Tristan Keith, 6, sat with a teacher’s aide in a back hallway, scooted up to the edge of his seat, periodically wiping his nose with his shirt sleeve.
Michael V. Martina / The Herald
He was getting extra practice reading, turning the pages of a colorfully illustrated children’s book. He came to a word he didn’t know.
“Sound it out,” aide Yvonne Wise said.
“Dih, ih, dih,” he said.
“What is it?” she prompted, pointing to the word “did.”
“Dit?” he guessed. “That’s hard.”
Tristan was stumped by a number of words, but he re-entered his kindergarten classroom with a smile.
It’s a familiar exercise for Wise, who works one-on-one with kindergartners at Sunnycrest Elementary School in Lake Stevens. This was second-grade fare for her two children, now ages 17 and 18, who learned in the same kindergarten classroom as Tristan, she said.
“They didn’t do reading in those days. There’s no way they could,” Wise said, noting there were 33 kids in each class.
“It makes me really jealous,” she added. “But schools have to in order to compete. You have to keep up with the rest of the world.”
There’s no state standardized test for kindergartners; it just seems like there is.
“Gone are the days of painting with smocks, playing house, sandboxes and naps,” Sunnycrest principal Rob Manahan said. “Social development is important, and we do try to integrate that into the curriculum as much as possible.
“But with a half-day filled with math, reading, handwriting, science and some social studies, it becomes tight.”
Perhaps too tight. Making more time for learning is one reason more schools this year have moved to full-time kindergarten. In all, 23 percent of Snohomish County kindergartners are going to school all day each weekday, up from 16 percent three years ago, according to Herald surveys.
The number of districts offering full-time kindergarten, however, has not changed. Granite Falls, Index and Lake Stevens still offer only the traditional half-day programs, while Arlington holds kindergarten all day on alternating days to save money on transportation.
Snohomish School District has been adding full-time kindergarten to two schools each year since 2001. The last of the district’s eight elementary schools, Dutch Hill and Cascade View, started this year.
Parents were unsure of the idea at first, Dutch Hill principal Donna Kapustka said. A veteran teacher helped draw people in, and now there are 14 on a waiting list for full-day kindergarten next fall.
“The community really is taking off on it,” said Kapustka, noting full-day kindergarten has more recess time and lessons in music and physical education.
Lakewood and Marysville also offer full-time kindergarten at each of their elementary schools.
Cost a big factor
Offering full-time kindergarten can be difficult with space constraints, costs and public perception.
Full-time kindergarten in Edmonds went down by more than 250 students in the last three years, in part because of space. Martha Lake Elementary School, for example, has not had room the last two years for the program.
Cost is the biggest factor. The state funds kindergartners at half the rate as other students – which is unlikely to change soon, with the tab to fund the state’s 71,000 kindergartners at a full-time rate topping $190 million.
Some schools offer full-time kindergarten free, thanks to federal funds given for socioeconomic conditions, or by putting state school-improvement dollars toward the cause.
But most charge parents tuition to make ends meet.
Average tuition tops $2,000 a year. Many offer assistance to financially strapped families, though some, including Monroe and Mukilteo, offer no aid.
Tradition also is a reason not all schools make the switch. Lake Stevens is the largest school district not to offer a full-time program.
“For our community, everyday half-day has been most successful and meets the needs of what our parents want,” spokeswoman Arlene Hulten said.
Still, as her 16 young charges lined up to go home from Sunnycrest – their backpacks reaching their knees – teacher Sarah Baldock felt stressed to fit everything into 21/2 hours.
Sometimes the pressure can reach the children, too.
During a recent math lesson, one girl grew frustrated trying to color a story problem about ducks on land and in a pond.
“It’s not about the artwork. It’s about the math problem,” Baldock said as she turned to a whiteboard to show students how the problem was done.
The girl started crying, taking a black crayon and scratching out her drawing, slamming the math journal back into a drawer. After a pat on the back, she was soon bouncing around again.
It’s not easy for kids
Teacher Deborah Parr at Gold Bar Elementary School says she sees the same sorts of breakdowns with some of her kindergartners.
“Everybody has their own timeline. Everyone walks at their own age, talks at their own age – and yet, somehow, we expect them all to read by the time they’re 5,” said Parr, who also teaches in a half-day program. “It affects their self-esteem. Some give up before they even try.”
Teachers must be creative to meet each child’s emotional and academic needs, she said.
Parents should not fear the early focus on learning, said Lorrie Milford, chairwoman of the Snohomish County Association for the Education of Young Children.
Her mother, 93, was a master kindergarten teacher in California at a time when “she was not even allowed to have a printed word on her bulletin boards or in her room.”
“Now, we realize how inappropriate that was,” Milford said.
Teachers like longer days
Kindergarten teachers such as Judie Seibel find it easier to manage the challenges with more time. Seibel teaches Garfield Elementary School’s new full-time kindergarten session, which includes 24 children.
“Half-day is just nonstop – bam, bam, bam – trying to do as much as you can as fast as you can,” Seibel said. “It took me a while to get used to the pacing (of full-time kindergarten), I was so used to doing things at warp speed. But it’s nice.”
Seibel has taught kindergarten since 1972, and said the changes have been gradual. While at first it was up to teachers what to teach, there now are formal science and language arts curricula and standards to be met.
“There’s so much emphasis on the WASL that even in kindergarten you’re thinking about what you can offer that they’ll need in fourth grade,” Seibel said, referring to the Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests.
The changes are good, she said. Children are ready, for the most part, while the full day gives her flexibility to help those who need extra attention.
On a recent day, children moved in groups through different learning stations – arranging puzzles in one part of the room, listening to a story on tape in another, working on spelling with an aide and reading with their teacher.
Seibel approached a group of her more advanced readers, perched over books at a table. “Did you already read it?”
“I’m on the last page,” Maliha “Molly” Sammo said with a smile.
Her mother, Shakila Sammo, said she was scared at first but is now happy about their decision.
“The second quarter just ended, and she’s reading books by herself,” Sammo said.
And that means a lot as Maliha and other students prepare “to compete in a tough world,” said Sammo, noting schools in her native Pakistan have traditionally been far tougher than U.S. schools.
“I can’t imagine her continuing preschool when her mind was capable of this.”
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@ heraldnet.com.
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