AboutSue Expertise I will answer questions in the area of Child Development for children ages two to five. This includes social, emotional, cognitive & language development, large motor & fine motor skills, behavioral issues, potty training and parental concerns. I can give ideas for lesson plans and classroom activities. I will also help with daycare/preschool policies. I can also help with licensing requirements for preschools/daycare, however, I am only familiar with the licensing requirements for the state of Michigan.
Experience I have been teaching in preschools for 25 years. My main experience has been with children two to five years of age. The last 16 years I have been the lead teacher for the pre-kindergarten program.
Organizations NAEYC
Education/Credentials I have a B.S. degree and a teaching certificate in elementary education with a ZA endorsement (child development) from my graduate level classes.
Question My three year old (who turned three Sept 07) started preschool two months ago. A few weeks ago, his school sent home a note letting us know that they were going to begin working with the kids in his class on their letters, coloring, etc. Initially I was pleased to hear they planned to devote some time in school on these early learning skills. Since then, we have been getting homework that I feel is incredibly advanced for a class of three year olds. For example, we received a sheet with 8 tiems on it (apple, pear, snowflake, etc). The instructions were to color in each picture, and then have him "write" the spanish equivalent for the color that he used on each picture. Intially, my husband and I almost fell over laughing. My son still holds his pencil with a fist grip, and he can't even spell his own name much less write it or write spanish words. We worked on the coloring, and I wrote a note explaining that we worked on the coloring, and that we felt the writing was beyond his abilities. This week, we received writing worksheets with a note that said "your son needs lots of work on his letters and numbers at home and in school". "We practice writing twice a week, please practice writing the letter B and the number 2 on these practice sheets and turn them back in".
Please let me know what you think about this. We have a kindergartner, so we certainly are not unfamiliar with the learning curve of the average toddler. Even though our three year old seems a little further behind in letter recognition and counting than his brother was at the same age, we certainly were not worried. Are we crazy, or is it appropriate to expect him to practice writing letters and numbers at this age? We have not spoken with the teacher yet because we are trying to figure out how to approach this issue. We don't want her to think we don't care about his education, but we don't want to push him too soon either.
Any insight you can give would be great.
Thank-you.
Monica
Answer Hi Monica,
You are not crazy and I would laugh too,except I felt more like screaming when I read your question. This should absolutely not be happening, especially with children who have just turned 3 or 4.
Children that age are not developmentally ready to do what the teacher is asking. Nor should they be. As you pointed out, he is not even able to hold a pencil yet.
Children your son's age should be getting a lot of large motor activity. It has been proven, through brain research, that large motor activities are directly related to brain development. To learn colors and numbers the children should be playing games and having fun and be excited about learning. They don't understand that letters make words, and that each letter has a specific sound and if you hook those sounds together you get words. That is a very difficult concept. Children are not born with this knowledge. As for writing, it starts out as scribbles, then what looks like letters and they may be backward and upside down and all over the page. That's ok. That's how is suppose to happen.
My advice is to throw out the homework sheets before you have a very frustrated little boy. I think you need to ask what qualifications/education/training the teachers have and how much experience with teaching children. Visit some other preschools in your area and see what they are doing.
