We were talking about my DCB 4 (turning 5 next month) who I have been working with for pre K stuff. He came to me in Jan not knowing any letters or numbers. His parents don't work with him at all. So DH asked me yesterday "but is it your job?". That is a hard question for me to answer. DH's take is that it is my job to keep kiddo safe, fed, clean etc, that "teaching" isn't my job I am not a teacher. And I suppose he is right. The thing is I take a lot of pride in my job (whatever my job is at that time in my life), and I want to do the best I can at whatever I do. So I said "I suppose it isn't my job, but I choose to do it". DH responded that he saw my point and he probably would also based only on the fact that DCB LOVES "school" time. Which we have several 5-10 minute blocks per day.

Fast forward to this AM. DCB and sister were here. Sister is in 1st grade, here before and after school. DCB wanted to do his "cards" (flash cards), so I got them out and he did all of his uppercase letters and didn't know three lowercase ones. His sister said "he knows more letters than I do". So I let her go through the cards, and she had several she didn't know! So DH is still home (waiting for his load of soap to finish loading before he leaves). I asked him "okay so what is my job here?". Should I be working with her in the mornings before school since she is in first grade and obviously doesn't know all of her letters? Or is that on the school? Is it on the parents? Whose job is this? I guess my main issue is that now I KNOW she is behind, do I just let it go?

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Your role is whatever YOU define it as.

Some feel it is the providers job to teach and educate in academics whereas others feel it is their job to provide care only.

If licensed some states have specific requirements in those categories as well and your role again is defined by those requirements.

Either way, your role is what you define it as and includes what whatever you agreed to with the parent(s).

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I agree with BC.

Do you enjoy sitting down and working with the kids? Or, is it a drudge that you feel that you HAVE to do?

I do not feel that it is my responsibility to teach the kids in a teacher capacity. I am not a teacher. I tell the parents that I am not a teacher. I go through phases where we "play school". Not one of my parents appreciates it in the slightest.

Bottom line, do what you feel that you should do.

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I believe that providing quality care for young children includes providing developmentally appropriate materials and an environment that they can grow and learn from. I don't believe that includes academics. I believe in having a planned curriculum for children which is based on their needs and abilities and interests. For under ones, that means diapering, hand washing, providing stimulating materials to experience with all senses and forming an attachment, making the child feel secure. For 2's, curriculum means (to me) creating a plan based on interests, needs and skills that entice toddlers to explore and discover and continuing to establish the attachment that makes children feel secure enough to start taking risks and finding their potential. On and on, up through the early school age years. I don't believe in teaching the little one letters. The older one is learning the letters in school. Your program is a safe place for her to experience her childhood appropriately. Instead of taking that opportunity away from her and filling it with more adult demands of academics, perhaps you could give her developmentally appropriate materials and environment to experience what she needs to do well in academics. For example having words printed and laminated that label play areas and shelves (just one example for learning letters from the environment). Another example: have art supplies, a 'writing station' available where you don't make any demands or instructions buy have paper, pens, pencils, envelopes, scissors, tape available. That way she can find her own interest in writing and those tools instead of being turned off by them because if all the pressure, demands and ultimately failure because she can't give what the adults want. ... Just my thoughts.

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I'm invested in all of my kids' development even if their parents aren't. Whether they appreciate my efforts isn't important. The children will and their future teachers will. It takes a village.

And when you get down to it, it's good for business. When your kids to go school totally prepared, their teachers will notice. And when you send more kids to school the following year, it'll be noted that the kids who come from miss thrifty are prepared for school and already have a jump on things because of your efforts. They'll have nothing but good things to say about you.

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I agree with BC.

I also think that it depends on if the child is interested or not. I never had a set curriculum. I just followed the children's interest and introduced them to things I loved as a child or my children loved and just things I thought were fun or interesting. We were always doing something fun.

I feel children are rushed or hurried nowadays and my goal was to have them enjoy their childhood and learn by doing.

I think if I had the two you have I would help them with academics IF they enjoyed it (and there are tons of ways to make it enjoyable). It is really sad that their parents have no interest in academics whatsoever. That is unusual. On the other hand, I get tired of academics being constantly pushed on kids to excess.

Do it if you want to. I rather liked being a teacher but not in a letter of the week or theme kind of way.

