is early entrance to kindergarten a good idea? April 7, 2011

I have written about this topic before, but thought I would address it again, this time not just as a teacher, but as the mother of a child who skipped a grade.  (Keep in mind that going to kindergarten early is a grade skip.)

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My husband is sad about our oldest child leaving for college.  Never mind the fact that our son will only be starting high school in September, and his departure is four years away; my husband is sad.  (I am fine, so far.  Talk to me in four years.  When I think about it, however, I think it will be when my baby leaves for college that I will fall apart.  At present, my baby is ten years old, so my breakdown is a ways off.)

“I really wish we had thought about this more carefully when we let him skip first grade,” my husband says, with a tinge of anguish and regret in his voice.

“I’m pretty sure we did the right thing,” I reply.  ”He was miserable in kindergarten.  He moved to second grade and then he was happy, and he has been appropriately challenged ever since.  If he had stayed in his grade, he would have been bored and unhappy.”

“Do you mean to say that the school wouldn’t have been able to challenge him at his level?”

“Well, yes.  It’s much easier for them to let a kid take a class a year ahead, rather than two.  He has been taking 9th grade math as an 8th grader, when really he is supposed to only be in 7th.”

“I don’t know that you’re right,” my husband says.  ”I just wish we had more time with him.”

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Our older son is probably gifted.  I knew back when he was two that I should start thinking about early entrance to kindergarten.  When he was two, he knew all the basic shapes and was working on figuring out the difference between an octagon and a hectagon.  He knew all the letters of the alphabet, capital and lowercase, in any order, and could name the numbers from 0-31 in any order.  He was also very articulate, with a huge vocabulary.  By the time he was three, he knew all the letter sounds, and he could read at four.  Before kindergarten he was reading the Magic Treehouse books, and devouring them one by one, in about 45 minutes each.

He has a September birthday, and would miss the cutoff of being five by September 1 by a few weeks.  I started to agonize over whether or not I should try to get him into kindergarten early.  I went to school fairs, I talked to teachers and principals, I read things online….and got a lot of mixed messages.  The reflexive response of the teachers and principals was to say NO.  They all thought that early entrance to kindergarten was a bad idea.  I know (especially now, with years of experience under my belt) that there are tons of parents out there who think their kid is really smart or even gifted, and should go to K early, and a lot of them are wrong.  What irritated me no end was that none of the school personnel I talked to would even admit the possible existence of actually gifted preschoolers who really were ready for K.

Hoagie’s Gifted and other websites, on the other hand, do support grade-skipping and early entrance when it is warranted.  You can read what Hoagie’s has to say here.  I finally decided to wait.  He was in a wonderful Montessori preschool with an incredible teacher who was able to keep him challenged.  He stayed, and did the kindergarten curriculum with the kindergartners in his class.

When he started actual kindergarten, the teacher didn’t know what to do with him.  She’d never had a student like him before.  It was a rough year.  The next fall, in a 1st and 2nd grade combined classroom, the teachers said to my seven year old at our parent teacher conference, “would you like to be a 2nd grader?”  That was it; they never even talked to me about it!  But, lucky for them, I was relieved.  My son also thought it was a great idea, so that day in October he became a 2nd grader, after one month of 1st grade.  I have always been happy that it was the school that skipped him, rather than pressure from me before kindergarten, which would always have made me wonder if I’d done the right thing.

It has gone well ever since.  There was, however, a time in 3rd grade when he kept getting sent to the principal’s office for fighting at recess, which was quite unlike him.  I finally realized it was directly related to his grade skip.  He was a 8 year old 3rd grader, in a class with both 3rd and 4th grade, with some 4th grade boys who were 10 (their parents had held them back).  The 9, 10 and 11 year olds were more mature, and could handle squabbles or unfair behavior on the playground, but my 8 year old just couldn’t.  Lucky for us, that was really the only time that his social immaturity was an issue.

