Hi everyone,
I am so happy to have discovered this forum. I think we might belong here.

Our DD4 started full day kindergarten at a newly built school this September and the differences between her and her classmates are becoming apparent. I am concerned because she appears to know all of the kindergarten curriculum and that the next two years will be a lot of repetition for her. She has come home on several occasions and said, "Mommy they don't teach anything at school."

Here is an example of why I'm concerned. After the two year kindergarten program students are expected to: Be able to point to letters, words, and sentences on a page, Identify most upper case and lower case letters, Orally tell what sound is heard at the beginning and ending of words. (This is not the entire list but it gives you an idea.) DD taught herself all of the letter sounds last year and is now starting to read short children's books. They are also expected to be able to count to 30. DD was able to count to 100 a couple years ago and is moving on to topics like fractions and division. She's also obsessed with science and dinosaurs.

We are going in for our first parent teacher night in a couple of weeks and I'm at a loss as to what to do. I've been reading up on differentiation in the class room but I'm not sure if they can differentiate enough to meet her needs. Any advice would be welcome. Thank you for taking the time to read.

Welcome. You likely do belong here. They do however sound like fairly low targets. Do you live in an area with a lot of children who are at an educational disadvantage?

Welcome! But yes - by six they aren't expected to do more than recognise some letters and count to 30? That can't be right, surely? Here children start school at 4 and most children can do those things when they start.

It might be good in the sense that, even if your DD is the most advanced in the class, she may well not be the only one for whom those targets are inappropriate. If you're lucky, the school will have a decent differentiation plan. But yes, do push, and do think about alternatives.

Thank you for your response. They do sound low don't they? We are in Ontario, Canada and those expectations are for the entire province. We live in an area where children have educational advantages.

You are right to mention "educational disadvantage" though. Our province changed the K curriculum because it wanted to ensure that all students started grade one on the same footing. I don't know if this is like "No Child Left behind" in the United States but they are trying to raise the scores of children who attend schools in disadvantaged areas on a Province wide standardize test taken in grade 3.

Most of the parents here, who have the same cultural and socio economic background as we do, are happy with what they are learning in kindergarten. When the discuss their child's progress I can't participate because it's awkward.

DD's teacher has said so far that her academic skills are extremely high. It's scary realizing that she is not like everyone else.

We have preschool, generally at based, until 5-6yrs, depending on birthdate, and first year of formal school does have pretty similar goals - beginning to read (starting with alphabet) and making sure that kids aren't just reciting 1-10 but have correspondence and meaning etc. in high socio economic areas many children come in with all of this. In other areas not so much.... In any area it's a spectrum. But yes the goals of first year of formal schooling are scarily basic.

Where do you live (generally), and what type of school is this? I'm a bit confused that she started K at 4 and it is a 2-year program--are you outside the states, and/or is this a private school?

Eyreapparent's post (the Loc annotation beside it, rather) says s/he is in Canada.

In preparation for your meeting you may wish to construct a list or inventory of your kiddo's skills and accomplishments to-date, including a list of books she has read. You may want to look up the lexile or reading level of the books, or count the unique words (vocabulary) in the books if they are very simple books and a reading level is not found for them.

Keeping a log or journal and creating an annual inventory provides you with ongoing documentation, which may prove helpful to you somewhere along the way... in assessing continued growth, plateauing, or correctly communicating how many years ago your child mastered what is being offered in the current year curriculum.

At the meeting you may wish to
- provide a copy of the inventory to the teacher so s/he has a factual basis to understand your child's academic/intellectual development and interests.
- inquire as to the planned curriculum to the end of the year, and work together to see if there are any areas which may be new for your child.
- learn if there are other children with a similar level of readiness/ability as your child, with whom she could be grouped. This provides a benefit to the children and to the parents as well: Strength in numbers.
- partner with the school, and possibly plan to form a team to meet and discuss identifying appropriate curriculum for your daughter (and possibly for the cluster group as a whole)... is it level 1... level 2... some combination of both... etc?

The Davidson Database has articles on parent-teacher conferences. Resources such as those by Karen B Rogers PhD may also prove valuable.

Thank you indigo!! That information is extremely helpful.

sounds like the JK/SK in ontario, canada. if that's the case, it is a K curriculum split over two years, ostensibly to encourage depth and breadth. some areas currently have full-day, some only half-day as yet.

