entering kindergarten early

In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:

There is NO good GT program which will not have a
student doing mainly "honors" college courses in
their early teens.

I rather imagine that a good GT program
will have kids doing whatever their ability and
motivation gives them the ability to do at any
particular age. I don't notice that the kids in
the GT program here seem frustrated at not going
fast enough. They seem plenty occupied to me.

You can occupy by busy work, including meaningless
"projects". And for motivation, for much the motivation
comes from understanding of the concepts, not learning the
facts are repeating the tortuous paths our predecessors had
to take to get at the concepts. It was not until the late
19th century that the integers were put on a sound
axiomatic basis, and this can be taught to children who do
not even know how to do arithmetic. It all starts with
counting, and not in counting in base 10.

They can learn that much, and
do it with less effort than it takes to do the
dumbed down busy work given by the schools, and
spending time on learning poorly designed "fun things"
which will have to be RElearned later properly.

My children have yet to learn anything
that needs to be unlearned. And while I think
they sometimes have too much work, they do not have
"busywork."

All of arithmetic practice after the ideas are learned
is busy work. See above for learning the foundations;
Euclid would have jumped with joy if someone gave them
to him. Your children probably have learned little
structural or foundational material, if any; very little
is presented before high school, and not much even then.

One needs mathematics, not arithmetic, to understand
physics and chemistry, and now biology. Much involves
probability, and while probability evolved from games
of chance, that is a poor way of approaching understanding
the concepts. Calculating combinatorics does not make it
any easier to understand.

Best wishes,
Ericka


--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:

As far as the structure of
words and spelling, that may well be good; this, and other aspects
of grammar, seem to have disappeared from grammar school.

My goodness, you have a lot of broad statements to make
about education. Spelling and grammar certainly have not been
absent for my children in elementary school.
We live in a country were there is a huge amount of
variation from state to state, and even school district to
school district. Broad pronouncements about educational
practices are difficult to make with any accuracy. There
are some broad trends, but there are exceptions even to
those.

I do not say that all schools are bad, but all seem to be
opposed to teaching to a fixed subject matter, with children
proceding at their individual rates.

I also know something about the quality of those going into
the teaching of mathematics, which is basic for all sciences,
and is now even getting into history and literature. I have
seen the decline in entering students, and the college courses
have been reduced by the political pressures. I have seen
large numbers of graduate students who can no longer understand
what those getting degrees in the 50s and 60s had as requirements.

There have been some improvements, but teaching of reading is not
back to the level of 80 years ago. From the late 30s to the 50s,
the whole word method was exclusively used for teaching reading,
and the results were as expected by all but the educationists.
The production of books so that essentially all parents could
teach their children to read using phonics has largely, but not
completely, eliminated that atrocity.

The educationists believe that someone who knows "how to teach"
can essentially teach any subject. I would say that they know
how to teach memorization and routine, and that this precludes
understanding except by geniuses, and even then only with
difficulty. I have been through this myself, and I am regarded
as being quite good in separating concepts from manipulation.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558

On May 26, 7:55 pm, (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Herman Rubin wrote:
As far as the structure of
words and spelling, that may well be good; this, and other aspects
of grammar, seem to have disappeared from grammar school.
My goodness, you have a lot of broad statements to make
about education. Spelling and grammar certainly have not been
absent for my children in elementary school.
We live in a country were there is a huge amount of
variation from state to state, and even school district to
school district. Broad pronouncements about educational
practices are difficult to make with any accuracy. There
are some broad trends, but there are exceptions even to
those.

I do not say that all schools are bad, but all seem to be
opposed to teaching to a fixed subject matter, with children
proceding at their individual rates.

I also know something about the quality of those going into
the teaching of mathematics, which is basic for all sciences,
and is now even getting into history and literature. I have
seen the decline in entering students, and the college courses
have been reduced by the political pressures. I have seen
large numbers of graduate students who can no longer understand
what those getting degrees in the 50s and 60s had as requirements.

