Comments on: Full-day kindergarten: Should it be mandatory in Oakland?

By: Joey

Joey — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:00:13 +0000

Full day kindergarten is a nutty idea. Even if kids look like they can handle it and even if you think it will somehow get them ahead in school, they will most likely fall back to the same level as all the other students who only went to half day kindergarten later in school. Check out my website (I posted a blog about this).

By: patrice

patrice — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:44:30 +0000

In San Francisco public schools kindergarteners go to school from about 8:30am til 2:30pm. In one school called Gordon J. Lau the kindergartners spell words like California, difficult, so on and so on. If children have teachers who are willing to put time towards being patient, rearranging schedules and putting in time to think about how smart 5 y.o. are you’ll understand that they are more than capable they are willing and able. When getting out of our comfort zones as teachers and parents we automattically think about the worst that can happen. What about the best, forget about just having longer hours for adults work time think about the learning. They can even add naps into the curriculum, hooked on phonics make reading easy and learned by 3 y.o. it just takes a little more of our time. Kindergarten sets the pace for the rest of their lives. If we’re complaining about one thing it’s another.

By: Katy Murphy

Katy Murphy — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:14:15 +0000

Thanks, Richard. I agree wholeheartedly about the virtues of newspaper blogs. I’ll have to check out your site.

By: Richard Colvin

Richard Colvin — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:12:09 +0000

First of all, Katy, this discussion shows the brilliance of newspaper blogs: they engage readers, who share their distinct points of view. The blog I write, called EarlyStories looks at how issues in early childhood education are covered and discussed nationally. Full day kindergarten, by the way, is spreading nationally at wildfire pace.

The important point above is from Debbie Rinehart, who says that the curriculum was not made more difficult or intense when the district went to full day kindergarten. The day is longer and creative teachers can use it in many ways.

I wonder how many 4-year-olds in the Thornhill area go to preschool? Given the affluence in the hills, I’d suspect that most do. Keep in mind the class angle to this issue. Families in which both parents don’t need to work, or who can hire a nanny to pick up the kids, don’t need full day kindergarten. Working parents need a place for their kids all day. When my kids were in half day kindergarten in Los Angeles, we had to pay for an afterschool program at the school for the rest of the day. It was babysitting. Not stimulating or fun. We hated to do it. But because there wasn’t transportation available, and because my wife and I couldn’t leave our jobs in the middle of the day, that was our only option.

One more point: Carrie McKiernan is asking that every school be able to decide, to meet the needs of their children and their parents. How would you determine that? Majority rule? Just curious. Carrie’s view might win out but then many parents would be disadvantaged.

By: Maria Ku

Maria Ku — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:23:09 +0000

Regarding European countries starting school at 7 -

Yes, we started at 7, but we were expected to read fluently before starting school and were actually tested on our reading and math (doing it by yourself in front of a group of 3-4 teachers) prior to entering the first year of school.

In preschool, we were taught to add 3 digit numbers, by placing hundreds under hundreds and tens under tens.

When I came to this country and started college here, I discovered that college algebra is what we learned in 5th grade (at age 11), and then trigonometry in 7th grade, and calculus in 9th & 10th. Don’t even start me on how we learned science – how deep, how early. . .

So when you talk about “starting school”, make sure you define what you mean by that.

By: Jenn

Jenn — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:11:57 +0000

All day OUSD kindergarten is great and I feel fortunate that the timing worked out for my daughter to be in an extended day kindergarten. I can’t believe that only 1-2 years ago they were still doing half day.

However, for all the talk of kindergarten being academic… frankly I haven’t seen it yet. My daughter’s K class is more about play and socialization. I’m actually really surprised that they haven’t covered any material that is really new to my daughter. K seems a lot more like preschool than I anticipated with block areas, play kitchens, playdough, coloring, drawing, looking at books, naptime, art, music, PE etc. Where are the academics in Kindergarten?

