Expectations are higher than ever for kindergarteners

Just like in other grades, kindergarten students now strive to meet Indiana Common Core State Standards for mathematics and English/language arts.

“Kindergarten is more like what first grade used to be when I went to school,” Weston Elementary School kindergarten teacher Heidi Morris said. “They do learn to read in kindergarten instead of the first grade.”

Dozens of parents who will send their children off to school for the first time next fall are getting an inkling of what will be in store. At kindergarten roundups at county schools, which started this week and continue next week, teachers and parents met, took tours, and discussed what kindergarten will be like.

For many parents enrolling children for the first time, it will be a lot different than they remember.

With 10 years of experience, Morris has seen steady change over the past few years in the way kindergarten is being taught, and she likes it.

“Nowadays, kids are capable of learning the core standards,” she said.

While kindergarten classrooms are still a place where young students learn socialization skills and how to do for themselves, the learning environment is more intense.

State standards call for kindergarten students to learn algebraic thinking – a basic understanding of addition and subtraction. Students are also asked to learn geometry skills and be able to identify and describe shapes, plus analyze, compare, create and compose images. 

Most students come into kindergarten already knowing the alphabet, and some can even read, educators say.

“We also have some who don’t even know how to hold a pencil,” Eastern Hancock kindergarten teacher Denise Hall said.

It doesn’t take educators long to figure out whether a student has or hasn’t been to preschool or had some type of educational experience at home.

“We, as a nation, expect more of our kindergarten students than ever before,” said Rhonda Peterson, Southern Hancock’s director of instructional services.

It’s why Greenfield’s Nathan and Autumn Easterday enrolled their son Seth in preschool for several years before registering him for kindergarten this week at Weston Elementary.

“If kids aren’t up to the same standards as everyone else, they can get picked on,” Autumn Easterday said.

“He’s ready to go,” his father said. “He’ll probably handle it better than I will.”

Fortville Elementary School Principal Susan Bennett said educators there are using the same screening process they did many years ago; she feels students come in with about the same skills they had 10 years ago.

But she believes they leave kindergarten now with many more skills than they did before.

“We have worked to improve our kindergarten program to best meet the individual needs of our students,” Bennett said.

It means smaller group teaching and one-to-one contact.

“We also have enriched our curriculum significantly,” she added.

Weston Elementary Principal Steve Burt, who has been in education some 40 years, said there is a substantial difference from what was being taught in kindergarten years ago to what students are learning today.

“It is so, so different,” he said. “Everything is so much more accelerated.”

It’s why he is thrilled the school now offers only full-day kindergarten for students.

When the state elected to pick up the cost of tuition for full-day kindergarten, Southern Hancock officials saw full-day enrollment more than double.

Peterson said it is crucial children not only attend preschool, if possible, but that they need to be in a full-day kindergarten program, the only kind of kindergarten program now offered in the county.

“There are many research studies that now support the positive impact that this early programming can have on all students,” Peterson said.

Currently, Indiana law states children don’t have to attend school until they turn 7. That, Peterson said, is way too late for educational development.

Students who don’t come into kindergarten without some type of educational base can quickly find themselves behind in the classroom, even at age 5.

However, Morris said educators do all they can to help those students learn the foundations they need to be successful in the future.

“We do try to do things that are appropriate to help them develop,” she said.

For the students who are ahead, teachers say they differentiate the curriculum so that they will be challenged.

“We do really cater the small groups to the different levels of the students,” Morris said.

Regardless of where the students are, she said, the goal is to help them meet the state benchmarks.

That should not be a problem for future kindergarten student Kenna Tweedy whose mother, Brooke Tweedy, brought her in for registration this week at Weston Elementary.

“She’s been able to write her name for awhile now,” Brooke Tweedy said.

“We’ve had her in preschool for these past two years and that has helped a lot.”