It’s the law: because Garrett is six, he will start Kindergarten in the fall. That’s just a little more than 30 days away and, quite frankly, I’m concerned. While I feel his basic understanding of English is relatively good, his maturity level and his ability to learn may put him way behind the curve. In many ways, he still acts like a three year old. Plus, it's taking him a long time to learn stuff. For example, we’ve been working on simple shapes—circle, triangle, square and rectangle—for a couple of months now and he still can’t rattle them off. Same goes for colors. While he can sing the ABC song, he doesn’t recognize any letters except for the letter W. He can count to 20, but trips up on 12 and 13. And he flat out refuses most attempts at drawing or any other arts projects, for that matter. (Although he does enjoy cutting with scissors.)
None of this would concern me if we had more time to work on things. In an earlier posting, I wrote about his first early childhood assessment back in late April, which was cut short due to his lack of communication skills. We've got another one scheduled for August—this is when they’ll determine whether he qualifies for special needs assistance or not.
But the biggest challenge for him (as I see it) will be the way his school teaches.
As I wrote earlier, his school uses the International Baccalaureate (IB) Programme curriculum in the primary years. IB uses inquiry, international focus and collaboration to develop knowledgeable, caring young people. All subject areas—language, math, art, social studies, science/technology and personal/social/physical education—are taught using these six themes: Who are we; where are we in place and time; how we express ourselves; how we organize ourselves; sharing the planet. For example, kindergartners will explore their subjects by asking questions like: what is it like? How does it work? How is it changing? How is it connected to other things? What are the points of view? What is our responsibility? How do we know? Everything is taught from a global viewpoint.
It’s a very conceptual approach to education, which takes a certain level of comprehension to view the world from different perspectives. So, how does a kid like Garrett keep up with everyone?
In the past, I've always received such thoughtful, good advice from my friends in the blog community. So if you have any thoughts or suggestions, I would love to hear from you. And thank you, thank you, thank you for your support.
12 comments:
Hi Karen,
We're back from our quick trip!
I would hope that when Garrett has the childhood assessment done in August that they will clearly see what is best for him. I would think he would qualify for special needs assistance just from what you have written.
Would it be possibly for your homestudy social worker to be able to weigh in on this decision as well or be of help?
Eileen
I too am worried about kindergarten for Karina and she won't even go till next year in the fall. I have made the decision to send her to the private kindergarten three days a week at the Kindercare where she will be going to preschool in August if I feel she is not ready for public school kindergarten. The Kindercare private kindergarten has one teacher and three kids. Can't beat that ratio. Plus then I can be certain that she will be caught up and fully prepared for the big change first grade will bring - I have heard that first grade is a big adjustment and so am concentrating on being ready for that.
No advice from me. I feel for you though. It's got to be incredibly hard watching your kid struggle, and not knowing exactly what to do to help.
Does the school have a special education program that he would qualify for initially to give him that head start? Just a thought- I don't know much about this subject other than watching other AP's so forgive me if my whole comment comes out sounding ignorant.
The school sounds incredible.....and a great opportunity, but for a boy who is just new to the US, it could be very challenging for him.
Does the school do a eval or testing? It is a private school? Sean's did, and he failed the first time. We switched pre-K's and he caught up quickly, but i can still relate to being concerned.
I would wait to see what the new homestudy says and you can always hold him back, can't you?
Nothing wrong with that...
Advice from a teacher of 35 years -- take him out and send him to private school or better yet, continue to homeschool him.
Global education is more about getting kids to learn to become citizens of the UN/world and not learning skills necessarily.
This is political indoctrination, not education. It's wrong for ANY kid.
I had many similar concerns for Nick. He seemed at least a year behind if not more. We started him in Preschool after only being home 4 months. I was pretty stressed because he could not do any of the things the others did.
He did great. The teachers could get him to do so many things that I could not. The only thing he didn't love to do was crafts and writing......which can be ( I have heard) just a boy thing too? We have the benefit of being able to do preschool one more year before Kindegarten but he is not advancing...we will just do the same year over and then I trust the teachers to tell me whether or not he will be ready....I think we will know too. He does speech at the public school thru the early start program and we plan to try that school for Kindegarten since he is alrady familiar with it. It is so hard to know what is "best" but I think you will know when the time comes or the school will be able to assess where he needs to be hopefully. Good Luck! He is so adorable and looking sooo happy!
ky karen
Karen,
What's with the "anonymous" comment(s)??
I don't know a lot about this but I am guessing your early childhood assessment will help you make any decisions you need to make to help Garrett move forward and in a way YOU feel good about.
Good luck with everything and keep us updated.
Rochelle
I don't have any advice to give other than a friend of mine is a SN teacher and she said the same thing that other commenters have said, he will probobly be assessed and then they will allow a SN teacher to tutor him at home outside of school.
I don't have any advice, but that educational structure sounds very interesting. I hope someone can help you work things out. It seems like such a maze to navigate.
I wish I had some advice for you but we haven't hit the school age years in our house yet. I would just say to trust your instincts, they are always right.
I totally understand your fears. Do you have the "Leap Frog" DVD's, the Letter factory one is WONDERFUL to teach kids the ABC's. Jabari learned his letters with that last fall. Just so you know, Jabari has just started to like to color. He used to hate it. I'll try to think of other things that have helped Jabari with skills like this & I'll email you.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with your family and Garret. I live overseas and have taught at (and my kids attend) an international school the PYP (IB). It is a great program for kids at all levels. They are able to contribute what they know at their own pace. Our school has many international children who come in without any English and the PYP program works wonders with them. Garrett may be the only child with language issues, but the program is set up for kids of all levels. I hope that it works out for you.
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