One thing that the first grader might like is "writing a book". My granddaughter (who was in my daycare) liked doing that. Just staple some sheets of paper together and make some blank books. Anything goes, it is up to her. If she has trouble, get her started but let her do it the way she wants to. We also made simple board games. They can be as simple as a piece of paper with spaces and then you do what the spaces or cards say (reading or letters). Maybe alphabet bingo.

Also, don't necessarily listen to the 'experts'. I heard dire warnings about no workbooks but some of mine just loved them. Some didn't so didn't do them. I also liked coloring books as a child so provided them and did them with the kids. We also did drawing and free art almost exclusively. So I'd say just be on the lookout for what these two need and what they like.

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This is exactly how I feel

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[quote= I asked him "okay so what is my job here?". Should I be working with her in the mornings before school since she is in first grade and obviously doesn't know all of her letters? Or is that on the school? Is it on the parents? Whose job is this? I guess my main issue is that now I KNOW she is behind, do I just let it go?[/QUOTE]

Your job is whatever you have defined it to be. Have you told parents that you work on this stuff with them? If so then it is your job. Of course it is ALWAYS the parent's responsibility. I think that at the very least you are responsible for letting the parents know that this child is behind, then it is their job to take it up with the school. Personally, I would probably follow up with this kiddo in the mornings as time permitted and I would hound mom/dad on it as well. Not because it's my job, but because it's important for the child.

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I tell parents with little ones and preschoolers that I offer learning activities but not that I offer preschool. What I am doing with my one that isn't in school right now is basically preschool, but not formal, as I don't offer formal preschool. I also tell parents that I am not a "teacher" but that I look for opportunities to teach, and those opportunities could be school learning, but they could also be manners and other life lessons. I have never told parents that I will do anything with the school agers as far as school, except that I will offer time for them to do homework and assist as needed and as time allows. These kids get off the bus at 4. The one struggling it seems in school leaves at 4:30 so I have no time in the afternoon to do much by the time I feed them. She is here for an hour in the morning. Gets here at 7:30, breakfast at 7:45, get on bus at 8. I could maybe throw something quick in the morning, but at the same time she wants to play with her friends.

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I can understand your frustration in wanting to help her but her time at your house is so short that you don't have the time you want to make an impact. You never know, maybe there is something going on like a learning disability or delay, it's very possible. It sounds like the school isn't noticing or maybe they're not engaging her in a way that helps her learn, we're all familiar with methods of seeing, hearing and hands on learning. Maybe try to find out how she is absorbing the information you are giving her, a catchy tune, a rhyme, associations with objects.

It is also sad to think that maybe her parents aren't engaging her enough, which always makes it hard. My parents of my one year olds just don't seem to get that kids don't just 'know' how to do stuff, you have to show them how, they don't just all of a sudden know how to clap without seeing it, they don't know you're supposed to dance to music unless you show them, and on and on.

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I do teacher. I have a teacher's license. I've actually taught outside of my home. I just want to say, those flash cards aren't teaching. It's memorizing. It's a waste of time. A better exercise would be "Letter A. Can we say what words start with a?" for whatever letter. Or say a word and see if they can the letter it begins with.

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BC, as usual, said it perfectly.

If it works for you to work with her, do it. If it makes you feel happy and warm and fuzzy and doesn't add any stress, do it. She'll probably remember it forever and at the very least the effects will probably be forever. But if it's stressful, if you can't be patient and kind about it (not everyone can be! No worries!), or if you hate doing it, she'll know and it will be more damaging than helpful.

So think it over, try it if you need to and stop if you need to, and see what feels right for you.

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I never understand those kind of questions. Toddlers can not read (most of them). How they can know what words start with A? All what they can HEAR is "what starting sound is for a word". I introduce letters and phonics together. We listen word, recognize starting sound and then they can say what letter "makes this sound".

I do not like rote memorization and try to avoid it as much as possible. As a result my 3-4 y.o. kids start reading here. They do not recognize words. They read them.

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I agree! My 2 year old DS remembers stories based on the page we're on but I would never say that he knows how to read yet. But it's a start! I believe colors are important to start out with and shapes because that is a tangible concept at that age. Object association with spoken words is always first before letters and the written word are, and at that, technically at the very root, is memorization.

