Help her to move on to kindergarten?

Question

I'm a teacher's assistant at a local day school, one of the 5 year old student hardly know her numbers and ABC's. What she I do to help her to move onto Kindergarten?

Answer 1

Time for consultation with parents.  Set homework for the parents to do with the child.

Answer 2

flash cards, leap frog, foam puzzles, let her count items that you are cooking or anything like that as for letters use the letter people system use a newspaper or magazine and have them hilite a certain letter each time it appears . just some suggestions from a mom of a 5 yr old.

Answer 3

Children learn at their own pace. You can't force a child to learn something NOW NOW NOW because we want them to. This child is going to kindergarten and she will learn when she is ready. I think sometimes we as parents focus too much on what this child should know at this point in their lives than what they DO know and how are they learning now.

Answer 4

You need to let the parents know that she is not where she needs to be to get through kindergarten. They have a responsibility here too. If you have the time, a little extra help for her apart from the other kids is great, but mom and dad need to be doing their part. And if they already are, and it's not working, it's possible this child might have some sort of learning disabililty and needs to be evaluated.

Answer 5

She is a baby.  She will learn it when she is ready.  She will be going to kindergarten next term whither you think she is ready or not.

Answer 6

Well I had a little boy who was in this same boat. Granted it took a lot of 1:1 time with the child but his mother (my co-director) couldn't thank me enough.

I went to the local Walmart and bought alphabet flashcards (lower and uppercase), a preschool writing book, and then I made a homemade tracking sheet to document what letters he mastered on the days we practiced.

Every day (5 days) during downtime at the center (usually nap b/c he never slept) I would sit him down and I held the flashcards. I mixed them up so he wouldn't have the SAME order everytime we practiced. I would then show him a flash card. If he was able to identify the letter I circled it on the sheet I made (which was just the alphabet written out) and put it on one side of me. If he got it wrong I wouldn't circle it and I put the card he couldn't identify in a different pile.

At the end of each practice, we would tally up how many he got correct. The two of us would sit down with his mother and share which he identified correctly.

During the day if he got bored, I would allow him to work on his letters workbook (tracing and writing letters). Some days he would do four letters and some days he didn't show any interest.

But I stayed dedicated to giving him his time to practice the flashcards and work books. This was all done in a two month time span. I made it an enjoyable experience for him and he's now in first grade acing his literacy and writing. To this day he will bring up all the times we spent with the flash cards and workbooks. It makes you feel really good inside knowing you contributed greatly to a child's knowledge and they talk about it every now and then.

Answer 7

I would suggest her parents get her some coloring books reading books anything on the ABC's and tell them to start helping her. It isn't up to you. The parents should do it.

Answer 8

You should bring your observations and concerns to the teacher with whom you work.  

If the teacher is inexperienced or has no response, suggest that the two of you talk to the day school director and find resources that way.

An experienced teacher should be able to take your observations and others and determine where the child is developmentally.  The girl may  actually be doing well and will be fine given time to mature and continued exposure to language and books.  

A good assessment takes in all behaviors and your observations are important in deciding whether the letter reading skills are along with other issues a symptom that the child needs early diagnosis and serious intervention - but please work with other educators and do not get the parents anxious unnessessarily.

In my experience as a preschool teacher, if a skill is lacking when the child appears to be ready otherwise ...

1. we may ask parents to talk to the pediatrician about hearing and vision screenings to rule out these issues

2. we continue to provide a rich reading, listening, and story telling environment while observing attempts to recognize their own name, write name, or experiment with writing and drawing skills.

3. we encourage participation and play with numbers and letters, most children develop these skills in sudden little leaps as their interest increases -- frustration on the child's part is an important warning sign that she may be ready and needs intervention.

4. encourage parents to expose children to reading and to make sure the children see parents as readers too, help parents avoid pushing preschoolers who may not be ready and turning reading or writing practice into a dreaded chore - this sets a bad pattern.

5. see if your school can call in a reading or developmental specialist to observe and even give a short class to teachers to demonstrate age approapriate skills, how individuals vary, and ways to observe and intervene.