By: Debora Rinehart

Debora Rinehart — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:24:10 +0000

With the mandatory cut off date of September 1, AND half day kindergarten, we will have many children with the problem my daughter faced and that is that she was ready, academically, socially, developmentally, and physically for kindergarten, yet had to stay in preschool another year. Now we find that she entered first grade with the knowledge, skills and development of grade 1 – month 6, and is entering into second grade having nearly mastered the curriculum, developmental skills (as assessed by the first grade teacher) to be “advanced” in almost every area.

If kindergarten becomes mandatory, are there safeguards in place for kids that are ready before the cut-off, then it will work. If there are no safeguards in place, then we are accommodating the lowest common denominator at the expense of the other children. From what I have seen, the schools are too bureaucratic to assess kids for early admission and few teachers want to believe a 4.6 year old is ready for kindergarten.

My daughter was in a play-based, developmental preschool that focused on a Reggio Emilia style. There was no focus on traditional learning, yet she was bored with not being able to read for information. Not all children are excited about having a kindergarten with a “play house,” puppet theater, block corner and bathrooms in the classroom. Some children yearn for more intense learning. This difference is very real and should be embraced as much as any other learning style.

By: Harriet Hutchinson

Harriet Hutchinson — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:48:40 +0000

Carrie – you hit the nail right on the head! We have geared up the curriculum so much without making allowences for different developmental levels not to mention learning styles. There is pending legislation to change the cut off date to Sept 1 (currently Dec. 2) and to make Kindergarten mandatory which it currently is not in California.
I taught for a year in England and the schools I saw were much more attuned to developmental needs of young children. When I visited schools in Japan I found that 5 year olds were still at schools with a nursery program and the six year olds who were first year students in school went home at 1 p.m. (not staying all day). And Scandanavian countries do not start their children in schools until age 7. Suggesting that European and Asian countries do geared up curriculum and longer days is not what I have seen first hand. And, I contend that even if they do does that make it right? If we look at the suicide rates of some of these countries would we want that for our children? (That seems harsh but I think it’s important to be realistic and not lump every child together – our children all have different needs when it comes to education).

By: Carrie McKiernan

Carrie McKiernan — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:33:55 +0000

I see the reduction of hours spent in the classroom as the most viable solution given the current climate of forcing down what used to be the 1st grade curriculum into the K curriculum, combined with the lack of funds to offer extensive classrom aides. While I know many children are able to master the curriculum, not all are reading the encyclopedia in their spare time.

Yes, Thornhill does have a PFC that is able to support items that the district is no longer able to fund, but that does not include full time aides in Kindergarten. Our structure prior to all day was similar to what Jim M describes – a team of two teachers was there for the majority of the day, able to handle the 20-27 kids who were there. I have a 5th grader who went through half day K, and many were spent after a half day. While there are many folks whose kids are up for an afternoon of classes, etc, most of the families I knew had kids who couldn’t make it through an afternoon class after a morning of kindergartener. Some still nap at that age, and are falling asleep in class, as OUSD says there is to be no ‘nap’.

The solution of lowering the age seems a logical direction on the surface, but to me is an outcome of asking kids to do things that aren’t age appropriate. We’ve slowly made kindergarten into first grade, and found that the kids who are ready for that kind of day… are first graders.

By: Debora Rinehart

Debora Rinehart — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:16:00 +0000

Getting back to Harriet’s comments about stress and shirt sucking – these are not habits of a well adjusted kindergartner and I sincerly doubt that the only reason for the stress is the longer day. There was no adjustment in curriculum at the time kindergarten began full day. The quantity of reading and math material was the same, just more time to teach the material in new and more creative ways such as art projects, science projects, hands on manipulatives, etc. Nearly every kindergarten class is limited to 20 students.

Perhaps the solution would be to make the kindergarten birthday cut off September 1 instead of December 2 or 3. You would have fewer 4 year olds in kindergarten and more children prepared for 6.5 hours of learning and fun.