Teachers... How Is Your School Teaching Reading??

I taught my then 4 year old daughter to read using the 100 lessons book. By day 60 she could could read all the easy readers at the library by kindergarten she was reading Junie B Jones chapter books. Once she can read just go to the library and get whatever interest her.
That book is great BTW.

I didn't expect my daughter to learn to read in Kindergarten. Good thing, because she turned out to be a later reader. Brain development happens when it happens. Now, in 4th grade, she reads at an 8th grade level, and scores at 99th percentile on reading tests. Good thing I didn't stress about it. I just worked with her teachers to make sure she was supported in her efforts to learn.

Kindergarten isn't really for teaching reading. Your expectations are a bit high. They learn letter sounds and sight words. They might be able to recognize a word here and there, but they're still learning the very basics.

Don't undermine the curriculum, learn to work with it. If there are books out there which compliment the way they are learning...that might be most helpful.

I used the "Teach Your Child to Read..." book for my older two and using it now for my third. I taught my older ones at age 3 1/2 into age 4. They were both reading chapter books by kindergarten. I thought the methods in book were great and way better than the "sight" words their classmates were learning in school. My sister got my third child the first set of BOB books for Christmas and I think they complement the "Teach You Child..." book well. He enjoys being able to read a whole book by himself when we are still pretty early in the learning process. I can't tell exactly what your school is doing so I don't have any recs on supplementing that curriculum, maybe ask the teacher what more you can do at home. But honestly you won't need to supplement the schoolwork if you just teach her yourself with the book.

That's the thing, there's no such thing as a "one size fits all" curriculum. Some kids do really well primarily using phonics, for example, others, not so much. The schools try to use a curriculum based on what makes the most sense, in other words, a program that is likely to be the most successful with the most students.
I think it's fine to work with your daughter on the side, but I hope you will continue to support her classroom work as well.
And for what it's worth, my kids' kindergarten curriculum WAS phonics based. My son struggled with reading until about the middle of first grade and then he soared. My daughters did great with phonics early on but struggled later with comprehension. Just because you CAN read doesn't mean you UNDERSTAND what you are reading.
Like I said, no such thing as one size fits all!
Oh, and it's "phonics are important" not "phonics is important" ;)

I'm not familiar with DISTAR, but our local school district uses Houghton Mifflin's reading program. It's phonics based, not whole word. We moved here when my second daughter was beginning third grade. Her old school system used a whole word approach and it was not a good fit for my daughter AT ALL (though not a problem for my oldest girl). It took work on my girl's part and the support and extra efforts of some very dedicated teachers, but the change to the phonics-based program was a terrific one for my daughter. You might try to Google Houghton Mifflin Reading. I believe they have some good support material.

By the way, I don't think wanting to work on your own with your daughter is undermining the curriculum, as long as you don't bad-mouth school, the reading program or the teacher to your child. You can totally position your work with her as fun extra steps, not a replacement for what she does in school. You should absolutely support the efforts of her teacher while encouraging her to stretch in her own abilities.

Good luck!

I am homeschooling my kindergartener.
We are using (or used) a lot of phonics and the "Teach Your Child..." book.
I can't take all the credit. Or give all the credit to the book...
But my child is reading.
Really reading.
I think you are on the right page. Maybe get some BOB books from the library, too.
And keep it as fun as you can. :)
GL!
Oh and if she likes computer games there is Starfall.com and ABCya.com that are helpful and fun.

Seems like Ann Arbor uses the same kindergarten curriculum as Sterling Heights does. I have a feeling, though, that my daughter's teacher is implemented more than the outline you mentioned. The teacher spent the first semester giving every child assessments on sounds, letter recognition, sight words, rhyming sounds/letters, and similar items. When we went to conferences, she took the entire 30 minutes explaining all of the assessments and where my DD scored. Now, this week, our DD is getting her first book "just right for her," which she is to read at home and then demonstrate her ability with the book to the teacher, and then the next book's level is determined on her performance.