Now he is heading off to high school, where he will be taking mostly honors and AP classes, and he is both excited and ready.

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So here are some things to keep in mind if you are thinking about putting your child into kindergarten a year early.

• You will get one less year with your sweet child at home with you.
• Early entrance to kindergarten is best for gifted kids, not the average smart kid.
• If you wait, you can see if the school will challenge your child, and if not, you can always request a grade skip.  (I know, some schools are better about this than others.)
• Social immaturity may raise its ugly head at different times after a grade skip.  For some kids, it is a recurring problem.  Your child must be mature and socially skillful in addition to being ahead academically.  You might still have problems.
• Your child will be with older children (or teenagers) and will be exposed to certain things (swear words, peer pressure, etc.) a year earlier than kids who stay with their grade, all through his/her education.

I hope this has been helpful to those parents out there who are grappling with this issue now.

enlightened selfishness (how I stay sane) March 7, 2011

Enlightened selfishness is one of the philosophies that keeps my life ticking along.  It is the art of being able to think of your own needs even while meeting the needs of others.  It works for me as a woman, a wife, a mother, and a teacher.

As a woman, I’m the sort of person who, when we go to a Chinese restaurant with a group of friends, will help coordinate the placing of orders so that everyone gets a dish they like.  Only my husband will notice, with a knowing smile, that somehow all of the dishes that arrive are ones that I like.   As a wife, I don’t want to do all the work at home and end up feeling resentful of my husband, so I don’t. ( It helps that I chose wisely; my husband is the sort of man who does as much around the house and with the kids as I do.)  If I need a break, I will take it.  If I need sleep, I will figure out a way to get some.  If I am so hungry I feel like I am going to faint, I will feed myself first, and then make lunch for the kids.

As a parent, I am a follower of The Three Martini Playdate, by Christie Mellors, rather than a fan of Dr. Sears.  I try to emulate Lenore Skenazy (the Free Range parent) rather than Mayim Bialik, attachment parenting mother extraordinaire.  (Please note that I have no criticism of Dr. Sears or Ms. Bialik.  I think they are probably great parents, and respect their right to parent they way they feel works best.  I just don’t particularly want to do everything they do.)  I love my children very much, but I do not put their needs above mine 24/7.  Perhaps as a result, my children are independent, resourceful, and confident.

Enlightened selfishness helps me as a teacher, as well.  I do not confuse what the children want with what they need.  And I keep what I need to be a good, happy, successful teacher at the forefront of my mind.

If I am trying to read a story and one of my four year olds wanders off to play in the house corner, I do not think to myself, “oh, poor kid, he’s not ready to sit and listen to a story yet, so I will just let him do what he wants to do.”  Instead, I think of what will happen if I let him do what he wants (house corner will be a mess, he will be disruptive and other children will be watching him instead of listening to the story, other children will think, “hey, I don’t have to follow routines, I can just do whatever I want whenever I want,” and cause disruptions regularly in the future, the child will not get practice sitting down and listening to a story, etc.) and I firmly but gently insist that the child sit down and join us for story time.

It’s better for me as a teacher if the children learn how to sit and listen, but it’s also good for them.  I hold them to a high standard of behavior (not to mention a high standard for achievement), I teach them step by step how to achieve that standard, and I build in strong, familiar routines that make reaching that standard easy for the whole class.  A few months into the year, rather than have story time be a disruptive, difficult and disjointed part of the day, my class will be sitting with me, listening carefully, and discussing books thoughtfully.  My job is easier, yes, but their learning is intensified.

How about you?  Does enlightened selfishness play a part in your day as a teacher or a parent?

the truth about parenting July 9, 2010

This article in New York magazine is absolutely fascinating.

It does a nice job of balancing the reality of parenting, the dark side of taking care of children, and the recent studies that have found parents to be less happy than non-parents with the importance of connection and purpose and the meaningful relationships we have with our children.

