Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.

I have known families who were required to have their child repeat kindergarten when switching from public school to Catholic school because the kids were already lagging behind.

What kind of sh!tty school makes kids repeat KINDERGARTEN due to “lagging behind”? That says more about the receiving school than the original school.

You cannot come to a valid conclusion by comparing two kids. Come on.

My now-4th grader who went to a top independent school needed quite a bit of reading interventions to only now be a fluent reader. In contrast my middle child taught himself to read as a “old” three year old/“young” four year old. Kids are all different. The question is what schools do to catch up those who are struggling. Luckily most public schools in this area so a good job with that.

How do you know your child wouldn’t have progressed during this same period in public school?

My kids went to public for elementary and then switched to private. They got a fine education at their local public school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.

I have known families who were required to have their child repeat kindergarten when switching from public school to Catholic school because the kids were already lagging behind.

I’d be wary of a school that can’t get a kindie kid caught up in first grade.

Anonymous wrote:Clearly OP missed that class in school called “critical reasoning.”

Maybe she went to public school. /s

Clearly OP missed that class in school called “critical reasoning.”

This is such an odd post.

I have two kids in public who are ridiculously advanced in reading, far more advanced than the one private school kid I know (goes to Potomac). And you know what I can conclude about the quality of public v. private from that? Nothing. Also I did not teach them to read or provide help reading at home. DH reads to DS every night but DD doesn't like to be read to and we didn't push it.

I am convinced that private school generally offers a much better education, but that's based on a broad perspective, not a comparison of one kid to another. Also, why did you post this? Are you encouraging others to move to private or to feel good in their decision to go private? Just post an article about post-pandemic test scores or something.

Anonymous wrote:My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.

I have known families who were required to have their child repeat kindergarten when switching from public school to Catholic school because the kids were already lagging behind.

MCPS hasn't taught phonics in over a decade....maybe more. They are just now trying to return to that method once they realized what a grave mistake it was. Luckily, I thought my kid phonics myself before I enrolled him.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can’t really use 2 kids to draw any broad conclusions, OP. Neurotypical, intelligent kids can acquire reading skills at different ages. Not to mention issues like dyslexia are not correlated with intelligence. As well, both private and public schools can have good or bad teachers. In short, your post is pretty ridiculous (I say this as a parent sending my kids to private school, so I’m not against private schools).

Agreed. You need a bit more experience with kindergarten-age children to understand the wide range of normal.

That is, OP needs more experience.

Anonymous wrote:You can’t really use 2 kids to draw any broad conclusions, OP. Neurotypical, intelligent kids can acquire reading skills at different ages. Not to mention issues like dyslexia are not correlated with intelligence. As well, both private and public schools can have good or bad teachers. In short, your post is pretty ridiculous (I say this as a parent sending my kids to private school, so I’m not against private schools).

Agreed. You need a bit more experience with kindergarten-age children to understand the wide range of normal.

You can’t really use 2 kids to draw any broad conclusions, OP. Neurotypical, intelligent kids can acquire reading skills at different ages. Not to mention issues like dyslexia are not correlated with intelligence. As well, both private and public schools can have good or bad teachers. In short, your post is pretty ridiculous (I say this as a parent sending my kids to private school, so I’m not against private schools).

Meh. My kid's public school used a phonics-based approach as well.

My child in private K went in knowing her ABCs and a handful of sight words and that’s it. She is now sounding out words well with a phonics-based approach and reading fairly well. My neighbor’s kid in public K who comes over a lot had about the same level of preparedness is not able to sound out words and kind of guesses. This child is not SN or anything, it’s quite possible they are naturally more intelligent than my child, but they are simply not being taught the right techniques.

I think many of the people who are happy with public are either putting in a lot of effort themselves at home or else sending to Kumon.