Screentime at School in Kindergarten

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love Obama but this is the worst part of his legacy. The idea that technology strengthens the school experience. Even if 10% of the time it is useful, what a huge loss overall. So many missed interpersonal connections, so many missed *neural* connections when paper, pencil and hand are pushed to the side. So much habituation to instant gratification. We are creating a generation of screen addicts with poor eyesight and no patience.

To those of you advocating for a readaloud on screen, do you not get what’s missing? The physical closeness of the teacher surrounded by a semicircle of kids. Getting to know and love your teacher’s reading voice. Kids jockeying to see better, strengthening their negotiating and self advocacy skills—and their eyesight. The reverence for a tangible product rather than a screen. Teacher slowing down to answer questions with no glitches or blue light. Also, kids benefit from repeating the same books and daily chapters from a long book.

Well said.

Especially in the younger grades. Kids in K and 1st grade would be happy to play games or do puzzles or color or play with LEGOs during indoor recess. But it’s easier and quieter to throw on a video, so that’s what happens.

Recess is run by paraeducators and when there's a gigantic pair of shortage you end up with one person with three classes of kids and there's just no room in a classroom for everyone to be doing Legos and coloring pages. And of course a less experienced more stressed out educators probably more likely to rely on technology to babysit the kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

You don't even need any kind of special certification to be a recess aid

[Anonymous]

I love that they're starting in K with digital literacy. Screen time is essential for building the skills of tomorrow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love that they're starting in K with digital literacy. Screen time is essential for building the skills of tomorrow.

nobody born after 2000 will have a problem with digital literacy. No additional exposure is needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling bullsh@! on you being a teacher OP. If you were, you’d know that children are not the most reliable narrators. You’d also know how to go about getting a better sense from the teacher themselves.
All that said, I see teachers relying on videos for read alouds more frequently now than a few years ago. I think part of it is due to resources they developed during virtual instruction and hard copies of books not being available (in classroom/school library) so it’s easier to find a video then look for an alternative title that fits their need.
Again, if you were a classroom teacher I think you’d understand this.
—elementary teacher

This seems like a ridiculous reason/excuse to not read to the kids.

+1. Schools won't buy teacher's books for read-alouds? GTFO. Let a parent know. Those books will find their way into a classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

+1. My first grader is definitely getting both experiences. She crowds around the teacher to read a printed book and she sees the words big and clear on the screen. She's personally more excited for the screens, but she also gets hours reading from physical books at home every week. There are some benefits to occasionally using the screen, it's not evil, but physical books are great too. Personally, I'm very happy with this balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

And you refuse to acknowledge that screens are used more than .1 percent of the time. So, you’re not really part of the discussion at all, you are ranting on the sideline. Keep in mind that screens show up other places than read aloud, such as indoor recess, as has been discussed here. Everyone else is having a conversation about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that they're starting in K with digital literacy. Screen time is essential for building the skills of tomorrow.

nobody born after 2000 will have a problem with digital literacy. No additional exposure is needed.

Just want to point out that kids are extremely good at using computers for entertainment but most of them do not know how to use computers as learning tools which is why you need to explicitly teach typing and how to use different software.

[Anonymous]

I don't believe there's anything in the mcps curriculum about digital literacy I think that coding has kind of fallen by the wayside a bit.

Schools are required to teach digital citizenship ship, you can see the lessons plans besides things like safety and taking breaks from screen time

https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/curriculum?grades=k%2C1%2C2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love that they're starting in K with digital literacy. Screen time is essential for building the skills of tomorrow.

nobody born after 2000 will have a problem with digital literacy. No additional exposure is needed.

Just want to point out that kids are extremely good at using computers for entertainment but most of them do not know how to use computers as learning tools which is why you need to explicitly teach typing and how to use different software.

MCPS does not teach typing. We taught our kids over the summer using an online course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looks like we got a lot of kindergarten experts here! Maybe you should apply to MCPS because you're so knowledgeable!

Believe it or not, many parents are also informed about children and their needs! We watch them the other 70 percent of the time.

Lol, I'm not a teacher, I'm a parent and I can definitely tell you most of the parents in this county rely on the schools to raise their children. Maybe try reading to your kids yourself. I know...you'd actually have to do your job as a parent-I know, it's a crazy idea!

So we should accept bad school policies because we are all bad parents and deserve bad things, got it.

Of course parents can and should read to their children, but that doesn’t magically fix the school environment.

You all sound like insane maniacs. You’re losing your minds because once in awhile a YouTube video is played of a read aloud while meanwhile the kids are being read aloud to on a daily basis from their teacher. Like…. You refuse to accept it can happen both ways. (Not even both ways bc 99.9 percent of the time students are read aloud to in person and the tiny, remaining percentage is on YouTube. Once every 3 months) unhinged. It’s unreal, honestly. If I WAS a teacher, I would have left MCPS a loooong time ago because of parents like this. Most other districts have sane parents.

And you sound like a dishonest liar. 99.9% of the time? Not a chance.

My early ES is on the Chromebook about 40% of the time. They have even gotten away from math manipulative and just do Math simulations online. There is no way the screen is a good substitute for hands-on learning. Especially in early ES.

Like the PP says, add in indoor recess screens, plus the enormous time wasted on Abcya.com and other sites, it really really adds up to a lot of useless screen time.

[Anonymous]

Hey OP, and everyone else who thinks they are better able to make instructional decisions for a class of 25 5 year olds…MCPS is hiring! I’ll wait…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Calling bullsh@! on you being a teacher OP. If you were, you’d know that children are not the most reliable narrators. You’d also know how to go about getting a better sense from the teacher themselves.
All that said, I see teachers relying on videos for read alouds more frequently now than a few years ago. I think part of it is due to resources they developed during virtual instruction and hard copies of books not being available (in classroom/school library) so it’s easier to find a video then look for an alternative title that fits their need.
Again, if you were a classroom teacher I think you’d understand this.
—elementary teacher

This seems like a ridiculous reason/excuse to not read to the kids.

+1. Schools won't buy teacher's books for read-alouds? GTFO. Let a parent know. Those books will find their way into a classroom.

Not in a Title 1 school. Barely half of my students bring in school supplies. No parent is buying books for my class. Most of the kids don’t have books at home.