Hanson's Ridge
Not a day goes by in a homeschool Facebook group of any decent size without a question along the following lines:
"What curriculum should I use for my 3/4/5 year old?" Also: "What does my preschooler need to learn right now?" The response generally runs along the following lines: "Let them play! Playing is learning at this age." It's true. And yet it's such hard advice to follow at times. We live in a culture where everyone wants to get their kids ahead. On the other end of the spectrum, you have kids interviewing for the right preschool so they can get in the right kindergarten so they can get into the right high school to get into the right college. Those aren't bad parents. They just have different goals. Or, a different way of achieving the same goals. In preschools and kindergartens across the country, the basic learning goals are similar (even without Common Core). Kids learn shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and basic number sense (counting and what it means, for example). They start building pre-reading and early-reading skills, including concepts of print (which way you hold a book, how to turn pages, the difference between letters, words, and sentences). Do you need to teach these at home? Yes and no. You do not need a formal preschool curriculum. The only specialized knowledge you really need is that kids need to learn letter sounds more than they need to learn letter names. Knowing how to teach letter sounds is as simple as learning the letter sounds for each letter. You can get into complicated rules later. Stick with the basics. How do you teach these concepts then? You read. You talk to your child. You make observations as you move through your life. Count the blocks in their tower. Sing silly alphabet songs. Read rhyming books and try to get your kiddo to guess the missing words at the end of lines. Play games together. Play I spy with colors. Read more books. You'd be amazed how much preschoolers can learn just through reading books together. Do I use a preschool curriculum? Yes. I've used a Year of Playing Skillfully for one year and we will be using it again this year. It has great, developmentally appropriate, play-based activities. Kids this age don't need worksheets (although sometimes my kids love them so I print them off occasionally). What about teaching your kid to read? There is no long-term advantage for children to learn to read before age 7. Some kids are ready and motivated before then, and some aren't. Follow their lead. So what about public school? Why do they have to spend all day teaching little kids these things? Because of family life. Many families, like the ones in the schools I taught in, are unable to provide the rich quality time that children thrive in. It's not their fault. I knew so many parents that worked incredibly hard, often at multiple jobs. They worked long shifts just to make ends meet. Many of them were immigrant families where English was the second language. Perhaps students knew many of these concepts in their home language, but school was where they learned academic skills in English. It also takes a great deal of time to explicitly teach (and assess) 20+ students, where the same concepts can be woven throughout the day in a family. I know that at the schools I taught at, the kindergarten teachers worked harder than any other teachers in the school. When I student taught, I was never more exhausted than when I spent my time in a kindergarten classroom. At home, preschool and kindergarten should be about play, not remediation. Follow your child's lead. Some kids are ready for academics sooner. Some are ready later. There's no rush.
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AuthorHi! I'm Stephanie Hanson. I live with my husband, Himself, on Hanson's Ridge in Virginia. Archives
September 2017
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