Preschool Tutors and Kindergarten Test Prep Becoming Popular

December 20th, 2010 admin

An article in the Chicago Tribunelast week outlines the growing practice of preschoolers cramming with tutors for entry into the top public schools in the city.

It’s a practice that cities like New York know well, but it’s new and growing in Chicago and other increasingly competitive school systems in the country.

In Chicago, 3,337 applications have been filed this year for 500 seats in Chicago Public School system’s classical and gifted kindergarten programs for this fall.  As the Tribune says:

“..with low-performing neighborhood schools an unattractive option and the cost of some private schools out of reach, many parents see CPS’ selective enrollment programs as the best public education option in the city.”

Is a preschool tutor a good idea?

Here’s what testing includes:

For kindergarten entry, the tests are one-on-one, and ask kids to do things like identify trapezoids and figure out how many cookies they’d have if their mom put two more on their plate.

For gifted programs they would want kids to be able to make predictions about what happens next, infer relationships between objects, and recognize patterns.

Tutors and test-prep programs work with kids as early as three-years-old.

I have a two and a half year old and the idea of him sitting for an exam (or prepping for one) makes me break out in a sweat.

But beyond that, it’s my understanding that these kindergarten tests for skills and intelligence do not really do a good job of predicting anything. As Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman point out in NurtureShock, kindergarten testing leaves a huge number of kids behind. That’s not because some kids just don’t “test well” — it’s because the tests themselves don’t really predict anything valuable to begin with.

Here’s more from my Science of Kids column on what research says about the most important preschool skills.

Has your family been through school testing? Do you think the system works, and would you consider “prepping” your child?

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Preschool-Kindergarten Writing

November 14th, 2010 admin

Children are best encouraged to engage in an activity when they see others participating in it. This is why it is important for educators of young children to model the writing process. Outlined below are a few ways in which this can be accomplished.
1. Many teachers like to begin each class with writing a short morning message. This message outlines what activities are planned for the day. As the teacher is writing she models the writing process. She might focus on how words make a sentence, stretching sounds to determine how they are spelled or the use of capitals and periods. This modeling is a very important component in a child’s learning process as it demonstrates to them that writing is an important means of communication.
2. Within a learning environment should be a safe and encouraging place where the children can develop this skill which would be the “Writing Center”. The “Writing Center” would consist of a table, chairs, paper, envelopes, pencils, crayons, felts, tracers, rulers, whiteboard, chalkboard and clipboard. The alphabet, in upper and lower case letters should be posted nearby at the child’s level. Plenty of print should be displayed within the classroom for the children to use as models for reading and writing. As a member of the Kinderplans website you will have access to hundreds of picture cards related to specific themes. Each of the cards have the words printed on them. These were designed to use for this purpose.
3. Writing develops at different rates. For many children in the younger years they draw pictures to convey their ideas. This begins with scribbling to something that resembles a picture. The educator (teacher) may ask the child to dictate what the picture conveys and print this in words and read it back to the child. This is another means of modeling the writing process.
4. Large classroom books can be made for the children to read. These books were designed around each child’s conveyed message. for example, if you are working on a “Colors Theme”, each child would dictate a sentence telling what their favorite color is. After, they would would draw a picture displaying the color. The teacher would include the printed text of what each child said below the picture drawn. This would be bound together to make a classroom book.
WRITING PROCESS
It is important to understand that writing is a process and each child develops at their own pace. The more support and encouragement provided the greater the success!
WRITING/CRAFT ACTIVITIES
In the link below you will find some suggested craft/writing activities that can be done together as a class.
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