There have been some improvements, but teaching of reading is not
back to the level of 80 years ago. From the late 30s to the 50s,
the whole word method was exclusively used for teaching reading,
and the results were as expected by all but the educationists.
The production of books so that essentially all parents could
teach their children to read using phonics has largely, but not
completely, eliminated that atrocity.

Here, you demonstrate your complete lack of knowledge, which leads me
to question everything that you have to say about this topic. The
whole word approach to teaching reading did not become in vogue until
the 1960s, and didn't become the primary method of teaching kids to
read until the 1980s or 90s. By the latter date, it was under attack,
and remains so to this day.

The US has a 99.9% literacy rate as of 2005. According to the
National Institute for Literacy:

*The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study assessed children's reading
skills as they entered kindergarten in the fall of 1998, kindergarten
in the spring of 1999, and first grade in spring 2000. They found that
at the start of kindergarten in the fall:

*67% had letter recognition skills; this increased to 95% of children
in the spring of their kindergarten year, and 100% by the spring of
their first grade year,
31% could understand the letter-sound relationship at the beginning of
words, this increased to 74% of children in the spring of their
kindergarten year, and 98% by the spring of their first grade year,
18% could understand the letter-sound relationship at the end of
words; this increased to 54% of children in the spring of their
kindergarten year, and 94% by the spring of their first grade year,
3% had sight-word recognition skills; this increased to 14% of
children in the spring of their kindergarten year, and 83% by the
spring of their first grade year, and
1% could understand words in context; this increased to 4% of children
in the spring of their kindergarten year, and 48% by the spring of
their first grade year.*

Do you really believe that it was anything CLOSE to that in the
1920s? What percentage of the population do you think attended school
beyond the primary grades at that time? Anecdotally, my grandmother's
siblings demanded that she leave school in 10th grade in the early
20s, telling her that she was far too old to be in school, and should
clearly be out helping to support her family.


The educationists believe that someone who knows "how to teach"
can essentially teach any subject. I would say that they know
how to teach memorization and routine, and that this precludes
understanding except by geniuses, and even then only with
difficulty. I have been through this myself, and I am regarded
as being quite good in separating concepts from manipulation.

Regarding as such by whom? Perhaps not those of us who have seen you
parrot this disinformation time and time again.

Are you aware of the NCLB standards regarding *highly qualified
teachers*? Are you aware of the requirement that teachers be able to
pass certification examinations in each subject which they teach? How
does that jive with your allegations?

More importantly, the methodology that you recommend has been adopted
by an increasing number of school districts over the past 15 years.
Most parents and educators derisively call it *fuzy math* It
emphasizes process, and eliminates rote learning. It has resulted in
a generation of children who are math-illiterate.
As early as 1999, a group of 200 individuals, mostly professional
mathematicians but including other noteworthy people in education and
scientific fields, noted their opposition to these very programs that
you endorse.

Barbara

Herman Rubin wrote:
In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

My children have yet to learn anything
that needs to be unlearned. And while I think
they sometimes have too much work, they do not have
"busywork."

All of arithmetic practice after the ideas are learned
is busy work. See above for learning the foundations;
Euclid would have jumped with joy if someone gave them
to him. Your children probably have learned little
structural or foundational material, if any; very little
is presented before high school, and not much even then.

I'm pretty clear on what constitutes "busywork,"
thanks. I don't note that they're doing much of it.
And frankly, their math homework is not graded. They
do what they need to do to master the material.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Herman Rubin wrote:
In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
Herman Rubin wrote:

As far as the structure of
words and spelling, that may well be good; this, and other aspects
of grammar, seem to have disappeared from grammar school.

My goodness, you have a lot of broad statements to make
about education. Spelling and grammar certainly have not been
absent for my children in elementary school.
We live in a country were there is a huge amount of
variation from state to state, and even school district to
school district. Broad pronouncements about educational
practices are difficult to make with any accuracy. There
are some broad trends, but there are exceptions even to
those.

