Reply to What is the most elite NYC preschool?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sure, but in NYC (play based, or child-led, or reggio) preschools, kids are not being taught to read. And they are definitely not being taught to count to 100. Could they be? Absolutely. But the preschools are banking on the children learning these skills in kindergarten. Which is why skipping kindergarten when you don’t get into private school and instead sending a kid to public 1st grade creates the panic.[/quote]

Sorry, but is that consistently the case? I just looked at Episcopal's website - cited earlier in this thread as the TT of all TT preschools - and there's a whole section about library and love of reading and children choosing their own books to read and so on. Wouldn't a kid who's reasonably in the running for a TT/2T private K slot be expected to be demonstrating these sorts of skills at playgroup? (heck, wouldn't they be intellectually curious enough that they'd have picked up reading at home by then after being read to every day?)

It seems like there's a nice business opportunity for somebody in offering a low-ratio, open-admissions 'catch-up' private K program which takes in kids in this situation and runs them through the public-school K+1 curricula in one year so they can join a public school in 2nd.[/quote]

Cultivate a love of reading? Absolutely. Introduce the alphabet and work on letter recognition for kindergarten assessments? Yes. Be able to identify and write their name? Yes. Teach children CVC words or phonics or sight words? Not really at most of these preschools.

Do some kids just naturally pick it up or have parents do it at home or hire tutors or send kids to Little Learning or Book Wise? Yes and they keep that very close to the vest. Do you need to know how to read or count to 100 to get into a top kindergarten? Absolutely not.

Every school we applied to seemed to look for different metrics on play dates and all structure their assessments differently (one on one, small group, large group, FL testing or not)— some seemed IQ based, some skill, some behavior and personality, some are interested in the parents, some are looking for it all.

At our TT some came in reading Harry Potter, some came in with basic phonetic awareness. And guess what? By third grade it had all evened out because the kids (by and large) are incredibly bright.

Your business model is not a bad idea at all, but I think many turn to tutoring.[/quote]

100% agree with this. Signed by a parent of kid who went to a play Baez preschool and is now a few years in to TT K-12. My child could not read at all going into K FWIW, but quickly picked it up. [/quote]

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