The question is to “push” or “not to push” our students in kindergarten to a literacy-rich environment. As a teacher who taught in the upper grades, grades 4-6 and dealt with the state testing, it is a must. However, a teacher in the lower grades, K-3, this is sometimes a very difficult task. Therefore, at this time, I feel that our school system is too aggressive. There are many issues that are correlated with question. Some issues include not all states require kindergarten, many five year olds are not developmentally ready to read, and fine motor skills are not developed. The first issue is only fifteen states require students to attend kindergarten. In Illinois, where I teach, sometimes the funding is not available to fund an all-day …show more content…
For students to be successful in the learning process or a literacy-rich environment, students in kindergarten need to attend school fulltime not part-time. The kindergarten curriculum includes teaching students how to hold books, how to recognize book covers, and how to differentiate between letters, words, numbers, and sentences. Students will also learn how to listen, speak in public, and write their names. This does not include everything a kindergarten student will learn about math, science, social studies, and even technology. Therefore, if a student moves from a state that required kindergarten, he/she is ahead of most of his/her classmates.
The next issue that I have about a literacy-rich environment is that many five year olds are not developmentally ready to read. Under the Common Core State Standards, kindergarteners do more than just sing the ABCs. They are guided to develop a deep understanding of what the alphabet does and how each letter blends to make words. Many students have not learned their letters let alone the sound that they
…show more content…
Many elementary schools throughout the United States are set up to provide experiences that are developmentally appropriate for students from a lower middle class or higher socioeconomic background, but that are not appropriate for many students who have never been exposed to reading or books prior to entry into school. One important necessary skill is developing fine motor skills. Many kindergarten students do not have the fine motor skills to hold a pencil effectively or tie their shoes. Without well-developed fine motor skills, a student may have difficulty learning to write or performing many of the other critical tasks in kindergarten. Handwriting is one of the fundamental building blocks for reading, communication, expression and test-taking. Effective writing helps children remember, organize and process information.
Various studies and articles share that some schools develop programs that allow students to play. These programs assist students in developing their gross and fine motor skills, and are seeing improvements in hand-eye coordination to track words on a page, improvement in strength used for attention and focus, retention of facts, letters and instructions given by teacher, and stronger development of handwriting with fine motor
The Universal Pre-K Initiative is a movement to allow access to preschool programs for all eligible children in all states, regardless of social economic status, abilities and other factors. Except for the early years of the Bush administration, support for Universal Pre-K has come entirely from Democratic policy actors. Universal Pre-K didn’t emerge again as a national issue until it became part of the Obama campaign’s platform in 2006 (Brown & Wright 2011). The impact of Universal Pre-K Initiative will have on the Early Childhood Education field is apparent. Some have argued that the state should not be providing these services and should allow existing agencies to continue operating their Pre-K programs.
In the module one assessment, I stated that the area of need in my school’s literacy program was motivation and support given to students who come from a low socioeconomic home. 87% of students who attend Blue Ridge Elementary live in a low poverty situation, are homeless, or are in a foster home. These students do not receive motivation and support that students who are not living in poverty get ("Blue Ridge Elementary State Report Card", 2015). In grades 3-5, 131 students tested in the “in need of support” range (“Blue Ridge Elementary State Report Card”, 2015). Of my eighteen second grade students, 44% of the students met or exceeded their end of the year goal.
Why give more money to something that is going to be wasted if fifty percent of the freshman class will drop out and only half will see graduation? For most of the schools Kozol visited, the dropout rate ranged from seventy-six to eighty-one percent. Poor performance was also seen as a deterrent (58). Funding was not available to establish pre-K programs to help prepare students for the classroom. As a result, almost all the high school graduates in the lower end schools read at sixth and eighth grade levels.
They will need the benefits from year-round school to be successful in life. Imagine the world once kids are able to learn more easily and while having a less stressful
Chapter nine is Building Blocks really helped me take a step back and look at the way we did things in the daycare/preschool I currently work at. There are many areas that we need to modify in our learning environment that promotes literacy. The children rarely ever get the chance to engage in literacy activities and the amount of supplies and books are not enough for the children. The checklist of important elements for supporting early literacy can be a helpful tool to use in a classroom to make sure students are getting every opportunity to build on their literacy skills.