I do not say that all schools are bad, but all seem to be
opposed to teaching to a fixed subject matter, with children
proceding at their individual rates.

Certainly there are some constraints, in that they
are expected to demonstrate mastery of the curriculum at
various points, and sometimes the way they assess that is
lame. I wouldn't say that my children have infinite flexibility
in the rate at which they learn things, but there are a
wide range of levels available to them. There are multiple
levels within their own program, and if they are ahead or
behind that range in a particular subject, they can go in or
out of the GT program and up or down a grade or two to work
at the level that suits them best. In some cases, kids work
out independent study arrangements.

I also know something about the quality of those going into
the teaching of mathematics, which is basic for all sciences,
and is now even getting into history and literature. I have
seen the decline in entering students, and the college courses
have been reduced by the political pressures. I have seen
large numbers of graduate students who can no longer understand
what those getting degrees in the 50s and 60s had as requirements.

Both my kids currently in elementary school are on
track to graduate high school having done more math than I did,
and I came into college with some college level math completed
and did well with the math I took in college. They don't really
seem to be in any danger of having an inadequate understanding
of math to me. Is this true of every school or every student?
Of course not. But neither is it true that all schools or
all students aren't getting a respectable education in
math.

There have been some improvements, but teaching of reading is not
back to the level of 80 years ago. From the late 30s to the 50s,
the whole word method was exclusively used for teaching reading,
and the results were as expected by all but the educationists.
The production of books so that essentially all parents could
teach their children to read using phonics has largely, but not
completely, eliminated that atrocity.

I'm not at all sure what you're trying to say here.
While there are schools and students who are not doing well
with reading, there are also schools and students who are
being very successful.

The educationists believe that someone who knows "how to teach"
can essentially teach any subject.

They do? Odd, then, that they seem to make an
effort to hire teachers with some background in the subject
they're teaching around here.

I would say that they know
how to teach memorization and routine, and that this precludes
understanding except by geniuses, and even then only with
difficulty. I have been through this myself, and I am regarded
as being quite good in separating concepts from manipulation.

So far, it seems like my children have a pretty
good understanding of what they're learning in school. At
least, they seem to be able to apply the knowledge to real
world issues when they get home, which seems to be a reasonable
way to assess understanding in my book.
Now, we're blessed with a pretty good school system
here. It's not perfect, but all things considered, it generally
gets the job done competently. I certainly understand that not
all schools or school systems are like that. My point is merely
that there's a lot of variation in how schools are run and
how successful they are, so it's rather difficult to make
broad generalizations about how things are in public education.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Barbara wrote:

On May 26, 7:55 pm, (Herman Rubin) wrote:
In article ,
Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Herman Rubin wrote:
As far as the structure of
words and spelling, that may well be good; this, and other aspects
of grammar, seem to have disappeared from grammar school.
My goodness, you have a lot of broad statements to make
about education. Spelling and grammar certainly have not been
absent for my children in elementary school.
We live in a country were there is a huge amount of
variation from state to state, and even school district to
school district. Broad pronouncements about educational
practices are difficult to make with any accuracy. There
are some broad trends, but there are exceptions even to
those.

I do not say that all schools are bad, but all seem to be
opposed to teaching to a fixed subject matter, with children
proceding at their individual rates.

That's not completely the teacher's fault - it is mandated from above.

I also know something about the quality of those going into
the teaching of mathematics, which is basic for all sciences,
and is now even getting into history and literature. I have
seen the decline in entering students, and the college courses
have been reduced by the political pressures. I have seen
large numbers of graduate students who can no longer understand
what those getting degrees in the 50s and 60s had as requirements.

I would never recommend that any child or grandchild of mine go into
teaching. Teachers are disrespected too much by the administrations.

