I'm the special ed kindergarten teacher from the other thread. The one who pretty strongly supports Common Core. I'm glad to see someone posting specific standards, although I'll also say that I still haven't seen a

I would absolutely support a return to play based developmental kindergarten, where the focus is on communication and social skills, and read alouds and finger paints, and kids dive into reading and writing in first grade. My first grade teacher stayed friends with my family for years. I once had the opportunity to ask her about Kindergarten when she first started teaching in the 50's. She told me that in those days Kindergarten teachers took a completely different track at college. They didn't have any classes related to reading, because it wasn't considered a Kindergarten subject. Kids might have learned to write the upper case letters of their first name, but if your name was Ed that meant you still had 24 upper case and 26 lower case letters to learn in first grade.

But that ship sailed years ago. The notion that Kindergarten is first grade with lower tables, is pretty firmly entrenched in this country, and has been long before Common Core. My own kids are in high school, but reading groups, and worksheets, and assessments, were definitely the norm when they started K. 11 years ago, when I sent my oldest kid to Kindergarten, MCPS was shifting to full day K with 1 20 minute recess, a shift that was completed county wide long before Common Core came in. 8 years ago, when I moved into an inclusive setting in DC, the reading goal for then end of Kindergarten had just changed from C to D, the same goal that most schools are using under CCSS.

So, honestly, if I'm going to measure the worth of Common Core, I feel like I need to compare it to what came immediately before it. I feel like the only fair way to evaluate the Common Core standards is to say, if we're going to have an academic curriculum for K, which set of standards is better to guide it. CCSS, or what came before them?

When I look at it from that perspective, I think the CCSS are better than the standards that came before them in many states, including MD and DC. Here are some of the things that I like:

English/Language Arts

1) I like the focus on oral language, and specifically on talking about books, and making meaning from them. I think that this sets kids up for success down the road when the make the shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn". For kids who haven't rich language experiences before coming to school, these experiences are particularly important.

2) I like the emphasis on balancing informational and literary text. I think that kids deserve access to science and social studies content.

3) I like the fact that the new standards call for a blend of phonics and sight words, rather than focusing narrowly on one or the other.

Math

1) I like the emphasis on computations within 5 and within 10. I think this is something that 5 year olds can wrap their mind around, and that working with very small numbers makes them more concrete.

2) I like the emphasis on place value with numbers between 10 and 20. Place value, in my experience, is absolutely key for understanding math in the later grades, and I'm glad it's getting the attention it deserves. At the same time, I like that they focus on numbers under 20 which kids are able to manipulate and understand.

3) I like the fact that a number of skills that I'd consider "rote" or developmentally inappropriate, like coin ID, and telling time to the hour, and working with equations, have been taken out and moved to higher grades.

Again, if you want to start a national movement to turn K back into a play based experience, I'd join in. But that's not a fight about Common Core. Until that battle is fought and won, I'd rather teach Kindergarteners the Common Core than what came immediately before it.

Anonymous wrote:Building vocabulary through reading would only kick in much, much later--after a child is reading fluently. I would suggest not until fourth or fifth grade. Even then, the spoken development of vocabulary is much more influential on its development.

What???? Even prior to K, when I was growing up, we were learning both reading and vocabulary through things like the Richard Scarry books - learning words associated with different professions, about different kinds of vehicles, construction equipment, wild animals and farm animals et cetera. This kind of thing, with thematic picture books, along with phonics-based approaches to learning how to connect spoken and written word, is how tens of millions of kids have for decades built up vocabulary and reading skills. By 4th grade the only issue DC had was in trying to figure out not the reading or understanding, but the right way to pronounce words that were foreign words, or words not in common usage and vernacular, like technical/scientific terms or the name of an ancient Persian dynasty he read about in a DK Eyewitness or Kingfisher book.

Seems to me you're taking a much sloooooower track with far lower expectations of what kids are actually capable of.

^^^expectation, not especation!

For what it's worth, here are the kindergarten standards that Maryland had before adopting the Common Core standards:

http://mdk12.org/assessments/vsc/reading/bygrade/gradeK.html

At first glance, the expectation of these standards seem quite similar to the Common Core standards' especation to me -- namely that students in kindergarten will begin to learn to read.

So if that wrecks kindergarten, then kindergarten in Maryland was already wrecked before the Common Core standards.

Somebody should look at Virginia's Standards of Learning, for comparison.

Anonymous wrote:PP- So you don't think the facts prove that the majority of students in U.S. public schools qualify for free lunch?

I think that the PP you're responding to is probably referring to the OP's post about the Common Core standards supposedly wrecking kindergarten.

Anonymous wrote:PP- So you don't think the facts prove that the majority of students in U.S. public schools qualify for free lunch?

pp here. I Was responding to OP report about common core and kindergarten, not the poverty report. Sorry for the confusion.

PP- So you don't think the facts prove that the majority of students in U.S. public schools qualify for free lunch?

The source of the report is a group that set out to prove their agenda. Of course the report says what it says. Shame on the Washington Post for regurgitating it uncritically.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our educational standards should not be targeted at just ESOL and low SES students. We have to make sure their needs are addressed, but there are a lot of children in the US who aren't in either of those categories and they shouldn't be held back.

But when the majority of students are poor, something needs to change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

Yes, when the majority of students are poor, what needs to change is our approach to child poverty.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our educational standards should not be targeted at just ESOL and low SES students. We have to make sure their needs are addressed, but there are a lot of children in the US who aren't in either of those categories and they shouldn't be held back.

But when the majority of students are poor, something needs to change.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

Poverty is an issue, but not impossible to over come. A lot of poor immigrant kids are able to overcome the poverty issue, myself included. It starts at home. But this is not something a school district can control. However, dumbing down a curriculum will only hurt this country in the long run.

Anonymous wrote:Our educational standards should not be targeted at just ESOL and low SES students. We have to make sure their needs are addressed, but there are a lot of children in the US who aren't in either of those categories and they shouldn't be held back.

But when the majority of students are poor, something needs to change.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^^^
clearly you do not know how to google:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.AGES

Please show me where they teach before 6

All that tells us is when kids move into primary schools. There are countries such as France, where kids begin reading instruction in the maternelle, before moving to primary school, and there may well be countries who don't teach reading during the first year of primary. So a list of starting ages for primary can't be used as a proxy for a list of starting ages for reading instruction.

I know for a fact that kids start reading instruction before six in the following countries

Canada
US
UK
Australia
New Zealand

+1 Even here in the US, a lot of PreK programs teach kids how to read. My DC went to a prek that taught them how to read. Maybe in some of those countries their PreK programs do the same. And in a lot of EU countries, PreK programs are free, too, not like the $700 I shelled out per month for a PT preK program here.

Building vocabulary through reading would only kick in much, much later--after a child is reading fluently. I would suggest not until fourth or fifth grade. Even then, the spoken development of vocabulary is much more influential on its development.

Phonics and decoding are somewhat of a prerequisite to vocabulary building

What? I strongly disagree. Vocabulary is knowing the meaning of words. I would also suggest that it includes being able to use the words correctly. Nothing to do with decoding.

Our educational standards should not be targeted at just ESOL and low SES students. We have to make sure their needs are addressed, but there are a lot of children in the US who aren't in either of those categories and they shouldn't be held back.

If they are ready, they will learn early. Some are just not ready--and I am not talking about low SES.