Hi,
I'm in Canada, too (BC), and we have the same learning outcomes for Kindergarten: know letter names and sounds, count to 30, be able to write your own name, know basic shapes and colours. So yes, that is what the 6 year-olds are required to know. My niece is 6 years and 9 months (grade 1) and she is just starting to blend words - and it doesn't sound like the teachers consider her behind.
You should be able to find the provincial learning outcomes for each grade online. I printed them out and went through them noting down what DS already knew and be what age he had mastered it - it was eye opening! That is when I knew that I wouldn't enroll him in a bm school (we are learning at home through a public distributed learning program).

Great strategy!

Would it really be any better if the learning outcomes for kindergarten were to be able to read at a level J (first grade level: Little Bear) at the end of kindergarten? That would be something I would run away from as a parent of an early reader, because that means a lot of time is going to be spent on reading, something my DD does not need help with.

It sounds like she is still in "preschool". We chose a preschool for DD that was only a few hours each week and completely play-based. We did not want the emphasis to be on reading. Instead DD learned about dinosaurs and science through art and songs. The pre-literacy skills that she had obviously picked up on her own were cemented through finger plays, story telling, and rhyming games.

For Kindergarten we chose a reggio emilio school because in our area they offered the most differentiation and evidence-based approaches for early childhood (which Kindergarten still falls under.) Again, there is actually little emphasis on reading--there is very little group instruction about it other than story elements which is awesome for any level reader. Reading is intertwined in other themes and areas of instruction, which allows for differentiation and exploration of things like fractions and division. What little 1:1 DD is getting in language arts is at her level.

I'm going to assume you're in Ontario (sorry if this is wrong). My first recommendation is to find out what your school board has in terms of gifted programs and what age they start. If you're open to changing school boards I'd also check out what they have for options (I'm in Ottawa so we have 4 school boards to compare). I'm not aware of any that start in JK or SK but there are a few boards that start in grade 1. You might want to check out the forum at http://www.abcontario.ca/ which might have more info about your specific school board.

I have a gifted DS7 who is in grade 2 and a non-tested DD5 in SK. I spent a lot of time in both of their classes so I'm reasonably familiar with the Ontario Full Day Kindergarten program. The expectations are set across the province and in many cases are far exceeded. Most of the reading was done 1:1 with a parent volunteer out in the hall so it was very easy to differentiate and have kids reading at their level. DD had 29 kids in her class so her teacher and ECE generally had stations for most of the day and worked with small groups which again lends itself well to being able to differentiate. The new program is very play based and at first glance looks like a bunch of kids just playing but it was surprising just how much they did manage to learn. TBH the kindergarten program is easier to differentiate than grade 1 when they generally start doing more worksheets that are explained as a group and then done at their desk while the teacher walks around.

IMHO differentiation is HIGHLY teacher dependent. We've had some teachers that are fantastic and were able to keep all of the kids engaged. Others weren't and the class was wild. It also highly depends on the kid's personality. My DS is 2e and can be highly disruptive if he isn't kept appropriately busy. He is far more challenging in a class since he often refuses to do work that is "boring". DD on the other hand is much more of a people pleaser and loves the social part of school. Neither of them is learning much academically at the moment but we finally have DS not acting out and reasonably happy and DD is happy. They are both learning a lot of soft skills and for DS he's learning ways to cope and work around his LD which for now is what we're focusing on. We will likely have to change stuff in the future but for this year we're ok with that. We do a lot of learning after school.

My advice would be to go in with an open mind and see what they say. You might want to take some examples of her work/ability in case they haven't noticed and see what they can do for her. You might also want to inquire about testing. Our school won't test until grade 3 so we did it privately. Having concrete results went a long way with our DS's situation. We were no longer pushy parents that thought their kid was super smart. In his case the 2e hid a lot of his abilities in a school setting so they were a bit stunned by just how high his scores were. They still aren't able to fully meet his needs but at least they're trying and are working with us to try to improve things.

Yes, we are in Ontario - Peel Region. I'm surprized to learn that parent volunteers were invited to help with reading in the your DCs K classes. As of yet, I haven't been informed of such a program at our school. That is something I will definitely ask about. I'm happy to hear there is room for differentiation within the system. Her teacher and ECE are approachable but I wasn't sure if asking to modify activities for DD would be something that was feasible. It's good to know it can be done.