But yeah — and I say this as a loving mother who thinks her children are wonderful — I remember lots of times when being a mother has sucked.

summer blues, part one July 6, 2010

If you teach in an affluent community — or at least, a stable, middle-class one — then as the summer approaches, your students probably behave in predictable ways.  They get restless, they start to slack off, they become lively and happy and loud, and they cheer when you tell them how many days are left until summer.  This is how you and I behaved when we were children, isn’t it?

If you teach in a school that serves a low-income population, you discover a different phenomenon.  Here some students start to become tense and worried.  Their behavior takes a nosedive, and they seem angry all the time.  They do not look forward to summer with light hearts.  These children dread the start of summer.

Wouldn’t you, if the end of the school year meant the end of stability and consistency in your life?  What about if it meant the end of regular meals?  Would you look forward to summer if it meant that you wouldn’t get fed breakfast and lunch in any kind of reliable way?

This phenomenon is true of preschoolers as well as the older kids.  In my class, almost everyone had a stable homelife, and the majority had two parents at home (unusual for their demographic group, and perhaps one of the reasons they were such lovely, smart, kind children).  My problem child, however, was looking at a summer spent at home with a depressed single mother with not enough money and too many kids (not to mention a baby grandchild, born to a teenage sister of my student).  This child’s behavior, while slowly deteriorating through the spring, completely fell apart at the end of the year.

It was frustrating, but it was also painful to watch.  Miss Slinger and I knew what this child’s summer would be like.  The child knew it, too.  Hence the sadness and rage on display almost daily at the end.

Sometimes, you wish you could take a child home with you.

Who needs preschool? July 14, 2008

Does your child need to go to preschool before kindergarten?  Does every child need to go?  What do kids need to learn before kindergarten, anyway?

I think preschool is great, but it isn’t necessary for everyone.  If you are raising your child at home, and you’re reading to her, talking to her, playing with her, taking her interesting places, counting with her, doing art with her, and getting her together with other children regularly, then your child is probably fine skipping preschool and going straight to kindergarten when she’s five.

Here are some skills that will help your child be successful in K:

• speak in sentences
• recognize name
• write name (at least a few letters)
• count to 30 without mistakes
• count 10 objects accurately
• identify basic colors and shapes
• recognize at least 10 letters of the alphabet
• know at least 4 letter sounds
• draw a recognizable picture of something
• listen to a story attentively
• follow two-step directions
• know how to solve problems (he took my crayon, I forgot my lunch box, I can’t find my cubby, etc)
• be able to play cooperatively with other children

A child can get those things at home, or she can get them at preschool.  It depends on the parents and what they are able to give.  So if you’re a stay-at-home mom and you don’t want to send your child to preschool, then don’t.

If you’re a work-outside-the-home mom and your child goes to daycare, no worries.  As long as you’ve chosen a high-quality daycare center, your child will do very well.  My sons went to a wonderful Montessori daycare center, and they arrived at kindergarten way ahead academically.  Your child will pick up what she needs in the preschool room, and will be ready for K emotionally, socially, and academically.

As for universal preschool, I do think we need it.  Not to make all children go, but to provide it to the children who need it most, who otherwise will arrive at kindergarten already far, far behind.  Preschool is critical for those children. 

Some of them are my students, and it feels like an honor to be their teacher.

Talking to small children July 8, 2008

I am back from a long vacation, the first part of which was spent at the beach with my husband’s family, and the second part of which was in a big city with my sister and her family. 

I had the opportunity first to observe my sister-in-law talking with my one-year-old niece, and then later my sister talking with my one-year-old nephew, and it occurred to me again how lucky most middle- and upper-middle class children are, to be born into families where their parents just naturally talk to them. 

My niece doesn’t have a lot of words yet, but she is very expressive, and can usually make known her wishes and dislikes and feelings.  Her parents talk to her all day long, and they listen to her, too.  She hears a ton of vocabulary, and because she is treated as a person who can understand, eventually, she does understand.  Her older sister was counting to twenty accurately in both English and Spanish before she turned three, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the little one turns out to be just as smart.

