Reed Kindergarteners Are On The Fast Track To Success

My uncle once told me that he got to skip Kindergarten because he already knew how to tie his shoes. After talking to Reed School's Kindergarten Team it's clear that teachers Susan Galloway, Alison Gordon, Jena Regnier, and Alicia Vance have taken this foundation of education to a new level.

A typical year begins as you might expect. The students are "eager, excited, anxious, watchful, impulsive, [and] inquisitive," the Reed Kindergarten Team agreed.

"Kindergarteners tend to come in with their own agenda. Before they can become fully respectful of the teacher, they need to learn to follow directions, classroom routines, redirects, etc.," said Regnier. And as for getting along with other classmates? The teachers agreed that some friendship skills are learned throughout later.

The Kindergarten Team's goals for the year include teaching the four- and five-year-olds to:

• Become independent learners
• Meet the of their core curriculum provided by the district and the state. These include topics such as literacy and phonetic analysis, contextural clues, sight vocabulary, comprehension skills.
• Learn to self-regulate and manage behaviors at appropriate times

The teachers say they work hard to meet the needs of individual students, hoping to instill a love of learning early.

While Kindergarten used to be more about socializing children, members of the Reed School team said academics are making their way into the Kindergarten curriculum. "In years past, Kindergarten goals involved more teacher direction for all activities.  Independence for pre-academic skills was not as important as it is now," said Gordon. In fact, when the students enter kindergarten, they are already expected to know how to recognize their name in print, print their first name, rote counting to ten, manage their classroom supplies, and be able to learn classroom procedures.

If there's one thing that's positively changed throughout the years is the use of technology in the classroom. What has been incorporated over time into high school and middle school classes has now trickled down so that computers are a regular part of Kindergarten. The Reed Kindergarteners attend a weekly computer class, read stories online, as well as use a bunch of other computer programs. Susan Galloway explained that opportunities "range from reading all kinds and levels of stories on Tumblebooks [to] using the math Investigations program to build and create with shapes, patterns, and attributes.  They look forward to going to the Computer Lab weekly, and are always ready to work on one of the computers in the classroom.  I am not talking about responding to games, but controlling what they do to solve a problem or learn a new skill."

But despite all of the changes in Kindergarten, some things will always remain the same. Grabbing the kids' attention is easiest when the teachers make the topics exciting and involving, and make the lessons hands-on. When I asked the Kindergarten Team what was easiest to teach the kids, they concur that it is classroom procedures and routines.  And when it comes to Teaching Assistants, who come every day for an hour to an hour and a half, they are "needed and appreciated." The Kindergarten Team agree that the hardest thing to teach their students is "self-control, breaking habits of impulsivities, [and] self-monitoring of behaviors," proving that even as Kindergarten becomes more technology-based and academically-centered, kids will be kids. By the end of the year, improvements are made in their students. The notice more self confidence and social skills, along with skills such as pre-reading and writing that they apply to their work, and exhibit behaviors that show they are ready to move on to the First Grade.