the weekend, etc. then that environment in which everyone is experimenting and working with the material is changed.
I can't imagine how challenging it would be to be a teacher in that kind of classroom environment. It would throw off the timing of everything you had planned for the classroom for that day, would throw off the group dynamics, etc.

Yes, there has to be differentiation. I'm betting that it is a very rare instance where the kid lacks the underlying knowledge. It sounds like the other kids are just more advanced than yours.

[Anonymous]

I think the issue comes to what is trying to be accomplished. Preparing a child to excel in a specific benchmark is at best dishonest. When we talk about prepping, it is usually action whose primary purpose is to improve the scores in the CogAT/NNAT so that the child has a better chance at AAP.

That differs from enrichment activities which may boost scores, but by improving the overall child. Playing with legos, doing puzzles have use beyond the CogAT. But, CogAT study guides don't.

In computers, a common benchmark for computer systems is something called "geek bench". Some manufactures (Samsung) have designed systems to get specifically good scores on "geekbench" in manners that do not enhance overall system performance. For example, if the Geekbench is running, run at a higher cpu speed (decreasing battery life), or worse, hard coding the the deep bench metrics so it just reports better numbers.

That is akin to prepping. It means that the evaluation is useless. With a prepped kid, the CogAT has no value.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is engaging in activities that have no intrinsic value beyond getting a certain score. Taking your kiddo to children's theater in Alexandria, to see the Nutcracker at Christmas, taking music lessons, pottery, building, etc. is not prepping because the kid gets an experience that makes them a more well-rounded person. THe same cannot be said for spending a summer day inside doing workbooks.

Prepped kids end up less interesting and the group as a whole suffers since they contribute less to a classroom environment in terms of ideas, enthusiasm, etc. The little girl who makes up a song is contributing in class in a way that the boy who recites the multiplication tables to impress the teacher, while not being able to tell you which number is larger -- 35 or 42 -- does not. But we all know who will get into the gifted program.

Surely not the kid who did not know whether 35 or 42 is the bigger number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prepping is sending your kid to Kumon (eg) and only enrolling him in academic camps in the summer. Having do Singapore math at home every night for an hour, practicing an instrument every night for an hour... Having a tutor to help him get ahead and not to address a problem. Picking their instrument and sitting in their private lesson. It is not reading to your child every night, taking him to museums, practicing arithmetic in the car, buying a few workbooks...

All that sounds like trying to give your kids the best education you can. I think on this board preppingng usually means giving your child practice tests for the NNAT or CogAT, or sending them to classes specifically aimed at going over questions like the ones on those tests. I don't consider giving your child private music lessons anywhere near prepping.

Not just private lesson, but sitting in the lesson every time AND making them practice every day for an hour. It is the magnitude.

This may be tiger parenting but it is not prepping.

I don't even consider Kumon or tutor to be prepping. They are still learning something.

I agree with the pps who said going over strategies or materials specifically for those entrance tests constitutes prepping.