My nephew is a few months older, and has more words, although this past weekend I had a conversation with him that mostly consisted of him pointing at various things and saying “eee, eee, eee” in many different intonations.  He clearly knew what he was talking about, even if I didn’t, and I enjoyed his confidence in communication.  One night at dinner he didn’t want to eat, so my sister and brother-in-law told him, “no dinner, no dessert.”  They had a little parental discussion about whether or not he understood this concept, and decided that while he understood many other “if, then” scenarios, he hadn’t figured out this one.  But they decided to stick to it anyway, since he will eventually understand this rule through experience. 

My younger son took it on himself to teach his little cousin new words, and succeeded.  He taught him silly words (“boopdee”) and useful words (“cookie”), and my nephew probably ended up adding 6 words to his vocabulary over the weekend.  He even said “airplane” for the first time (“eee-peen!”).

I kept thinking about my darling O., from this past year’s class, who arrived in November at the age of four with an almost shocking delay in his speaking ability.  He’s got a mother who loves him very much, and who is very attentive, positive, and caring in her interactions with him.  However, she is living in poverty (when he started in my class, he was being bused from the homeless shelter), she has two other little ones at home, and she has a whole family of older children who live in Chicago.  I would wager a guess that she did not grow up with college-educated parents, and that no one talked to her a whole lot when she was little, so she doesn’t talk a whole lot with O. and his siblings.

O. learned a lot of vocabulary and conversational skills over the year, but to me it never felt like enough.  I keep thinking about the Meaningful Differences study (which I wrote about here), and how vast the vocabulary gap is between children who grow up in poverty, and children who grow up in either working-class or professional families.

The question is, how do we get the word out to the parents in poverty, about how to talk to their children in the first five years of their lives?

What parents do May 30, 2008

I mentioned M. once before — it was her birthday and I forgot to check the calendar, and missed it.  And she is so non-verbal most of the time that she never mentioned it. 

M. is one of my special ed children, with developmental delays, speech difficulties, and possibly some sensory stuff going on.  Lately she seems to be worse than ever.  The special ed teacher, sp. ed. assistant teacher, and my assistant teacher and I have all noticed that she seems to be going backward.  This is unusual — I take pride in the fact that my special ed children thrive in my classroom and make huge strides.  Two of my students this year are moving into regular ed for kindergarten next year.  But somehow with M. we are not making progress.  Today we were doing insect math and she was unable to recognize the numbers 1, 2, and 3.  She could count to five, but if she counted to three and I asked, “what comes next?” she had no idea.

One problem is that maybe her needs are so great that my classroom is just too overstimulating for her.  My classroom might not be the right place for her at all.  Next year for K she’ll be in a small classroom with all developmentally-delayed children, and it should be perfect for her. 

The title of this post, though, is “what parents do,” and I wonder just what M.’s parents are doing for her.  Her parents are very young, and both M. and her baby brother were very premature.  Ali has been to the apartment and says that there have been many police calls there in the past year for drug dealing and other problems.  M.’s mom hasn’t come to any of her IEP meetings or her transition meeting, and she still hasn’t even registered her for kindergarten.  Usually when we call her the phone is disconnected, and when we send out the social worker, nobody answers the bell.

How would M.’s life be different if her parents were different?  If her mom had been able to carry her full-term?  If her parents talked to her more?  If they gave in to her less?  (M. cries a lot as her main method of problem-solving.  We are guessing that it gets her what she wants when she’s at home.)

Then I look at Miss L., who is perhaps our biggest challenge this year.  Miss. L.’s parents are older, college-educated professionals with financial stability.  They have an incredibly hard road to go down with their youngest, for whom every day is a struggle.  I cannot imagine what she’d be like if she had parents without resources, without parenting skills.

And I wonder what M. would be like if she DID.