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New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 15th 04, 01:35 AM
Jaime
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???

Hi. I'm new to this board and I've seen some old posts about
kindergarten readiness, whether to hold/not to hold back, etc. I
haven't seen anything newer, though. Forgive me if I glossed over
this in FAQs, but I didn't see my questions. (Rambling...)

We recently moved to an area where kindergarten is either part or full
day. To get full day kindergarten, you pay for it. (I'm originally
from New York City and it never occured to me that some areas make
parents PAY for kindergarten!!)

My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?
It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?

I've called the school and someone will supposedly get back to me in a
couple of weeks. I'm kind of looking for the straight dope, so to
speak.

Thanks in advance!!

P.S. This seems like a really great board. I've been reading for a
bit, half afraid to post something silly.

  #2  
Old January 15th 04, 03:25 AM
Claire Petersky
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???


"Jaime" wrote in message
m...

My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?


Our school district has free half-day, and you pay for full-day.

It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?


There are many opinions about this. I had heard from at-home moms in our
area that "of course" the kids that would be in the full-day program would
be the rowdy, peer-driven,
always-been-dumped-in-day-care-by-neglectful-parent types, where the
respectful, future-asset-to-society types would be in half-day. I would
regret having my child in a full-day program because when she came out of
it, she'd turn into a mouthing-off mini-teen-wannabe.

I had also heard that the kids that would be solely in half-day K were those
in low income families where the kids were at an aunty's or grandma's place
all day watching TV while mom worked, and had never been in any structured
program, and so they wouldn't even know their colors, (unless they had
picked it up from watching Sesame Street), and would be totally clueless
about how to properly behave in group situations. Meanwhile, the kids who
were in full-day would be those who parents had placed them in highly
educational pre-school programs since they were two, and would already
reading and in ready-to-learn shape upon arrival the first day.

From my observations, though, the above opinions reflect various parental

biases not grounded in reality. All sorts of kids are in full-day and
half-day K, for various family reasons and values.

Bottom line: I didn't see any difference among all the kids once we hit
first grade.

Our experience in our school is that the full-dayers had quiet time, recess,
and then a specialist (PE, art, music, or library) that the half-dayers
didn't get. In other words, it wasn't that they missed out on academics, but
they did miss out on sort of the fun extras.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky
Please replace earthlink for mouse-potato and .net for .com
Home of the meditative cyclist:
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpetersky/Welcome.htm
Books just wanna be FREE! See what I mean at:
http://bookcrossing.com/friend/Cpetersky

  #3  
Old January 15th 04, 05:26 AM
Elizabeth Gardner
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???

In article ,
(Jaime) wrote:

Hi. I'm new to this board and I've seen some old posts about
kindergarten readiness, whether to hold/not to hold back, etc. I
haven't seen anything newer, though. Forgive me if I glossed over
this in FAQs, but I didn't see my questions. (Rambling...)

We recently moved to an area where kindergarten is either part or full
day. To get full day kindergarten, you pay for it. (I'm originally
from New York City and it never occured to me that some areas make
parents PAY for kindergarten!!)

My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?
It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?



Our district does this, too, at least in the largest elementary school.
They call the afternoon program "enrichment," and are careful to specify
that the kids don't cover any material that the morning-only kids don't.
It just gets reinforced. Our program was part daycare (i.e., supervised
free play), part planned fun stuff, sometimes reinforcing what happened
in the morning class but fairly non-academic as best I could tell. I
think it was a lot for the convenience of working parents who could then
sync up whatever after-school arrangements they had for their older
kids. Our district gives the choice of going three afternoons or five,
so that parents who want a mix can get it.

I must say that two years later, I don't have the faintest recollection
of who was in enrichment and who wasn't. I think the kids who were
might have had an easier time segueing into a full-day first grade
program, but they were all pretty well with the program by the second
month of first grade. But in our community, there isn't a lot of income
inequity--it's more a matter of whether the moms work or stay home. The
ones who stayed home in our K year often had arranged lessons or
playdates for the kids in the afternoons.

  #4  
Old January 15th 04, 01:07 PM
Kevin Karplus
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???

In article ,
Elizabeth Gardner wrote:
In article ,
(Jaime) wrote:
We recently moved to an area where kindergarten is either part or full
day. To get full day kindergarten, you pay for it. (I'm originally
from New York City and it never occured to me that some areas make
parents PAY for kindergarten!!)

My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?
It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?


