As in, the way public and private schools push children to be reading small sentences in kindergarden? My dd can and does do this. Some days. And some days she doesn't. I let her learn at her own pace. No pressure here.

but~

Should children not still be studying the basics and adapting to their new environment in K? Is this part of the "No child left behind" agenda?

I ask in all seriousness as we have no direct contact with the school system. Only what I see on the news or read in the paper. I am mostly just curious as to why children are being moved along so quickly. It certainly doesn't work well as we see here locally in the test results.

Any opinions?

Check out Waldorf Education, they strongly believe that reading should start at age seven or later. So do most European countries.

ITA w/ Trisha
I think children should be learning at thier own pace. I do think that in K they should be exposed to phonics etc. If the child isn't interested in learning the letter sounds then I think the parent/teacher should just emphisize letter sounds when a child asks what something says or when playing etc. I don't think there needs to be any formal education at 5-7 unless the child wants it.

and yes, I think that some of this is the "no child left behind" although I recall that a child was expected to read well by first when I was in school so I don't think this is a new thing. I think it's the misguided idea that children must be taught everything while still children when supposedly they learn better. I think this maybe true for some things but I can't believe it's true for all or our school systems wouldn't be in such states of despair.

My dd seems to be falling into this testing crap. She is in 4th after being homeschooled for 2 years. They told me her reading level tests at 3rd grade one month, but "we are in fourth grade". I had such a strong urge to say......

Well, I like the classical education method and it is working for my daughter. It states that they basically should be reading (whatever that may be for that child) by the end of K which doesn't have to be 5. Depends on the child. Do what works.

Jenn

children looking at the pictures, figuring out the sentences by referring to them and the sentence patterns of that book.

I think phonics is important in K and learning to hop your finger from word to word is important.

From there.....................it just flows when they are ready.

Should they be able to read in kindergarten? No. I don't think so. There's a lot of other kinds of learning to be done at that age, and I think reading can definitely wait.

Now, I do think that they should teach pre-reading skills in kindergarten. Learning the alphabet, the right way to treat a book, even basic phonics are all valuable for that age range.

I say this as a mom to a very early reader. But if he wasn't reading in kindergarten, I wouldn't be worried at all.

Tara