There have been some improvements, but teaching of reading is not
back to the level of 80 years ago. From the late 30s to the 50s,
the whole word method was exclusively used for teaching reading,
and the results were as expected by all but the educationists.
The production of books so that essentially all parents could
teach their children to read using phonics has largely, but not
completely, eliminated that atrocity.

Here, you demonstrate your complete lack of knowledge, which leads me
to question everything that you have to say about this topic. The
whole word approach to teaching reading did not become in vogue until
the 1960s, and didn't become the primary method of teaching kids to
read until the 1980s or 90s. By the latter date, it was under attack,
and remains so to this day.

You are wrong. Maybe you are both wrong, but I know for certain that
you are. Phonics and whole word methods go in cycles. Ideally both
would be used because some people learn best one way and some another.

I do not know exactly what years the whole word method was used, but I
was taught by the whole word method and never had any phonics - I was
in first grade c 1941-42. I know it was whole word method because I
remember taking my textbook and teaching my sister to read by that
method. It was the Dick and Jane books - the first page of the one I
had said "Look, look, look". And what they were looking at was the
school bus. Dick and Jane also had a dog, but I forget what he was
named. Spot maybe.

The book that brought phonics in (my lifetime) to teaching reading was
"Why Johnnie Can't Read" which was published in 1955. And the big
push in science came from Sputnik - also in the 50s.

snip
What percentage of the population do you think attended school
beyond the primary grades at that time? Anecdotally, my grandmother's
siblings demanded that she leave school in 10th grade in the early
20s, telling her that she was far too old to be in school, and should
clearly be out helping to support her family.

Another anecdote - my grandmother and all her siblings (9 altogether)
were all college graduates. My grandmother was born in the 1880s

My grandfather (her husband) only went to eighth grade, but my father
(born in 1904) and my mother (born in 1909) both graduated from
college.

snip
Are you aware of the NCLB standards regarding *highly qualified
teachers*? Are you aware of the requirement that teachers be able to
pass certification examinations in each subject which they teach? How
does that jive with your allegations?

It doesn't prove anything about whether they can teach, and may not
prove anything about whether they know their subject. It may just
show that they are good at taking tests.

On May 25, 7:46 pm, toypup wrote:
On Fri, 25 May 2007 19:29:31 -0700, toypup wrote:
I was just discussing this with a co-worker who was this exact situation.
Her child could read and do all the things that are required of
kindergarteners. She tested into kindergarten and started when she was
three turing four. She is now 8. The work is getting more difficult. When
she was 3, she was ahead of the class. Now, her mother is contemplating
holding her back, which is another can of worms. Your child may not always
be ahead. This situation is something else to think about.

Oh, and to follow up on that, the mother said if she had to do it all over
again, she would not have enrolled her child in school early. She said she
was young and was excited that her child could do what she could do. Who
wouldn't be? This is one of those things where you wish you could reverse
time.

And just to take this to an extreme level, here's my early life story.
My mother taught me all the pre-grade (ie, grade 1, grade 2 etc) the
summer before, so that I would know it upon reaching that grade.
Therefore, all my teachers thought I was brilliant, because I already
knew all the stuff. Of course, I wasn't socially ready, and was a
social outcast up until I left school altogether. I was bright enough,
and would have been top grades all the way through school as it was.
As it was, I was extremely unhappy until I left school at grade 12.

Stasya

On May 24, 9:52 am, toypup wrote:
On 24 May 2007 01:29:48 -0700, stasya wrote:

I have to throw in my two cents here. There's a boy in my dd's
kindergarten class who was in her playschool class last year. He is
almost a full year older than dd, and in my opinion, quite ready for
kindergarten last year. He is quite obviously older, more mature, the
leader of the class, etc etc, which might be marvelous for some
parents. However, I would be thinking personally as his parent that
the class he's in is beneath him. He can obviously do the work, it's
simply boring, repetitious, and not worth doing. Therefore, he doesn't
excel because he knows he can do it and doesn't feel the need to prove
it. Not to mention, if you want to meet a kid who's going to lead the
others astray out of sheer boredom, there he is.

