Vent warning -- I spent a morning observing the lower elementary grades at a private school near us and it was not confidence building. They said they typically had one kindergartener per class enter reading each year, and that was any reading. They seemed very confident they could do in class differentiation (they had no option for accelerating in a subject) but on questioning that was going to entail having the child read pretty much the same material as the top "reading" group in the class, but look for different or additional aspects of it beyond what would normally be expected. Okay, but the books have typically less than a sentence per page, what's DSs plot summary supposed to say, something like, "In this work, Spot is seen exercising"?
No wonder US teachers can confidently say everyone evens out by 3rd grade, I'm sure most would with that approach. At this particular school, with compulsive emphasis on obedience, rules, points, rewards, decorum, etc, and near total exclusion of concepts and other content, I'm sure DS would be barely breathing by 3rd grade.
I haven't observed the public school yet but if private schools tend to run a bit ahead of publics it doesn't bode well... makes me feel kind of ill.
Polly