Our board also doesn't test until grade three. It is something we are thinking of getting done on our own. My DD sounds a lot like your description of your DD. She is enjoying the social aspect of school but as I mentioned, isn't learning a lot academically. As a funny aside her teacher told me that DD came up to her and said, "I am exhausted because I've played too much today. I would like to go home now." Good to hear that your son's school situation is improving.

Thanks to everyone for their advice so far. I have a lot of research to do and info to collate for the meeting. Now at least I feel I will be prepared.

Every teacher implements the program slightly different so your school might approach things differently. Even in our school they don't have the volunteers start until mid-Oct or early-Nov so they can get the classes into a routine before kids start getting pulled out.

There is definitely room for differentiation but as I said before it is highly teacher related. Some teachers are fantastic at it, others not so much. Some teachers are also mostly focused on the bottom of the class especially when the top ones are well behaved and coasting along so it might take some advocacy to give her some more challenging work. Other teachers are fascinated to dig deeper and challenge the top.

There are also some things that are easier than others to differentiate. DS does wonderful in science which is much more open ended and he can go more in depth but we still don't have a solution for math class since he isn't the type to do all of the grade 2 work and then sit and teach himself more advanced math with extra worksheets so for now it is a work in progress.

If you do have a chance to volunteer in the class I'd highly recommend it. It has been invaluable in seeing exactly what is going on and getting beyond the "nothing" answer to "what did you do/learn at school today?". It has also helped me better understand what is and isn't possible for them to do. Last year DD's class had 29 kids which included 3 special needs and 3 ESL. Some days I was amazed the teachers were still standing at the end of the day never mind that any learning occurred Lastly, it has made for a better teacher/parent relationship and greatly increased communication. We are far from a perfect school situation but at least we're slowing moving in the right direction.

Good luck!

Some families find good results by asking about the best thing that happened in school today... and the worst thing that happened in school today.

one tip for the parent-teacher meeting, based purely on a horrible personal experience...

they're likely going to focus on social adjustment at this first meeting. if you want to talk about academic concerns (and it sounds like that's appropriate!), you may need to couch it in the feelings your kid is reporting around not learning anything. the teacher may be less likely to instantly label you as a pushy/rushy parent (not that you are!) and actually focus on the problems at hand.

all the best!

Another version (which I learned here), is "tell me a question that you asked at school today."

This is a good point. DD's weak area is fine motor skills. She has a hard time with things like cutting with scissors and zipping up her coat. The teacher has mentioned it to me once. She will probably make it one of her main talking points at the meeting.

And writing. Can they write 4 pages of drivel in 15 mins about what they did in the weekend when the weekend is simply no longer relevant.

I'm sending you a private message, eyreapparent.

PMed you, Aquinas.

Just wanted to give a quick update about our parent teacher conference. The advice and information you all offered was spot on.

The teacher and ECE agreed that DD was extremely advanced orally and that her reading level was beyond the kindergarten curriculum. They mentioned that we might want to think about enrolling her in French immersion for grade one. I just put that suggestion aside for now as I'm really not sure what to do about that.

They did mention that her writing output was no where near her reading/verbal skills and that she needs to work on her writing grip - they said that she's actually on target for a four year old but when compared with her verbal abilities she should be able to produce more. I think that is the definition of asynchronous development, no?

They also mentioned that differentiation in the class was completely possible at this point but that things will probably change in grade one. Right now even though DD continues to say that she doesn't learn anything in school, she is happy attending kindergarten due to the social aspect of it.

We are ok for now, but I sense that there may be issues once she enters grade one or even sooner, as kindergarten is a two year program here. Thanks again for your help. I'm so glad that there are other parents out there who can commiserate and don't think that I'm just a pushy, braggy parent!

Thanks for the update. So glad to hear things are OK for now. Savor the moment.

Just something you may want to keep simmering on the back burner... in preparation for the day when you may need it, you may want to keep up with logging books DD reads, storing her selected works in a portfolio, and reading up on advocacy books from prufrock press, great potential press, free spirit publishing.

Great suggestions! Indigo, I'm going to try and savour the moment and I will follow your advice about creating a portfolio. The idea that she is stagnating IS simmering quietly in the background. I find it so strange that our school system is worried about "pressuring" her to learn things when she's chomping at the bit to learn about anything and everything and it feels like they're yanking on the reigns yelling slow down!

Master of None, yesterday after reading your post, I asked DD if she wanted to write a book with me sometime (like maybe tomorrow) and she jumped up and said, "Can we start now?". She has plans to create a book and then turn it into a movie. Fun times.