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You cut my quote off in a convenient place. :/ It's not something I start with. "Let's learn letters! What letter does your name begin with?!". I always say the letters before asking them. Say I get a kid with a B name. I'll say the next day "Brian look you're eating BBBBBBBB-ananas! Like BBBBBBBBBBee for Brian". Some of the other kids will chime with "B for bread" or something similar. A week later I'll say "Bbbbbbbrain, what's your letter?". Most kids get it and catch on well. I always start with the letters of their names and letters of things we see/do a lot. Like one year all but one of my kids had a J name. Those kids could probably list every j word before school started. You really can't separate letters and phonics. I'm just asking them in a manner than a public school teacher would. A teacher would say "What letter does apple begin with?" and if no one got it, the teacher would say "let's sound it out".

I think another key to this is exposing them to different materials. Not flash cards every day. Not the same book over and over again. A lot of parents are surprised by how many books I have. I have two collections. One I read to them. Another collection, with a lot of doubles from the first collection, that I let them touch. I know I gave them my first set, they'd be gone. LOL

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I use my flash cards once a day as a gauge of what they have learned. My boy, we have been doing art for all his letters, and now some numbers. He seems to learn better when he gets his hands involved. So things like sticking tissue paper to a letter cut of contact paper, or gluing colored sand to a letter. Today we glued colored salt. He is learning them. We also have words on the wall with pictures and talk about them. We have been practicing listening to the letter sounds in the words, not sure if that is doing any good or not, but is the only way I have thought of to teach sounds. He as no clue what begins with any letter, except what I tell him at this point. He can read the word cat and dog. But I am not sure if it is because he memorized them or is reading them. They are on the wall.

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If you want to do it then if it's low pressure then it's fine. But remember that COGNITIVE development is different than ACADEMICS. Academics is NOT development. Providing a rich environment with blocks, dramatic play, stories, songs, art etc is way, way, way more beneficial for young children than academics. Academics is barely useful at all to young children.
Ideally, just make it song based or something. Phonological is helpful (hearing the sounds/final/onset/rimes etc), but it can be done with games. I also think that learning to write the name is a good thing (self-concept).

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Manipulatives really give great real-life understanding for math concepts.

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I love our Cuisinaire rods! The kids teach themselves!

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All of my kids LOVE manipulatives, and I so do I. But even though I don't have the kindy packet yet, they gave me a short list of what he needs to know for Kindy. I will get a longer list later. But here is what I have now.

Recognize letters, upper and lower case
Recognize numbers to 20
Count to 20
Write at least first name, but they prefer first and last
Tie shoes

So we are working on all that, and I am waiting for the full list.

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Omg haha my 8 year old doesn't even know how to tie shoes! He's always wore crocs and velcro tennies. Never stopped him from being amazing in school. He's a very creative artist and writer and actually cooks- makes scrambled eggs, french toast and baked me cupcakes for valentines day all on his own. He didnt do homework until this year (2nd grade). I don't believe in it for young kids. He is pretty advanced in reading but never was taught a letter before kindergarten. He learned some through his own interests and he learned to write his name. So ridiculous to me that the public school system expects kids to be taught these kindergarten concepts before kindergarten. I will never teach these and I will continue to advocate for play only for ece kids for the rest of my life! It gets me so riled up.I'm so glad I am lucky enough to have the progressive charter school my son is in, but I will honestly do my best to make this academic push down stop for other kids and other schools too.

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I don't agree with it all either. But I guess I feel powerless over it. I mean if they start and don't know it, they make a huge deal of it. They do assessments during the first three days of Kindy, but I don't know what they do with the info from them. The odd thing is I have a DCG who is in Kindy and she tells me everyday that she plays at school. Which I think is a good thing in Kindy, but why do they need to come in knowing so much if play is so important?

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I checked our state's common core book and they say "begin to count to 20 by ones" for K readiness as well. I think they mean "rote count" to 20. Like where they just memorize it, not really understand the quantities.

It seems like they want more understanding of 1-10. The book says "Count a number of objects 0-10 and associate with a written numeral."

And tying shoes...wow that's steep for pre-k. Ours has "screw lids; does up buttons and zips; control scissors; and mature pincer grasp of pencil" for fine motor k readiness.

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See I almost have him associating the written numeral to ten at this point. But 20 is going to be a stretch so far we are only counting to 12.

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tell it to my DCKs. When I come in the playroom all of them start asking: "is it my turn now go to the class room?" and get upset if it is not. Even my two infants enjoy their own circle time.

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This is how DCB is. He constantly asks "can I do school now?". I don't know if he really enjoys the learning, he likes the attention, or if it is because big sister is in school.