Our district does this, too, at least in the largest elementary school.
They call the afternoon program "enrichment," and are careful to specify
that the kids don't cover any material that the morning-only kids don't.
It just gets reinforced. Our program was part daycare (i.e., supervised
free play), part planned fun stuff, sometimes reinforcing what happened
in the morning class but fairly non-academic as best I could tell. I
think it was a lot for the convenience of working parents who could then
sync up whatever after-school arrangements they had for their older
kids. Our district gives the choice of going three afternoons or five,
so that parents who want a mix can get it.


Our school had half-day kindergarten until this year, when they went to
3/4 day (ending an hour earlier than the 1st graders). This change to
the program was made possible by the School Board's decision to move
the sixth graders to the middle school, freeing up 2 classrooms.
Previously, with only 2 kindergarten classrooms and 80 kindergartners,
only half days were possible.

They just this month added after-school care for the kindergartners,
paid for by the parents who use it. They got a great teacher for it
also, who has had something like 20 years of experience in early
childhood education and was looking for a part-time job. My son had
had him as one of his preschool teachers for a few months, so I know
he's good.

There was already an after-school program for the older kids, but the
program was not suitable for the kindergartners, and did not start
until an hour after their classes ended.

Our school has a very wide range of incomes, but I don't think that
there is much correlation between income and whether the students do
the after-school programs---it has more to do with whether there is
anyone to pick the kids up when school ends.

Because I was on sabbatical for a couple of months while my son was in
kindergarten, he experienced both half-day and full-day kindergarten.
Both worked out well for my son. My wife liked the full-day better,
as it gave her more time to do other things.


--
Kevin Karplus
http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Computer Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

  #5  
Old January 15th 04, 02:27 PM
Beth Kevles
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???


Hi -

Our school had 1/2 day K when our older son was in, with an optional,
pay-as-you-go complement to complete the school day. And full day K for
our younger son.

We sent our older son to the complement 3 days per week. I spent the
other two days with him; we played, rested, had music lessons, that kind
of stuff.

Comparing the two kids' experiences, I'd say:

1. If you only do half day your child doesn't make as many friends at
school. (Our school didn't have recess during the half day; that
only happened in the complement.) Since kids go to school primarily
to see their friends, the complement was a real boon. But three
days was enough for us.

2. THe child who went for a full day learned a LOT more than his
brother during kindy. (BUt the older child already knew a lot of
the kindy curriculum, so for him it was less of an issue.) The
teachers are marvelling at how much more the full day K kids know
even by midyear than the 1/2 day K kids did. BUT the complement
focused on social skills and play, not on academic skills. So no
significant academic difference in the kids in the complement
vs. not.

3. I observed little difference among the middle class kids in our
neighborhood among those who did the complement and those who
didn't. I DID observe a huge academic difference AND social
difference among those kids whose parents were poor, or unskilled
parents (for whatever reasons) etc. between the full and half day
kids, both academically and socially.

Our district is gradually implementing full day K, starting with the
schools that have the greatest number of impoverished kids and moving
towards the wealthier schools. They're already seeing a payoff.

In other words:

Full day K lets your kids make more friends at school.
If you're an active parent, there is probably no other difference
between full day and half day results, because as a parent you're
filling out the curriculum yourself. For a poor parent (who can't
afford enrichment) or an inactive parent, full dayK is a real boon.

Hope I'm not too disjointed.
--Beth Kevles

http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html -- a page for the milk-allergic
Disclaimer: Nothing in this message should be construed as medical
advice. Please consult with your own medical practicioner.

NOTE: No email is read at my MIT address. Use the AOL one if you would
like me to reply.

  #6  
Old January 15th 04, 02:58 PM
Scott
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've beenthere???


I'm not sure there's much I can add to the good responses so
far. Both DD and DS had full-day kindergarten, DD with
I think 16 kids in her class, DS has 14. It was the only
choice in the school they go to...had they gone to the
school at the church we attend, they'd have had 1/2 day
kindergarten (with 24 kids in the class), which we didn't
like because it was only 3 hours long, at most. So just
about the time the kids settle in, they might start to
think it's time to go home.

Scott DD 10.5 & DS 7.9

  #7  
Old January 16th 04, 12:31 AM
H Schinske
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???

wrote:

It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?


Our school has a half day program and a full day program. The full day program
is more popular and is generally filled with siblings of older students in the
school (well, not 100%, but a significant proportion of those seats). The
half-day is easier to get into and tends to have the kids who live outside the
school's reference area and therefore don't get first choice.

We were in the latter case when our twins were small, so they went to the
half-day program and filled in with an enrichment program at the onsite
daycare. At that time I actually liked the enrichment program better than the
academic one, myself! It seemed more developmentally appropriate and they had
cooler projects and stuff.

My son is in the full-day program now. He seems to be getting very much the
same academic stuff that his sisters did. He could already read, so it is a
little difficult to tell whether the children are learning that any better.

