All Too Often, Young Students Not ‘Where They Should Be’

By Nancy Hull

Suzy Linebarger walked up the stairs with a 3-year-old girl.

"One, two, three," Ms. Linebarger counted with each step.

Ms. Linebarger, a parent educator with St. Joseph’s Parents as Teachers, was walking with the girl during a preschool screening last month at the Keatley Center.

Ms. Linebarger’s face turned sad when she thought of all the parents who, in her 18 years of working with young children, don’t do things like counting the stairs — something that can help prepare those 3-year-olds for the start of school that comes when they turn 5.

"Sometimes parents just don’t know what to do," she said.

A lack of adults counting stairs with children is just one of many factors that Ms. Linebarger and other area educators say play a role in a statistic they see as less than ideal.

Less than half of incoming St. Joseph School District kindergartners are ready for kindergarten, according to a screening of last school year’s kindergartners.

Parents as Teachers, which is part of the school district, has conducted the screening for years, although last year’s results — the 2006-07 results — were the first results released to the public.

Local early childhood education leaders, including those with the school district and the United Way’s Success by Six, sense results for that one year are in line with other years’ results.

The screening tests children on skills that are crucial for kindergarten, said Debbie Kunz, coordinator of Parents as Teachers.

"This is a very age appropriate screening. It is very generous," Ms. Kunz said.

The expectations for kindergarten-bound, 5-year-olds include recognizing letters, sounds, numbers and colors. Five-year-olds are expected to hop, rhyme, cut with scissors, stack blocks, write their names, name body parts, answer questions about themselves, identify common objects and know how to put on their coats.

"It’s not OK that the screening showed that less than half of them were where they should be," she said.

The district follows a nationally-recognized screening called Dial-3: Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning.

No national comparison exists for this screening.

It’s kindergarten readiness season in St. Joseph. The school district asks that all children who will turn 5 before Aug. 1 go to kindergarten roundup at their neighborhood school on April 8.

Even if kids don’t fit the definition of ready, the school district wants all potty-trained 5-year-olds in kindergarten. If they’re not ready, the longer they’re not in school, the more behind they could become — that’s the school district’s reasoning for not wanting parents to hold kids back.

A child’s status at kindergarten is crucial in that it plays a big role in how the rest of the child’s life goes. National studies and experts agree that the more prepared students are in kindergarten, the more likely they are to experience academic success throughout school and into adult life.

Cheri Patterson, the St. Joseph district’s director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, agrees.

"I would bet my next paycheck that the kids who were struggling in kindergarten — the ones who were struggling when they walked in our door — are still struggling as juniors in high school," Ms. Patterson said. "Once the gap is there, we spend their entire education career trying to close that gap."

Bobbie Cronk, who runs the United Way’s Success by Six program, said that from the national kindergarten readiness data she’s studied, she’s concluded that St. Joseph kindergartners do lag behind national averages. Although the definition of kindergarten readiness somewhat varies throughout the nation, Ms. Cronk said she generally sees national reports that say 25 to 50 percent of kindergartners aren’t ready, compared to St. Joseph’s 53 percent not ready last year; 47 percent tested ready.

While many factors influence a child’s readiness for kindergarten, Ms. Cronk and other local educators point to St. Joseph’s poverty struggle as one factor.

More than half of St. Joseph School District children qualify for the free and reduced-price lunch program, based on the federal government’s family income guidelines.

"You might not be able to put reading with your child at the top of your list if you’re worrying about paying the gas bill," Ms. Cronk said. "With that said, I do know a lot of families that do struggle financially, yet provide excellent support for their children."

Preschool also plays an important role. Children who attended preschool tend to do better in school than those who didn’t attend. The percentage of St. Joseph students who attend preschool prior to kindergarten has risen to about 50 percent.

While preschool often costs money, other factors that affect kindergarten readiness cost nothing.

Reading with children makes such a big, positive difference, Ms. Cronk points out.

Success by Six recommends that parents read with their children for at least 20 minutes a day.

At last month’s kindergarten screening, Ms. Linebarger, the parent educator, instantly knew that Katryn Cole’s parents had read, played and talked with her.

"What’s this?" Ms. Linebarger asked Katryn as she held up a picture during last month’s preschool screening.

"A car," Katryn, 3, said.

"What does it do?" Ms. Linebarger asked.

"Vroom Vroom," Katryn said.

"What does mommy do in it?"

"Drive," Katryn said.

Katryn finished above age-level at the screening.

Ms. Linebarger says a lack of parent-child quality time has resulted in fewer children like Katryn.

She’s seen a decline in the amount of time parents spend with their children, she said.

And she doesn’t mean the time a parent and child spend in the same room, she said. She’s talking about time parents spend on the floor with their children, talking about the color of a shirt or counting toes or stacking blocks or reading or singing.

Fifteen minutes — that’s how much time per day she recommends for parent-child time.

"A lot of times, parents get home at the end of a long day and want some peace and quiet, so they plop their kids in front of a TV or let them play video games instead of spending time with them," Ms. Linebarger said, shaking her head. "We’re all so busy that we sometimes forget the little people and how their minds and spirits need to be nurtured."

Nancy Hull can be reached

at nancyhull@npgco.com.

(c) 2008 St. Joseph News-Press. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.