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Verdict still out about pros, cons of all-day kindergarten
By By Alica P. Thiele
Challenger reporter
Challenger reporter
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EmailOctober 21. 2009 6:00AM
Valley Springs second graders will help determine if all-day kindergarten is good for Brandon Valley kids.
This is the third year Valley Springs Elementary has had all-day kindergarten in a pilot program. At the district’s three other elementary schools, kindergarten is held half days.
This year’s second graders are the first class to have all-day kindergarten. The district has been tracking their standardized test scores to see how they compare to scores of students who had half day.
“The basic question is, ‘Do the benefits of all day kindergarten last through second grade?’ ” Superintendent Dave Pappone said.
So far, results are inconclusive, based on first-grade scores from the 2008-09 school year.
“Differences are minor with no gap being more than 10 points,” Pappone said.
Scores also were broken down into two subgroups – students who received free and reduced lunches, and those who did not.
Among 2008-09 first graders who paid full price for lunch, those who had all-day kindergarten scored 14 to 15 points lower on the SAT standardized reading assessment and 24 to 28 points lower on the oral reading fluency test. In math, the students scored about the same as their half-day counterparts.
The scores shifted the opposite way, though, for all-day students who were on free and reduced lunch. Students who had all-day kindergarten performed 7 to 11 points higher on the SAT standardized math, 22 to 25 points higher on the oral reading fluency and 14 to 24 points higher on the nonsense word fluency than students who had half-day kindergarten.
“One year after having had all-day kindergarten, there appears to be an advantage for the lower socio-economic students in both math and reading,” Pappone said. But he cautioned about reading too much into the test scores. Only eight students were in the all-day free and reduced category. With that few children, just one or two high-achieving students could distort the results, Pappone said.
By next spring, the district will have test scores from this year’s second graders. The school board will review them and decide whether to offer all-day kindergarten throughout the whole district, have just half-day kindergarten in all four of the district’s grade schools, or possibly some combination of all- and half-day.
Liz Davis has had children in both programs, and she hopes the district continues the all-day kindergarten. She and her husband are in favor of it so much that they open enrolled their son to Valley Springs this year.
“I purposely wanted him to go all day,” Davis said. “I felt like he wasn’t going to get any academic challenge in half-day kindergarten.”
The Davis’s daughter, now in fourth grade, went to all-day kindergarten in Yankton. When the family moved to Brandon in February of that year, the girl had to go down to half day at Robert Bennis Elementary.
“I heard her telling other people she didn’t learn anything the last half of the year because she’d already learned it,” Davis said.
Bill Freking, Valley Springs Elementary principal, said kindergarten students are exposed to much more curriculum if they go to school all day long.
“They’re doing things on computers already at 5 years old,” he said. “They’re getting exposure to technology and science.”
Amber Ernste and Michelle Rist, who teach kindergarten at Valley Springs, agree. Half-day kindergarten focuses mainly on reading and math. All-day curriculum includes science, social studies, computer, social skills and other areas, the teachers said.
“One of the biggest things in kindergarten is practice and repetition,” Ernste said. All-day classes give young children lots of opportunity for that.
Rist used to teach first grade, and she said students who had had all-day kindergarten were much better prepared for first grade.
“It took so long to catch up to the first-grade curriculum,” she said of students who had had only half-day kindergarten. “We had to spend a lot of time in review.”
After having children in both half-day and all-day kindergarten, Davis favors all-day. “We had such a good experience (with it),” she said.
This is the third year Valley Springs Elementary has had all-day kindergarten in a pilot program. At the district’s three other elementary schools, kindergarten is held half days.
This year’s second graders are the first class to have all-day kindergarten. The district has been tracking their standardized test scores to see how they compare to scores of students who had half day.
“The basic question is, ‘Do the benefits of all day kindergarten last through second grade?’ ” Superintendent Dave Pappone said.
So far, results are inconclusive, based on first-grade scores from the 2008-09 school year.
“Differences are minor with no gap being more than 10 points,” Pappone said.
Scores also were broken down into two subgroups – students who received free and reduced lunches, and those who did not.
Among 2008-09 first graders who paid full price for lunch, those who had all-day kindergarten scored 14 to 15 points lower on the SAT standardized reading assessment and 24 to 28 points lower on the oral reading fluency test. In math, the students scored about the same as their half-day counterparts.
The scores shifted the opposite way, though, for all-day students who were on free and reduced lunch. Students who had all-day kindergarten performed 7 to 11 points higher on the SAT standardized math, 22 to 25 points higher on the oral reading fluency and 14 to 24 points higher on the nonsense word fluency than students who had half-day kindergarten.
“One year after having had all-day kindergarten, there appears to be an advantage for the lower socio-economic students in both math and reading,” Pappone said. But he cautioned about reading too much into the test scores. Only eight students were in the all-day free and reduced category. With that few children, just one or two high-achieving students could distort the results, Pappone said.
By next spring, the district will have test scores from this year’s second graders. The school board will review them and decide whether to offer all-day kindergarten throughout the whole district, have just half-day kindergarten in all four of the district’s grade schools, or possibly some combination of all- and half-day.
Liz Davis has had children in both programs, and she hopes the district continues the all-day kindergarten. She and her husband are in favor of it so much that they open enrolled their son to Valley Springs this year.
“I purposely wanted him to go all day,” Davis said. “I felt like he wasn’t going to get any academic challenge in half-day kindergarten.”
The Davis’s daughter, now in fourth grade, went to all-day kindergarten in Yankton. When the family moved to Brandon in February of that year, the girl had to go down to half day at Robert Bennis Elementary.
“I heard her telling other people she didn’t learn anything the last half of the year because she’d already learned it,” Davis said.
Bill Freking, Valley Springs Elementary principal, said kindergarten students are exposed to much more curriculum if they go to school all day long.
“They’re doing things on computers already at 5 years old,” he said. “They’re getting exposure to technology and science.”
Amber Ernste and Michelle Rist, who teach kindergarten at Valley Springs, agree. Half-day kindergarten focuses mainly on reading and math. All-day curriculum includes science, social studies, computer, social skills and other areas, the teachers said.
“One of the biggest things in kindergarten is practice and repetition,” Ernste said. All-day classes give young children lots of opportunity for that.
Rist used to teach first grade, and she said students who had had all-day kindergarten were much better prepared for first grade.
“It took so long to catch up to the first-grade curriculum,” she said of students who had had only half-day kindergarten. “We had to spend a lot of time in review.”
After having children in both half-day and all-day kindergarten, Davis favors all-day. “We had such a good experience (with it),” she said.
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Amber Ernst explains the next classroom activity in her Valley Springs Elementary kindergarten class. Kindergarten lasts the full day in Valley Springs, while it is only a half day at the other Brandon Valley elementaries. Photo by Alica P. Thiele |  |
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