There are a lot of factors that go into deciding when a child is ready for school. Whether or not to send your child to preschool or wait until kindergarten is just one of the considerations. What are the benefits of having your child attend preschool? How old should your child be? What are the requirements for kindergarten eligibility? What is the age requirement in your state? These and other topics are included in these Preschool and Kindergarten articles.
Although the general assumption in today’s culture is that children must be taught to read, there is an educational movement that claims this is not necessarily true. “Unschooling” (also known as “natural learning,” “experience-based learning,” and “independent learning”) takes an entirely new approach to reading, one that’s self-directed by the child himself or herself. In...
At its most basic level, phonics is a method of teaching beginners how to read by learning to associate written letters and groups of letters (called graphemes) with the sounds they represent (called phonemes). Through this reading system, children learn to break down the words they encounter into simple groups so that they can decode...
Research has long demonstrated that the earlier a child learns to read, the better success he or she will have with reading long term. This is due to the nature of the human brain, where a child’s mind is going to be better able to absorb and learn basic language skills, including recognition of sounds,...
To be effective, phonics learning should involve much more than workbook activities and flashcards. By coming up with real-life experiences, games, and creative activities to introduce phonetic sounds to your child, you help engage them in the process of reading, which has been shown to help children learn faster and retain more of the information...
The term “phonics” has become synonymous with learning to read in childhood. At its simplest level, it’s described as the system of relationships between letters and sounds in a given language. This involves learning both simple sounds (that the letter B has the sound of /b/) and more complex blends (such as that the combination...
Although in our modern era, it seems like solutions are ever evolving, in the area of phonics and reading instruction, research continues to show the relevancy and effectiveness of the phonics system. In a wide range of studies, phonics awareness has shown to be superior to whole word recognition (although 16 percent of words in...
Over the past decade, New Mexico’s Public Education department has dedicated itself to strengthening its approach to early childhood education. Kindergarten attendance is required by law across the state, and a program is in place that gives young children the chance to attend a year of preschool prior to kindergarten. Here are the top laws...
What age for kindergarten has become a hotly debated topic. To the baby boom generation, being held back for any reason was a source of stress and shame. Today, many parents are holding back their children in preschool, so they enroll in kindergarten when they’re six, giving them an extra boost in performance and skills....
Although full-day kindergarten is not mandatory in the state of Maine, there has been a push in recent years to increase the implementation of full-day programs and 80 to 89% of students are currently enrolled in such programs. In addition, Maine’s legislature debated a bill recently that would have required schools to offer full-day kindergarten...
The First Kindergarten located in Watertown, Wisconsin, in the mid-19th century was the original kindergarten of the United States. Still today, Wisconsin is a pioneer in the kindergarten world with its four-year-old kindergarten program. Here are the top laws and requirements for students entering kindergarten in the state of Wisconsin. Kindergarten Not Mandatory Kindergarten is not mandatory in...