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I was recently contacted by Renee at School Sparks about the wonderful resources she has created that are available FREE to Kindergarten Teachers. Renee is a retired preschool and Kindergarten teacher and it's obvious she knows a lot about early childhood education and what teachers need to help students succeed. I am so glad that she made me aware of her wonderful site!
I highly recommend you check out School Sparks to find something for your classroom or recommend the site as a resource for your students' parents. Be sure to check out the Kindergarten worksheets page for resources covering skills like fine motor, alphabet, auditory processing, visual discrimination, letter/word awareness, phonemic awareness, math/number awareness, social/emotional development, holiday themes and Kindergarten themes.
I also love the Kindergarten Readiness Test she has for parents. I think it would be extremely beneficial for parents of our students to fill out during Kindergarten screening. I am going to recommend it to our counselor. Sometimes I don't think parents truly know how much is expected from their child throughout the Kindergarten year.
Check out School Sparks and tell Renee that I sent you. :)
I "took" the kindergarten readiness test.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, too much that is NOT age appropriate for many kids has been pushed down to kindergarten. I teach in a high poverty area. Should we just tell all the parents to wait another year? I took the test in light of my middle to lower kids. According to the results, they are far from ready. Well, they don't have that luxury. Their parents are generally not well educated and aren't going to give them an extra year. Not only that, but we need to (as a country) come to the realization that cramming more and more academics younger and younger isn't always BETTER.
@Mrs. Gorbe I completely agree. I also work in a school district that takes every child regardless of whether they are ready or not. Age is pretty much the only factor for our school because we are public education. However, I think the test would be good for parents to know from the beginning of the year rather than see their child potentially struggling throughout the year and not know why. During our Kindergarten Screening process, we have added additional testing because we were finding that the results of the Brigance Screening weren't giving us all we needed to know.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it is unfortunate that we are trying to hold all students to a standard that not all students seem to be ready for, especially when this age has such a large range of what is considered developmentally appropriate.
Blessings,
Marlana
Lil' Country Kindergarten