Reply to did you feel like you had to teach your child to read and write?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been parenting under the philosophy that at home I want learning to be fun. For example, we play rhyming games, do art projects, play board games, and read a ton, but I don't push on writing letters the correct way or push sounding out words to read every night (though some nights we do). I've been operating under the assumption that I could leave the more academic feel of learning to the school and at home teach through play.

After our kindergarten parent/teacher conference last night, I'm questioning this. My son was solidly in the the middle of the beginning and ending kindergarten reading benchmarks, but the teacher, instead of being positive about this, made it seem like we have a lot of work to do at home to get him to the end result. She asked us to work on holding the pencil correctly all the time, writing letters in the correct manner, doing flashcards for sight words, etc.

I get the importance of reinforcing teaching at home and I want to do it, but I felt like she wasn't suggesting working these things in to life, but rather doing a lot of drilling. I feel like if I got my kid to kindergarten already half way to the end of the year benchmark, what we're doing at home is working and adding in boring drills should not be necessary.

I guess with 28 kids in a class, it's going to be hard for the teacher to really teach kids at this age anything, but if I wanted to take on the responsibility of being my son's teacher, I need some training!

Is this the reality of school in FFX county, does my son have a teacher that is outside the norm, or are my expectations out of whack? I think I need a reality check! [/quote]

Welcome to FCPS.  I had the same problem.  I don't know what is wrong with FCPS Kinder teachers right now.  In the past, once a child hit the grade level benchmark, that was it.  And most middle class kids without disabilities did, without too much effort on anyone's part.  But the benchmark was put at what was cognitively appropriate for a child that age.  Now suddenly FCPS kinder teachers want everyone to be above that mark, but it isn't appropriate for many children, especially boys.  It's really bad for them to pressure them to do work their brains aren't ready for - it leads to a hatred of reading, anxiety, a dislike of school, and low self-esteem as a student.  The benchmark itself hasn't been raised, so I don't know why these teachers think it is OK to push the kids harder and encourage parents to push harder.  I stupidly did it, and my child hates school and hates reading now.  We used to read books together all the time - I remember how he used to sit on my lap and loved when I read to him.  But half way through kindergarten he wouldn't read with me, stopped writing me "stories," stopped anything to do with reading and writing near me because I was trying to teach him (and I am, actually, a former Kinder teacher who knows how to teach reading.  It's been a  year now, and he still won't even let me read him a bedtime story.

Don't listen to the teacher.  Be strong and preserve your child's love of learning.  [/quote]

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