One of my students is not doing as well in her parents eyes as they would expect. The parents are unimpressed with my phonics and reading activities. They say she can’t read at home; I just found this out today; reading program has been going on for 6 months straight. :fume: They are comparing her progress to other kids from Hess who go to her piano class. They think Hess might be a better school for their daughter and it now falls on me to convince them otherwise.
So before I talk to the mom, I need to know what does Hess actually teach a K2 second semester student? Can they read? Do they actually speak or do they just parrot the books? I’m not slamming Hess. I just really want to know how to phrase what I say to the mom and explain the differences.
They basically want her to be able to use polite English, in everyday life normally without any difficulties. This is an issue I have to deal with and I would be doing a very nice boss a great disservice if I didn’t at least try to change the mother’s perceptions and knowledge. The rest of my class is doing fine. I had 2 students who weren’t reading at home, their mom’s told me, I told them to use a treat(candy) to get them to read and now they read at home for their mommies.
In a parallel universe, you could say, “If you want your child to read like kids at Hess because you want to impress other parents, send her to Hess. If you want her to learn in an interactive, creative environment at a pace that suits her abilities and allows her to learn comfortably without pressure to perform like a trained chimp, however, I would suggest you trust me that she’s doing fine.”
I’m not sure what age group K2 is, but if it’s for children under the age of 5, her parents are expecting too much of her already. Most North American programs don’t really push whole-language literacy until the 1st grade and that’s for native English speakers.
A professional explanation of the steps that she should go through to establish a strong foundation and internalise the language, grow in confidence, etc. should be enough for any “reasonable” parent. Explain things truthfully (what am I saying - truthfully, this is Taiwan, they can’t handle the truth ). Without understanding your methods and program, I can’t really comment much. You know what you’re doing. Show them that.
If I knew what age K2 students were, I could present something more tangible for the real world (okay, stop laughing just because I was referring to Taiwan).
Then I can easily tell you that most children don’t possess the mental ability to be able to read at that age and that in most American preschools (where this age group would be preschool and not actually a kindergarten class), they generally do not formally teach literacy such as recognizing initial, middle, and final sounds and sounding out words or teaching sight words. They teach reading and writing incidentally by providing the materials and environment for children to explore reading and writing.
For instance, in my class of 3- and 4-year olds, we have been studying community helpers and set up a hospital in our dramatic play. In this area, in addition to the medical materials (fake stethoscope, band-aids, colored water, cotton balls, and Q-tips), we put in a medical chart and examination form, X-rays, a pretend eye chart and pens for the children. They immediately began interviewing their patients and scribbling in the boxes. They were practicing scribbling, connecting words to written symbols, using fine motor control to write in small boxes, and reading the information provided by the diagrams, and even referring to the different E’s on the chart by letter names like W for upward-pointing E’s, M for downward pointing E’s and 3 for left-facing E’s. Would it have been more effective for me to have taught them how to read and write the vocabulary than to have them pretend to read and write the words? I don’t know about that. I do know that it would have been overwhelming for most of them and not appropriate for their age.
Maybe by showing this parent in question the materials you use and what your expectations are for the children while underlining the fact that children develop at their own pace (I know, fantasy world thinking that parents here will accept this idea) and that her daughter is at a level which is appropriate for her age group, you will gain this parent’s confidence. You could even point out that children who tend to be advance readers come from homes where they are read to in an interactive manner and parents are a good model of reading and provide lots of opportunities for exposing their children to print. Flatter her by saying that as long as she keeps showing her daughter how literacy is important to the mother’s everyday life, her daughter will come along.
If you want further proof of emergent reading and writing, use this article on what steps children go through on the road to literacy:
Let’s face it. If the parent is only thinking of her daughter not reading as well as other preschoolers ( ) then there’s a good chance that she’s more interested in the face factor than in the quality of her daughter’s education and nothing you could say short of “I’ll get her reading better than those other kids before June” is going to sway her thinking. However, there’s always a chance that you may help her learn a little more about pre-literacy and emergent reading and of realistic expectations for a 5-year-old.
If I had a penny for every time I’d heard a Taiwanese parent whining about how their four or five year old wasn’t “reading” as well as his classmates (code for reciting the text which they’ve memorized from class and the tape they are sent home with), then I’d be…well, I wouldn’t be rich, but I’d sure have a lot of pennies. The next complaint you’re likely to get is that KK is not included for all the words in the book, so poor mommy and daddy aren’t able to “help” (code for beginning to drill their kid from an early age with a shit system of phonetic symbols, thus killing any urge to read that they may have) their kid read at home.
Honestly, Hess’s Kindy program is good— far better than their language school program. The top 3 of my 5-7 year olds were reading books independently and were able to spell a good number of words by memory.
They get 3 hours a day 5 days a week, and after 2-3 years of the program it pays off. But if you look at kids who have only been there one year you won’t see much.
Make sure she’s comparing apples to apples. Is she sending her kid to you all day 5 days a week? Has it been 2 years with you?
I don’t work for Hess any more, and I have more gripes about their language school curriculum than you can throw a sticky ball at. But I think their kindergarten program is good.
[quote=“puiwaihin”]Honestly, Hess’s Kindy program is good— far better than their language school program. The top 3 of my 5-7 year olds were reading books independently and were able to spell a good number of words by memory.
