It’s that time of the year again for application forms, tests, early admission, teacher recommendations, and even a sleepless night or two.
Time to apply for college? Try preschool and kindergarten.
For parents, trying to enroll young children in school may be more challenging than they imagined.
“Because applications are at an all-time high, schools are becoming increasingly competitive,” said Pamela Popeil, director of admissions at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School on Chicago’s North Side, where enrollment increased 60 percent in the last seven years.
“With increased enrollment comes increased stress and anxiety for the parents. The economy is strong and with more families staying in the city and competing for the same number of spaces, the result is true competition for admission.”
Patrick Bassett, president of the Independent Schools Association of the Central States, said it has no admissions guidelines and that “it is up to the individual school to develop an admissions process suitable for them.”
An association committee, however, has developed a preschool recommendation form that member schools can use as a confidential recommendation between a preschool and the prospective new school, Popeil said.
“I very much see the pressure increasing on our member schools,” he said. “It is a new kind of problem for many of them. The schools are built on loyalty with the families they serve. These families not only expect their first child to be admitted, they also expect the second and third children and even the grandchildren. When admissions heat up and there are too few spots, that certainly puts pressure on them.”
Like many independent and private schools, junior kindergartenis the entry point at the Latin School of Chicago on the North Side. The school typically has 60 spots for about 200 applicants.
The admissions process includes a one-on-one developmental test. Jan Bail, assistant director of Lower School admissions, is quick to note that “the test is not an IQ test, but rather a developmental picture of that child on that specific day. We look at receptive and expressive language, number awareness and a host of other things.
“There are no wrong or right answers to these questions; every child has their own little time clock for establishing skills and we realize that they do it when they can do it. We wouldn’t want to have a class with all talkers or all physical kids and this helps us to balance the class and get a good mix of kids.”
Latin also observes the child at his or her preschool.
“We realize that it is very hard to assess a child at this age and the one-on-one, recommendation form and school observations are all pieces of the puzzle,” Bail said.
Barbara Bowman, president of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a graduate school for child development, agrees with Bail.
“Assessment of young children is a very complex job due to their age,” Bowman said. “No single assessment should be used to make any high-stakes decisions about children. Looking at children in real-life, authentic situations is very important.”
At North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, children undergo an individual screening and attend a “play party.”
“We like to see how the children applying interact with each other,” said Patty Washburn, who teaches and supervises the kindergarten classes. “A child may have a high IQ but may not be as socially developed. We feel this is an important part of the screening process. “We are not looking for children who can just handle the program; we also want children who can give something back to the class.”
Bail said: “We used to do play party groups, but we found that the parents didn’t get as much feedback and weren’t able to give us feedback.”
Stephanie Natinsky of Chicago has a daughter in 2nd grade and a son in senior kindergarten at Latin. She has been through both admissions procedures.
“I really prefer the one-on-one to a play party because I got immediate, personal feedback,” Natinsky said. “I think that some people are offended by the one-on-one because they think it is more of a test than it really is.”
“The question that we have is whether tests really do what they say they are going to do,” said Marilou Hyson, associate executive director for professional development at the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Washington.
“There are a lot of questions as to whether or not tests are a prediction of educational success. If you give the same test to a child on different days, you could see different results, she said. “A skilled psychologist could monitor that, but does this really put together a class that will benefit each other?
“We believe that schools should be ready for children more so than children should be ready for school. Children come with all different abilities and knowledge. Instead of sorting them out, we should adapt and accommodate our programs to meet them.”
The question of whether to test may depend on the investment the school is making in the child.
“It is different if you have [a post-kindergarten] school to think about,” Popeil said. “Some preschools may only have a child for one or two years, but at other schools it is a really a long-term commitment for both the family and the school.”
“You really need to decide which population you want to serve,” said Sue Thompson, head of school at the Avery Coonley School in Downers Grove. “We serve academically bright and gifted students, and our biggest entry group is at the junior-kindergarten level, when children are 4.”
For its last junior-kindergarten class, Avery Coonley had 69 completed applications and admitted 32.
After applying, children are tested one-on-one with a psychologist.
“We do give a standardized test, but we are testing for potential versus achievement,” Thompson said.
Children who score above the 91st percentile are invited to continue the process and attend a group screening.
“We are looking to build a class and we want learners who will complement each other and who are ready for a more accelerated program,” Thompson said.
The Chicago Public Schools has 33 elementary-school magnet programs. Through mid-January, parents submit one application to each school they are interested in having their child attend. Twenty-nine of the programs admit 5-year-old kindergartners via a lottery.
Of the remaining, four are classical school programs. In addition to the classical and magnet programs, there is a gifted program for kindergartners. The classical and gifted programs require a test for admission.
“The basic classical school is an accelerated program and is highly structured,” said Alvin Peterson, director of the office of equal educational opportunity programs. A standardized verbal test given to each applicant measures developmental and cognitive skills.