In “What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades,” Maria Konnikova explains that handwriting develops better thinking skills, and makes the process of learning easier. According to Konnikova, the Common Core standards only encourage legible writing in kindergarten and first grade. In contrast, professors now make emphasize on the students to be proficient on typing on the keyboard. Based on a study, children who physically wrote a letter demonstrated that specific areas of their brain were functioning. While the children who watched other people writing the letter, did not had the same effect.
There is a shift to focus on literacy over all else, even at the preschool age level, where it may not be as developmentally appropriate (Tobin et al., 2009, p.183). A relatable example of this is when the American preschool teacher at St. Timothy’s stated, “We have to explain, justify out approach more than we used to: Cutting with a scissors and playing with Play-doh teach fine motor control, which will help with holding a pen” (Tobin, 2009, p. 167) Another teacher was taking pictures of children doing activities to prove that learning was taking place (Tobin et al., 2009, p.164). This pressure to keep records and justify, was an instance that I very much related to while reading.
Since the developments of computers and other newly developed technologies, children are now adapting to new ways in which they write and learn to write. In two separate articles by Emily Yoffe and Josh Geisbrecht, they discuss the way in which children are now learning to write in school, and furthermore, the types of technologies they are using. These adaptations are steadily changing the ways in which newer generations of children learn to write. In the article “How the Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive” by Josh Geisbrecht, He discusses the introduction of new technologies like the ballpoint pen.
Year round school should not be used in today’s school, because it threatens family plans, teacher and student burnouts, and may become costly. A child’s development is based on different experiences that sometimes can only be experienced through family time and not sitting in a classroom. Many families plan vacations during the summer. Some even sending children to camps that may give them another experience that school doesn’t offer. Some children come from separated families where summer vacation may allow a child to spend time with another
To Test or To Read It would be nice to imagine that everyone begins at the start line together. Unfortunately, a majority of people start at a disadvantage. In most public elementary schools, there are students in every grade level that are reading behind grade level. Consequently, these same students will encounter tests throughout their whole academic career. Starting in elementary school, a literacy gap will begin to emerge among students.
Many different activities help to develop motor skills, but not all are a very productive use of time. "Playing the original Super Mario Bros helps develop fine motor skills" (Source E), but while that is enjoyable, it is not the best use of a child's time. Using valuable class time to practice an outdated form of writing, like cursive, may not be the best use of a child’s time either. The world is constantly evolving and almost one fifth of all assignments students are given are completed using technology. (Source F) Technology based learning needs to be done on technology whereas writing based assignments can be done with print or cursive.
One thing that I stood out to me this week “Ready to write” in the webinkiar was very interested because I wasn’t know that those skills were so important to writing skills and academic success in the later years and they talked about how many percent children are pretending hand motor skills at the school life. My own experience regarding this topic, I don’t have any experience with the another classmate , but I am using the same method with daycare teachers. It is really helpful my child to support the motor skills to connect the dots with letters so he can understand that how to support to his finger. I feel very interested about what I read handwriting because I wasn 't know that crayons is more useful than pencils and I learned that
Reading is an essential life skill. The ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend and make meaningful connections with text. Therefore, the development of skills needed for reading begins at an early age and progresses through stages into adulthood (Chall, 1996). Within the early stages of reading development, children begin learning and acquiring these specific skills. Moreover, many of the skills learned during early childhood are constrained skills.
This can be bad because once their kids that know how to read and write are mixed with kids that may not and teachers often have to start their. Which is when kids become frustrated and upset with themselves and others. However if you have a school system that has pre-K kids can learn together and understand things mostly at the same time. It is up to the
If we do not take the time to teach our children the process of reading, children will never fully understand the importance of words. Learning to read is more than learning how to sound out words on a page, learning to read is about understanding words and concepts conveyed in