There is such a wide range of normal developmental levels in kindergarten that
it is pretty difficult to assess how well the class is functioning by looking
at classwork (except for the usual stuff, you don't want to see all the papers
looking just alike, with all the cotton balls glued in the exact same places,
that kind of thing). Mostly you look for a place that will make your child
happy and safe, and that is most likely a place where s/he can learn well, too.

--Helen

  #8  
Old January 16th 04, 05:45 AM
Beth Gallagher
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???


My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?
It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?

I've called the school and someone will supposedly get back to me in a
couple of weeks. I'm kind of looking for the straight dope, so to
speak.


I think that whether full- or half-day is best for the child (as opposed to
for the parent) will vary a lot by district. Our public school dictrict
offers only half-day K, but the state government is trying to raise money to
fund full-day K throughout the state. I shudder at the thought. My DD does
an awful lot of worksheets and often doesn't even get recess. (School is
only 2.5 hours long, but recess is where they get to know the other kids.)
If they're going to make the kids go to school full-time at 5 (or 6 or 7!),
IMO they need to make it much more creative, fun, social, and relaxed. Other
responses on this thread would indicate that many districts that offer
full-day K do have better K programs than ours, or at least that they make
sure the afternoon is not too academic.

So I guess the straight dope is that it'll depend on the program itself, and
also on your idea of what a child that age needs most.


  #9  
Old January 17th 04, 04:02 AM
Iowacookiemom
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've been there???

First of all welcome, and I hope you stay around. It's great to see a new
face!

As to your question, I echo what others have said. IMO the most important thing
about kindergarten is that the child has a good experience that predisposes
him/her to feel good about school overall. So I'd take into consideration what
the child's friends are doing, what you hear about teachers in both programs,
etc.

Along the same lines, consider what you know about your child -- will s/he be
more comfortable with the transition one way or another? Our child had been in
a curriculum-based daycare since infanthood -- it would have been a backward
step in some ways for him to go to 1/2 day K.

I've read some research (it's been a while, this was 2 or 3 years ago when it
was an issue in our district) that there are academic benefits. I'm guessing
that's mostly true for kids with less educated, less involved parents. I'm
guessing anyone who is involved enough and cares enough to post the question to
a newsgroup is going to provide sufficient supplemental learning at home so
that it won't make a difference.

Go with your gut and whatever you can find out from folks who have been through
it at *your* school. Good luck, and again -- welcome to the group!

-Dawn
Mom to Henry, 11

  #10  
Old January 20th 04, 04:47 AM
Sandi Jones
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Default New Here, Q's about Kindergarten - Tips from those who've beenthere???

Schools have changed. Kindergarten was OPTIONAL in most states when I
was a kid. Now it is required in most states, and the focus is now
academic, not social. Study after study has found that 5 year old little
boys are not ready to sit down, shut up, and keep both feet flat on the
floor. With the change of focus of kindergarten, more little boys are
being prescribed Ritalin and other drugs in order to enable them to cope
with an academic environment that they are not developmentally ready to
handle. My oldest son, now 18 went through a full day program. His 5
year old little brother would NOT be able to deal with a full day of
school. (He's a YOUNG 5, having an August birthday, he is in the high
risk group, males born late July- early Sept sent to school at 5) There
are boys who are ready. There are girls who are not, but as the biggest
hurdle to Kinder is the social norming of being able to follow
directions consistently throughout the day. Females have more of a knack
for social interaction, and that that age are more likely to try to
please the teacher. As for my 18 year old who did full day, that was in
a private school. I don't know of any public schools in my area that do
full day kindergarten.

Sandi

Jaime wrote:
Hi. I'm new to this board and I've seen some old posts about
kindergarten readiness, whether to hold/not to hold back, etc. I
haven't seen anything newer, though. Forgive me if I glossed over
this in FAQs, but I didn't see my questions. (Rambling...)

We recently moved to an area where kindergarten is either part or full
day. To get full day kindergarten, you pay for it. (I'm originally
from New York City and it never occurred to me that some areas make
parents PAY for kindergarten!!)

My question is: what's the difference? Has anyone had experience with
a school district where some of the kids go full day and some don't?
It smacks of inequity to me (what are the kids doing the other half of
the day and won't the kids whose parents can't afford it be at a major
disadvantage in the 1st grade??) Or is it basically day care?

I've called the school and someone will supposedly get back to me in a
couple of weeks. I'm kind of looking for the straight dope, so to
speak.

Thanks in advance!!

P.S. This seems like a really great board. I've been reading for a
bit, half afraid to post something silly.


 




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