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. [/quote]
That depends a lot on the teacher. There’s supposed to be reading 5 times a week, 3 times from Hess proprietary books and twice from story books. The exact format for reading is one of the things that is left up to individual teachers. They have also started a writing program where students transcribe some basic phrases a few times once a week, but for average and above students this becomes an activity that helps them in reading as much as writing.
All but the bottom three of my big class kids could read the simple books (not repeating memorized lines) and the top 3 could pick up a familiar story book and do quite well. That is abnormal, but my class isn’t the only one I saw with kids excelling.
Hess Kindy phonics progresses from letter-sound in the first year, to two and three letter combinations by the end of the second year, to introducing consonant clusters and blends in the third. It does not get into vowel combinations or long short vowel sounds.
Certainly true for two of the kids. The fact that the ones I’m talking about are bright is not because of what I did or because of Hess’s program. But the program did allow them to learn a lot they likely wouldn’t have.
Probably true, but then they probably get good students because some kids are just naturally bright. Teachers who get them are lucky. Teachers who get kids whose parents read to them are lucky.
Again, I’m not saying other schools aren’t good, but that as an ex-kindy teacher there I’m saying I think it was a good program all around. The OP can try and show that they provide all the things Hess provides, and more power to them if they do.
I think this pretty much says it all. Getting parents to understand this is the challenge. It seems to me that Hess tries to market it as a competition. That seems to be something that some parents are attracted to.
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. [/quote]
That depends a lot on the teacher. There’s supposed to be reading 5 times a week, 3 times from Hess proprietary books and twice from story books. The exact format for reading is one of the things that is left up to individual teachers. They have also started a writing program where students transcribe some basic phrases a few times once a week, but for average and above students this becomes an activity that helps them in reading as much as writing.
All but the bottom three of my big class kids could read the simple books (not repeating memorized lines) and the top 3 could pick up a familiar story book and do quite well. That is abnormal, but my class isn’t the only one I saw with kids excelling.
Hess Kindy phonics progresses from letter-sound in the first year, to two and three letter combinations by the end of the second year, to introducing consonant clusters and blends in the third. It does not get into vowel combinations or long short vowel sounds.
Certainly true for two of the kids. The fact that the ones I’m talking about are bright is not because of what I did or because of Hess’s program. But the program did allow them to learn a lot they likely wouldn’t have.
Probably true, but then they probably get good students because some kids are just naturally bright. Teachers who get them are lucky. Teachers who get kids whose parents read to them are lucky.
Again, I’m not saying other schools aren’t good, but that as an ex-kindy teacher there I’m saying I think it was a good program all around. The OP can try and show that they provide all the things Hess provides, and more power to them if they do.[/quote]
Depends on the teacher too. I’m given a lot of freedom with my class at HESS, and my big class is well into long vowels. I rarely read the HESS books because they are not phonetically accessible to the children. I prefer my own daily writing/reading sentences for the kids to do after snack time. Now, it this the norm? No, but then again, I know a good number of other HESS teachers going above and beyond the curriculum. It really varies.
I know I am late on this one…
Okami, how did you sort it out?
I really feel that there is some kind of ‘information gap’ between parents and teachers. Namely that:
There are THREE factors to a childs’ learning.
The teacher
The child
The parent
The holy triumvirate. However, in this part of the world only factor 1 has any weight. Why???
“My Tony can’t read as well as Jerry.” Boo bloody Hoo. Children learn at different rates. My friends son can hardly talk, whilst my nephew won’t shut the f##k up for two seconds. And they are the same age. Sorry, I was going off topic…
My point is that too much responsibilty falls on to the teacher here. If a child can’t read as well as the parent likes then they should get some books from Caves/Eslite and help them to progress. Don’t march down to the school and fire off accusations, or threaten to take them elsewhere. The three way process just doesn’t exist here. Tell the bossy mother to take their little superstar elsewhere. I had the same problems when I worked at a kindy. "My Emerson can’t read the word ‘dictionary.’ Honestly, parents here seem to think their role as a childs helper ends after the procreation stage. Then the child get handed over to teachers/ grandparents/ Phillipino housemaids. Parents, it would seem, are blameless when it comes to their childrens learning and behaviour.
There are lists of what children should be achieving at different age levels. Tell the mother that your job is to make sure the child is accomplishing the milestones which are appropriate for her age. Anything beyond that is on her.
There are lists of what children should be achieving at different age levels. Tell the mother that your job is to make sure the child is accomplishing the milestones which are appropriate for her age. Anything beyond that is on her.[/quote]
A double Amen!
As a parent who read to her kids nightly since infancy, I can tell you that it’s true some of the time. I have an 8 year old who loves books but only when I’m the one reading them. :s
As a parent who read to her kids nightly since infancy, I can tell you that it’s true some of the time. I have an 8 year old who loves books but only when I’m the one reading them. :s[/quote]
I have a 3, almost 4, year old (my son) that has taken to grabbing the book and reading the story to me. Yes, he is just playing, but in the more simple books he does know the words and can point to them. I didn’t even “teach” him the words. I did, however, run my finder under the words while reading. He is eager to read and really independant about it. The T.V goes off when he sees a book.
This is not something that I’d be telling the parents of some of my younger students. The parents would want the same results.
The situation has resolved itself in my general favor. I can now email her and ride her butt about helping her daughter, but I’m afraid she’s a mommy with bad pronunciation. The daughter is still a parrot and her mom complains about everything, so I consider this a non-problem. Most of the kids in my class will read or volunteer to read on their own. Basically from my point of view, mom is a complainer and puts everything off on the teacher. F-her
CYA
Okami
PS Most of the problem has to do with poor communication from Chinese co-teacher. Who despite working with me for 2+ years and having me buy her dinner, still finds it hard to say anything to me.
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