Blog Post- P11

This article was writing by NAEYC, who believes in promoting universal school readiness. There is traditional construct of readiness, that is not supported by NAEYC that places burdens on children. School readiness has been based on assumptions of a predetermined set of abilities that all children need to know before entering school. This is a deficit that does require intervention. When children are assessed for readiness, they are being based on inappropriate expectations of abilities and do not recognize the individual development and learning. There may be so many contributing factors that may hinder a child from being ready to enter school such as health, economic status, and lack of emotional support. Families who may have these factors affecting their lives may not be able to prepare their child for kindergarten.

By supporting families to find resources and services to provide their children with a foundation for learning is key. In addition, there needs to be assurance that the child's expectations used to determine readiness is reasonable. Readiness needs to be based off of DAP and understanding that development for each child is different even thought they are in the same age group. There may be an area where the child is well-developed and this is normal. There is no timeline to predict when a child will learn certain skills or achieve a level of development. So when a child is held back because they are not ready, that strategy is saying that the child needs to know rigid expectations rather than the program adapting to their needs. And as early childhood educators know, adapting the learning to the child is what is most beneficial and tailoring their learning to their needs is what is important. My class will be transitioning to their next class soon. The next class they will be going to is the class that will help prepare them for kindergarten (4-5 year old). For example, I have children who can write their name and cut independently with scissors, while some do not know how to write any letters and cannot cut without a teacher guiding them. Even though the children are at completely different developmental levels, does not mean they do not go to the class that fits their age group. Their next teacher will adapt her teaching to fit the needs of each child and not expect all the children to do the same things.

There needs to changes made to what is acceptable for school readiness. Schools need to be more responsive to the needs of individual learning that will require teachers and administrations to understand child development. Instead of schools implementing rigid distinctions between grade levels, schools need to have a continuous progress for children that do not follow a calendar based on how old the child is. As the article states, we cannot label children as a sorting mechanism. We need to give children a solid foundation to learning and be able to meet every child's needs.

I believe that there should be public state funds given to private schools. I may feel biased in this question because the school I work for is privately owned. Although our school is privately owned, I don't feel we should be treated differently from a public school. Many of our families receive financial aid through various scholarship programs and receive subsidies from various organizations. The families that are able to receive these funds are truly grateful. Many families who do not receive any help financially work hard to put their child in school because they know how important it is for their child receive education. Our school does not have an entrance interview that determines eligibility, we are open to all.