Stasya

Redshirting is a whole different issue, IMO. We have plenty of that here.

Red-shirting, as far as I understand it, doesn't exist here. I imagine
that people *might* hold their kids back, but I think in this
instance, it's more of an emotional response rather than a logical
decision in this case. I've never heard of this besides on this
newsgroup.

Stasya

In article ,
"Engram" wrote:

What's 'well socialised'? I think this is a great big furphy. A few
percent of the children at DS1's school don't speak any English at
home and start K without a word of it -- does that mean they aren't
well socialised?

No, they could be "well socialised" within a peer group speaking their first
language. I couldn't speak English when I first went to school here. Neither
could my sister. Doesn't mean we didn't have social skills. Where do you get
"lack of English = lack of social skills"????? I think I'm feeling rather
insulted here...

I thought it was a fairly obvious example. You imply socialisation occurs
through contact with age-peers. If a child doesn't speak the language, they
can't socialise, so they can't become well-socialised, right?? Except that
it's not true. If a child speaks only the home language, they have a big
hurdle to jump when it comes to school. But at our school, the children seem
to get along even when they can't speak a shared language very well.

What I was trying to get at is the ability of a child to interact with
others. If all a child knows is his immediate family and perhaps a
babysitter/nanny/grandparents and if they do not interact with other kids
their own age - whatever their language may be - then I think that if they
go to school they will be ill-prepared for what awaits them there. Doesn't
mean they won't survive. They'll just have a harder time of it.

Again, this is not something I've seen. Where 5yos don't play nicely, it's
not to do with not having spent time with lots of kids their own age: it's to
do with being 5yos. They ARE direct with their language and they AREN'T
empathetic. eg DS1 shouted at a little girl last year, "Go away! I don't
want to play with you!" He was being a 5yo, not a misfit. (He was at day
care 3 days/wk from the age of 2, and also involved in other social
activities.)

Kids can be very cruel. Being the brainiac "baby" of the class will not
necessarily endear a child to the rest of the class.

It isn't the Ks who are cruel. They are thoughtless at times, like DS1 above,
but not cruel. DS1 has not been pilloried yet for being a brainiac (he is in
Yr 1). IIRC that was more a 3rd and 4th grade thing when it happened to me,
though I don't remember paying much attention to it. I understand that the
average child doesn't start comparing people until about the age of 7; before
that, they are too absorbed in their own experience.

And that child may have
an especially hard time if they do not know how to make friends. Language
barrier be damned - kids make friends regardless, as long as they know how.

You appear to believe that prior contact with age-peers is a prerequisite for
good socialisation. I don't agree -- we're *made* in such a way that we seek
interaction with others. That's why babies pick up language so fast, for
example. It isn't the contact with age-peers that enables a kid to make
friends; it's an innate drive. The only kids I've seen who have been 'poorly
socialised' either have some kind of intellectual impairment or are struggling
with major upheaval (eg removal from unfit parents) -- that is, the innate
drive has been compromised.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article ,
() wrote:

The challenge is to try and balance the needs of
the whole child not just the intellectual needs. Skipping or early
entry may address the intellectual problem somewhat, but it can cause
social problems. For some gifted children this can be the area they
are weakest at which compounds the problem.

Myth. Children's social development is closely related to their cognitive
development. The long history of grade-skipping indicates that appropriate
grade-skipping *improves* the social lives of bright kids.

My suspicion is that the nerd stereotype has arisen from the existence of
Aspies.

For some children, even
the profoundly gifted, the best atmosphere is a classroom of their
peers from the neighbourhood with a sympathetic teacher who provides
the opportunity to let the child pursue their own intellectual
interests beyond the regular curriculum.

Unfortunately this is *not* true for the profoundly gifted, if by peers you
mean age-peers. Generally, the profoundly gifted do better in specialist
gifted classes.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue