Test children before allowing them to start kindergarten

[JDPriestly]

In Austria, my children were given three years of cost-free half-day kindergarten. (The teachers were extremely well prepared. It was amazing, wonderful and worth every cent the Austrian people spent on those three years.)

After their three years of (cost-free, half-day) kindergarten, my children were required to be six years old and to take a TEST, yes, a TEST before they could enter the first grade. The test required them to draw a picture. Those who could not draw a picture were deemed to lack the mental maturity and skills to enter the first grade. They had to wait.

If we tested children in this simple way before allowing them to start the first grade, we would have better results in the twelfth grade. That is because it is the children who start first grade without the dexterity, skills and maturity to learn to read, write and calculate who slow down the whole process. Experts can determine whether a child has certain minimal cognitive readiness from a picture.

Testing children before putting them on a failure track would save taxpayers a lot of money and families a lot of heartbreak.

[hedgehog]

1. My school district tests kids before admitting them to kindergarten.

I think the purpose of the test is to identify kids who need special attention. For example, all of my children had a variant of my Irish brogue/West Virginia/Southern Ohio accent, and all were referred to the speech therapist for further evaluation. The speech therapist decided that none of them actually needed any therapy.

The side effect of the testing is that middle class parents put their kids into nursery schools, most of which emphasize prep for the kindergarten test! It's ridiculous! Everyone is trying to push their kids to the head of the pack!

Your basic premise is correct, IMO. What I would really love to see is the unified classroom for grades K-3. The theory is each kid gets one-on-one teaching to ensure they develop basic skills. My kids did more than OK in reading (college level by 8th grade), one did poorly in math/arthmetic because she was about 6 months behind the standard curve in readiness. She's smart, but to this day is math-phobic. All of them could have used one-on-one for printing/cursive.

[JDPriestly]

10. Learning phobias are often associated with not being ready to start

learning a subject. That is one of the biggest problems in our schools. Children learn to fear or hate learning. It should be the other way around. Children should learn to love to learn at school.

[madmom]

16. Sounds a lot like what happened to mine. She was tested on the day she had a head cold, she ended up

in speech therapy also. What a crock.

[Arkansas Granny]

2. This might be very good in theory, but in practice, those 3 years of kindergarten

are going to be very expensive for the taxpayer. I'm not saying that it's not worth it, just that testing alone isn't going to save taxpayers a lot of money.

[hedgehog]

3. It won't save money, but it will ensure the money is well spent.

How many kids go all the way through 12th grade without learning how to read? Now that's a waste of tax payers' money and a recipe for life long disaster!

[katmondoo]

4. My Grandson is a gifted artist however he is autisic

He could not read or write or understand commands at 6. Excelled in drawing. Could he have passed the test.

[Fresh_Start]

9. my son is the opposite

gifted in English, math, and science...but terrorized by drawing and coloring

[JDPriestly]

11. I don't know what they were looking for.

I never heard of an autistic child in Austria. There must have been some but I never saw or heard of one.

[Cronus Protagonist]

13. From your own statements, he could not

If he could not understand commands, he could not have passed the test.

[FLyellowdog]

5. Already doing that in most parts of the country.

I've forgotten more than most people know about early childhood education but I do recall providing developmental testing to 4 and 5 yr olds. There's a simple "Draw a Man" activity that's pretty accurate at determining a child's suitability for first grade. Gesell Institute was instrumental in doing research in this area.

These screenings do probably help to ensure that young children aren't pushed too much before they are ready. A butterfly can't be forced out of its crysalis until it's ready to spread its wings.:hi:

[sense]

6. Seems like a

good idea......but only if they can enter a higher grade if they test out of first, second, whatever. Drawing a picture is not a good test. Try talking to them, observing, in 3 years time surely it would be obvious where they belong in school.

[demigoddess]

7. okay, but I want the kids to have preschool beforehand. we are wasting our

kids best learning years by not having preschool, and kindergarten is not offered in all states, then delaying first grade, just might not be a good idea. Republicans are probably dying to deny kids a few years in school, especially during their best learning years. Would provide so many more low wage workers!!!

[JDPriestly]

12. In Austria, the children learned neatness, social skills, how to pay

attention, how to make things (manual dexterity, planning and love of beauty), how to listen to and tell a story and other things like that. Children did not, ever, ever, ever learn to read in kindergarten. They also did not learn the alphabet.

They did not learn to read or recite the alphabet (not sure they ever really learned that) until they were 6 and accepted into the first grade.

I learned to read by myself very early. I think it is better to wait to learn to read.

[hedgehog]

17. It would be fantastic if we could make that the kindergarten curriculum here.

I don't think this will fly, though, because what this is is acculturation to a certain middle class life style: show up, pay attention, respect others. This goes against the attitudes of a lot of parents out there. Just getting the kids to expect to show up for school every day no matter what would be a tremendous leap forward.

[demigoddess]

18. my boys were asking what words were at three. reading small words by four

and two or more kids in my son's kindergarten were reading at the 3rd grade level. My son at third grade was reading adult level books usually science fiction, no adult themes. I thought experts had proved that early learning is what is easiest. Overseas kids get more languages than we do here and they should not wait til high school to teach french, spanish etc.

[JDPriestly]

19. Children don't just learn from books. They need to learn to look at

nature, to build things, to use spoken language well, to follow a story and listen to others. A child will learn to read very easily at the age of 6 and may naturally learn to read at an earlier age out of curiosity but should not be encouraged to do that too early or too strongly. Children need to understand the real world before they start to read. That is my belief. It really worked with my children.

Once my oldest was 6 and started to read, she learned very, very quickly and without problems. Learning second and third languages were not difficult for her because she was very confident in her use of language and had a big vocabulary. Of course, the German language is phonetic and easier to learn to read than English.

Also, my children heard English from me when they were small but did not really speak it much at all. They wanted to speak German. They did not want to speak English until we moved to the United States. Once we moved here and they learned more English, they did not want to speak German. Language is first for communication.

[LibertyLover]

8. My daughter was tested before she entered kindergarten and

again before she entered 1st grade. We had her in 2 years of pre-k, starting when she was 3, prior to kindergarten that we paid for on our own. Our county has a very limited pre-k program for at-risk and low income children that she did not qualify for because of my income. Most children at the school started there when they were 2 and had 3 years of pre-k in order to prepare for the kindergarten test.

[Jennicut]

14. Drawing a picture? My daughter is halfway through kindergarten and is expected to write her name

and several words, and read those words. She has to know the sounds the letters mean and to count to 100 and write the numbers up to 20. She does weekly homework where she has to write a picture each time. Really, kids today are far ahead of where I was in school. By the end of nursery school, Morgan was already writing her name.

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. We do that already

I don't know of any school districts that don't test incoming kindergarteners.