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I do lots of hands-on learning with my daycare kids, have the kindy check list and do my best to have children ready for kindy BUT I used to beat myself up if they didn't know all they needed to know before kindy. I always worried about the teachers saying "why didn't ms.xxxx teach this child".

But I had a kindy teacher tell me once that every child don't necessarily learn letters/numbers quickly....that if I made the child feel accepted/loved and taught the children to know when to listen and sit still, follow directions, respect others, etc., the teacher could teach them academics or find out why they weren't learning. She said all children are not ready at preschool age to learn their ABC's, etc....

She further told me they knew the kids from my daycare by how well behaved they were, not always by what they knew...so I think a provider simply needs to do what works for the children in their care because if these children are nurtured and loved, they have the groundwork for success despite how many ABC's they know!

I think the old saying is "children may forget what you taught them, but will always remember how you made them feel".....feeling loved goes a long way!

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For me i would feel it's my job. If a child is 4k and not in a 4k program I'd feel it was my job for sure! I've taught preschool & kindergarten but even if I wasn't a licensed teacher I'd feel it was my job.

All of us that work with children are teachers! I don't think he has to know every upper case and lower case letter but a well rounded exposure to literacy and reading readiness is important.

I'm not a big proponent of preschool programs that focus heavily on letters and numbers, but do believe in "exposure". I believe it's better if they have a good grasp on letters upon entering K.

I have magnetic stories kids can re-tell, I have small plastic letters in the rice table, alphabet stampers for playdoh, I have poems on large chart paper that we "read"-a new one every few weeks, I do name games and name recognition, I offer environmental print activities and games, ( look up mother Hubbard's cupboard website).

Rhyming ability is real biggie! You know .....rhymes are word families! Hat, cat, mat..the at family. Children learn through music too. Think Jolly Phonics.

I do activities with predictable sentences. I use sentence strips from the dollar tree. I see a cat, I see a dog, I see a car, etc.

It is endless the fun, active, interesting ways we can play with letters and words and stories.

Be on the look out for alphabet games at rummage sales. I got those cute magnetic food items that were for each letter that came with a tiny fridge. I put all the food in order on a cookie sheet. I hand out the first five/six and say who has aaa for Apple etc.

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I have been thinking this for the last year or so.

The reality is that we can rail all we want about pre-K and K being developmentally inappropriate for kids, but it's not changing anything. We can make cutting remarks about a provider who is attempting to get kids up to speed - questioning their education or knowledge of age appropriate "best practice" but again, the reality is that if kids go off to K and struggle because they don't know what's now expected, parents will be convinced that all day pre-K is better than day care. In some areas providers are already losing kids as soon as they turn 4. And now there's talk of doing a 3's class

Many of you know that I offer transportation to a "real" preschool () because parents want that service. And I've always been pleased with the school but have acknowledged its an old fashioned traditional pre-school (not connected to child care center at all, 4 yo's attend three days a week for 2.5 hours) Lately parents are starting to complain because, the preschool will say the child is ready for school, but when the kids head off to our all day K, a lot of them have a rough time (especially the boys) but K here is more like the old first grade.

The one boy I had last year (who attended the 3 yo class at the preschool) but didn't have space for this year is now at an all day pre-k program and it sounds a lot more "big school" than our little preschool. Mom told me she likes it much better than his experience last year. I mean, some of that has to do with the fact she's not scrambling to get him picked up 2.5 hours after he's dropped off. But it's also the fact he's getting used to be in school all day long.

Developmentally, the little preschool in our neighborhood is probably more appropriate. But I see more and more parents choosing the all day pre-k option or wishing they had after the fact.

It's disheartening, but I don't know what we can do.

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That one thing I do love about my area. I think a lot of people are still into old-fashion childhoods a bit more. People definitely send their kids to preschool, but I very much approve of our local preschool. (Before I started my daycare, I sent my son there.) The morning is their "preschool" time. The afternoon is just childcare. I'd pick my son up and the teacher would be showing him how to climb on the monkey bars or they'd be be throwing apples over the fence for fun. He'd come home messy, and with ripped jeans. I always felt like he was still have lots of time to just be a kid. But you know what, now that he's in kindergarten, he's right on par, and most of the time, he didn't even know he was learning.

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I have said this about my area in the past as well. Parents have typically been happy with the "little" preschool and mostly play based care. But I've definitely noticed a change in parents attitudes. The client in my other post is a UPK teacher...

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