“We have used the same test for the past seven years,” Peterson said. “The test runs anywhere between 15 minutes and 45 minutes, depending on how the child responds. We don’t give IQ tests; we give an achievement test to see where the child is and what the child knows and does not know.”
After the application deadline, the gifted program in the Chicago public schools will test more than 500 children for the Regional Gifted Center kindergarten program and will admit 28 to 30 at each of two sites. (Edison School on Chicago’s Far Northwest Side is the only school with a gifted program; beginning with the 2001 school year, Lenart School on the Southwest Side also will have a gifted program).
MamonGibson, director of gifted, talented and enriched academic programs for the Chicago schools, said “the [gifted] test is an aptitude test that looks for indicators of potential to be successful. The test matches the program that we are testing for.”
Psychologists and staff members administer the verbal test to 15 to 18 children at a time. A child’s score and racial and ethnic percentage goals are factors in admission.
“Trying to find one test to determine eligibility is not the way to go about it,” said Jon Korfmacher, an assistant professor who teaches a class in child assessmentat the Erikson Institute. “With really young children there is no one test, no matter how good it is, that is a predictor of how a child will do. They are not used to people asking them [questions with answers that are] right and wrong and will try and answer in a way that is pleasing. “One of the major issues is that schools are often looking for cost-effective ways to assess large numbers of students, and standardized tests offer, on the surface, such a method.”
Because enrollments will continue to grow and the ways schools evaluate the applicants will increase, perhaps Hyson, of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, has the best idea.
“Let’s take children who walk in the door and bring out the best in them,” she said.
IDENTIFYING READINESS FOR KINDERGARTEN
Is your 5-year-old ready to enter kindergarten?
“Age is not always a total predictor,” said Donna Burk, co-author of several math books geared to teachers of kindergartners to 2nd graders in association with the Math Learning Center at Portland State University in Oregon.
“It has been said that children who have been read to come to school with a 1,000-hour advantage. If you read to your children, count with them, let them help you with measuring in the kitchen and are generally involved in their lives, they will certainly have an advantage.”
At Sprague School in Lincolnshire, parents are given an overview of “Characteristics of Five-Year-Old Children” to give them a sense of their child’s readiness skills. However, Principal Christine Adler cautioned, “Every child is different, and the characteristics should be used as a guide, not a checklist.”
Here is part of the overview:
Cognitive characteristics
Is your child curious about many things and interested in almost everything in his or her world?
Can your child stay on task for approximately 10 minutes?
Does your child understand basic mathematical generalizations (i.e. comparing sizes and numbers)?
Does your child recognize the difference between letters and numerals? (Most children do not recognize all upper and lower case letters when they start kindergarten.)
Is your child interested in listening to stories, and can your child share the main thought of the story?
Is your child’s memory span sufficient to allow memorization of a short poem or song?
Language characteristics
Your child uses speech well in conversation and uses most speech sounds correctly with the possible exceptions of t, v, s, r, l, sh, ch, j and z.
At 5, your child can count 10 objects, carry a plot in a story, and repeat a long sequence accurately.
Your child defines a word in terms of use (i.e., a horse is to ride).
Your child now questions for information.
Your child tells his age and knows spatial relations such as “on top,” “behind,” “far.”
Your child knows common opposites: big/little, hard/soft, etc.
Your child has a vocabulary of about 2,000 words and has a sentence length of 5 to 6 words.
Your child takes part in discussions and conversations.
Your child uses past, present and future tenses.
Your child expresses his or her needs and concerns.
Social characteristics
Your child seeks friendships, yet sometimes likes to play alone.
Your child is willing to share and has developed a sense of ownership.
Your child is eager to please, is serious and purposeful.
Your child has developed a sense of humor.
Your child is beginning to accept a certain amount of opposition or defeat without crying or sulking (can take turns, share and listen rather than interrupt).
Emotional characteristics
Your child is emotionally stable, dependable, obedient and cooperative, but occasionally impulsive.
Your child desires attention, is eager to work and wants to attain a feeling of accomplishment.
Your child may display jealousy of others in games and friendships.
Your child accepts adult leadership and works within the limits that have been set.
Your child adjusts calmly to changes in routine.
Your child distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate means of gaining attention and recognition.
Physical characteristics
Your child is very active physically and is learning to skip, jump and control his or her body well.
Your child can be fatigued by inactivity and can become restless.
Your child shows greater command of self-help activities (brushing teeth, combing hair) but has some difficulty using small muscles.
Right-handedness or left-handedness has generally become dominant.
Eye-hand coordination may yet be difficult.
Your child has had experiences using materials and participating in activities that help develop gross motor skills (i.e., balls, playground equipment and locomotor activities).
Your child has had experiences with materials that help develop small motor skills (i.e., crayons, paint, puzzles).
Your child knows the correct and safe way to use materials.