They get 3 hours a day 5 days a week, and after 2-3 years of the program it pays off. But if you look at kids who have only been there one year you won’t see much.
Make sure she’s comparing apples to apples. Is she sending her kid to you all day 5 days a week? Has it been 2 years with you?
I don’t work for Hess any more, and I have more gripes about their language school curriculum than you can throw a sticky ball at. But I think their kindergarten program is good.[/quote]
By 7, they should be able to read independently. All of the kindergarteners in my school are reading or at least able to decode and recognize a lot of sight words and write sentences with developmental spelling. They are 5 going on 6 years old. But I would not expect the same thing from a class of 4 going on 5 year olds. Memorizing words is not the only part of being to read them and being to read a book doesn’t make one literate. Reading and understanding text makes a reader. Being able to interpret the illustrations and retell the story in your own words are two of the signs of a good reader.
I don’t know Hess outside of their advertisements, but if the number of speech and reading competitions are a sign of how they measure success, I can see why this mother thinks literacy is a competitive sport rather than a life skill.
Here you say you have no direct knowledge of Hess:
But from the following
you seem to imply that:
Parents of Hess children are only truly out to impress other parents and not actually concerned with their children’s learning.
Hess can not possibly provide an adequate learning environment.
Children who study at Hess don’t actually learn.
So if you don’t have direct knowledge of Hess, is it fair to say you were making that up? Furthermore, isn’t it possible that none of what you implied is necessarily true, that you were unfairly characterizing Hess, and that it is possible Hess can do a good job educating children?
Funny, I wrote that as “if she wanted her child to be learning the exact same thing as the ones who go to Hess, then she should send her to Hess.”
My subsequent post (the one you didn’t fully cite) is the one that knocks Hess using English as a way of saying “Look at how good we are at teaching kids…see us showing off the latest speech competition where the kids sound like robots?” No wonder people can’t speak English unless it’s scripted. I say the same thing for the Chinese schools here who do the same. You will also note that I am not saying your precious Hess is for parents who want to show their children off. I’m saying that if one judges all their advertisements where they show kids performing rather than actually using the language, I could see how a parent would conclude that English is a sport.
English is not a competition. It’s a language.
And I don’t appreciate having someone put words in my mouth.
The class is made up of 5 year olds on the simple reading, I only have 3 out of 15 students who can’t do it without subsequent help. It’s reviewed everyday and the stories are entertaining and strange. I have 2 problems with this student.
She doesn’t read at home. Because my normal material(Kaiser Kastle) is scripted and does’t have much in the way of interconnecting thoughts, though it does follow itself every year and extend on the original teahcing point
She isn’t speaking for mommy at home. I’ve fought tooth and nail to get my 5 day a week/3 hours a day program to go English only. I’ve only recently succeeded. She’s one of my worst offenders. When I got the class back after the last idiot who taught it, she would always run to the Chinese teacher and blather on in Chinese about who pushed her or was doing something wrong. I fixed that. She’s still rough around the edges but has come around in class and is doing well for me.
My questions about Hess:
Do they go with an English only program and if so at what level?
How good is the English reading program? Is it based on phonics or whole word?
I know Hess has a person whose job is to read this board and reply so please do be helpful. I would appreciate it. I think it’s more a home problem then a teaching problem, but mom thinks of it vice versa.
Do they go with an English only program and if so at what level?
How good is the English reading program? Is it based on phonics or whole word?[/quote]
Yes, it’s English only. Or at least it’s supposed to be. They do that from the lowest class. When the native teacher is teaching all things in class are English only. New classes, younger classes, will have some level of Chinese when the NST is there, but that should die out as the students learn classroom language
Yep. And it also needs to be clear that they aren’t memorizing sentences from their CD and just repeating them verbatim.
Hess is not the only school with a good kindergarten, by any means. I’m just saying it wouldn’t be right to knock Hess’s program to promote your own since IMHO the Hess program is good.
First, those are your words I quoted. Are you suggesting otherwise?
Second, I don’t need to fully cite you there because nothing that follows what I am citing qualifies it. Had you qualified your statement further I would have included it.
I’m not challenging you on your comments regarding the speech and reading competitions. I’m looking for clarification from you on what you are implying here:
because of this statement:
So once again if you don’t have direct knowledge of Hess, is it fair to say you were making up the first quote I cited? Furthermore, isn’t it possible that none of what you implied is necessarily true, that you were unfairly characterizing Hess, and that it is possible Hess can do a good job educating children?
Neon, are you one of those people who get paid by Hess to scan internet boards like this one? Your point has been that someone is mischaracterizing Hess, perhaps she is, but how do you know so much about them? Do you work for them? In what regard?
Hess doesn’t have a real reading program at the kindergarten level. By big class they must memorize some words and you have a short read of a short book every week. There is no program to develop independent reading skills. As far as I recall, there isn’t even a phonics program at Hess Kindy, just ABC’s and memorizing words. Do they teach short and long vowel sounds?
IMO, those three children had their parents read to them. Many researchers believe that reading to your child will be habit forming.
Hess gets some good students because they offer corporate discounts to big businesses and so the parents send their kids to Hess rather than face shame at work.
). Without understanding your methods and program, I can’t really comment much. You know what you’re doing. Show them that.