I think this approach is a combination of whole reading and using phonics. As a high school English teacher, I am impressed with the fact that the teachers listen to these kids read daily, assess the child's ability at that level, and then decide which next level is best for the student. All 25 of them!

For math, the kids are now writing "math stories" where they write simple addition and subtraction problems and draw accompanying icon problems (one smiley face plus two smiley faces equals three smiley faces). I am happy to see this. We have been getting these "Everyday Math" sheets, and I must admit that I have not been able to keep up with this homework. I look at it as supplemental activities rather than the main event. We do a lot of organic math, like count in tens or count items and other things like that.

When I think back to learning to read in first grade with Dick and Jane (Seriously! Dr, Seuss had been published, but I never saw one of those books at school!), and learning to add without manipulatives, I think it is amazing what kids do in kindergarten now. I complement what my daughter is learning, but I am not fretting about it. I have been reading H-O-U-R-S of chapter books to her lately while she acts out the plot or draws pictures of the events (on her own volition). She's going to get it.

Some kids learn better with whole language, and some learn better with phonics. Visual learners prefer breaking up the words into parts, and kinesthetic and spatial kids prefer whole words. I haven't read this next idea anywhere, but given that the visual learners probably conquer reading at a younger age, it seems that phonics helps kids read faster. Since kinesthetic/spatial learners probably start reading later, it seems like they are slow learners or are behind, but they are not; it seems like they'd learn earlier if they use phonics, but most likely they won't. These kids need the whole picture before they read fluently, and they develop this a bit later. The kindergarten teacher's challenge is to find out what kind of learners she or he has in order to help the kids read.

I guess I would continue to support the teacher so that your child will aim to please the teacher. And then if you want (and your child will cooperate, as you do not want to apply so much pressure that reading stops being fun), add some of your own approaches.

I enjoy this activity with my child. I hope every parent does.

Our schools use Guided Reading as well. My daughters went to a kindergarten at their preschool, and by the end of the year everybody in the class was reading. Also, most of the kids could read over 100 sight words. My niece went to kinder at the public school. They did mostly learning the letter sounds and a few sight words. They did not really teach them how to read. I say do as much as you can at home with her. As far as Everyday Math goes, I hate it. I get how some of it will help kids learn different ways to do math, but I do not like how it does not tech memorization of basic facts. When I was in school we spent weeks memorizing facts. My daughter is in third grade and still does not have her facts memorized. She has to use her fingers. I blame this program for most of that. I talk to other parents of first graders and their schools give drills and timed tests, and their kids memorize the facts quickly. The program works okay for some kids, but for others it destroys them like it did my daughter. Now that I know how the program is, I am working with my first grader on her facts since I know she will not learn them at school.

Like you, I was and still am completely frustrated at the way things are taught these days. They don't concentrate or really spend much time at all on phonics. They want them to memorize sight words which is fine, but when the child comes to a word that they don't have memorized, they can't figure it out because they don't teach phonics! I taught my granddaughter phonics at home.

They did start phonics in first grade, but again didn't really concentrate on it. It was kind of skimmed over - just like reading a clock or counting money. Not much focus on those two things although I consider both of those tasks extremely important! Again, you have to teach at home.

I find math to be completely frustrating. Again, they don't spend much time teaching/practicing addition/subtration/mutiplication facts - you have to do that at home. But you will see homework pages in second and third grades re geometric shapes and the like. I just don't understand why they are so worried about geometry when most of the kids are still trying to figure out how to add/subtract and none of them can read a clock or count money. I always say it's more important for my GD to know how much money the cashier should be giving her back than what the name of the shape of the carton is!

I guess it's just different priorities. I want my GD to be able to function in the world - they want her to pass some stupid state test.

We use teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. And we also have used something called Phonics Museum by Veritas Press. I believe the phonics method of teaching reading is the only way to do it right. Whole language reading is causing tons of problems in children/adults who were taught to read that way. It is a huge mistake. If it were my child, I would take matters into my own hands and teach her myself. I would not let her be saddled with the curse of whole language reading.

I meant to add the link to the VP phonics program. http://www.veritaspress.com/prodinfo.asp?number=000800