Readiness

Readiness is a term that society uses in regards to a child's capability of displaying cognitive and social concepts in an academic setting. Beth Hatcher, Joyce Nuner,  Jean Paulsel (2012) states that Kindergarten readiness is a complex idea linked to multiple meanings and factors. Chronological age, developmental stage, specific academic and social skills, and home/school connections are associated with readiness. Although communities may view readiness at different levels the concept that still remains is that if a child is ready to fuction at the next level of education.  As ways to help children achieve cognitive skills and socials skills are through preschools who have a set curriculum and offer resources to the families. Council of Chief State School Officers (2011) states that many states have developed comprehensive early learning standards to define children’s developmental progress and expectations for knowledge and skills from birth through the start of kindergarten. Two of the many programs that are offered across the nation are The Pearsons and the Gold Teaching strategies. These two programs have shown the capabilities in efforts to help the child's growth in development in order to be ready for the next level of education while providing the teachers with resources to do assessments on children.

 

What stands out to you as you look through these websites? How do they differ from the material we 
saw last week?

I felt the that the two websites from this week stood out a bit more than last weeks websites. First, the website from Pearsons caught my attention with the video. In the video, the first thing I saw were teachers playing and engaging with the children. Even though the teachers were taking assessments it did not look that way. I feel very strongly about this issue. Teachers should be engaging with children instead of quizzing unlike last weeks video from Head Start. In my preschool that I work, I use Gold Teaching Strategies. So I am very familiar with their web set. The Gold TS system is based on a creative curriculum and the website is pretty easy to follow. What makes it nice is that my school as providing us a teacher with our own IPad for us to document. In TS Gold they have a section called on spot document so basically you take your picture of what the child is doing write a small anecdote and then send it through. What's also nice about the TS is that parents have access to their child's documents throughout the year this is so that parents can see their child's development on a daily instead of waiting to the parent-teacher conference.

Do you prefer one system over another? Be sure to think about why, as you will be writing about this 
in your upcoming Comparative PowerPoint assignment.

There is no easy way to pick, but I am leaning toward Gold Teaching Stratiegs. Although TS has it's
downfalls such as not offering enough math, science and creative art activities

the site itself is really informative. I am the one who inputs the data and when it comes to analysis in the site bases the information that I have put. Unlike the others that will compare a child to a system. Which could allow for false assesments on the child because the computer caculted wrong.

How do all of these systems fit into the broader topic of “readiness,” especially as it relates to 
kindergarten readiness?

As I have stated above all of these systems from the ones that we view last week to this weeks one all have o

one purpose which is to help the teacher to see if the child is ready for the next level of education. The teacher can easily obtain data on the child and see where the child is struggling and or advancing which will allow the teacher to help guide the child in order to be ready for Kindergarten. 

References :

Beth Hatcher, Joyce Nuner,  Jean Paulsel (2012) Kindergarten Readiness and Preschools: Teachers’ and Parents’ Beliefs Within and Acros..

Council of Chief State School Officers (2011) Moving Forward With KindergartenReadiness Assessment Efforts