What happens in 4 yr old preschool?

Just curious what the curriculum is for other schools.

The school where Logan is now, the owner says that they will be learning pre reading. What is that exactly? She just explained it as learning from left to right..

Will they be reading words? Possibly learning a short sentence?

I just picked up a set of BOB books at BJs, if anyone is familiar with those is that something like what they will be learning?

Re: What happens in 4 yr old preschool?

IMO it depends on the teacher, regardless of what the school directors say.

For example, last year Sarah's class learned how to recognize and write all 26 letters in upper and lower case. How to count to 100. A few simple sight words. Simple math. A few science projects, some art projects. They didn't work on sentences. She had homework every weekend to cut out 3 pictures of items of a certain letter and then write the name of the item as well as their name "the Kindergarten way" (Cathy vs. CATHY)

This year Andy's class (same school, same number of hours & days of the week, different teacher) worked on counting to 100, recognizing all the letters capital and lowercase but didn't really work on writing all of them, just the ones in their names. They learned their address and phone number. No homework assignments at all. His teacher was more focused on art and science projects than early literacy skills, IMO. So this summer I'll be doing the homework projects like Sarah used to do with him so he can write all the letters clearly, both upper and lowercase.

Message edited 6/14/2011 1:12:04 PM.

Re: What happens in 4 yr old preschool?

My DS did sight words, writing skills (upper and lower case),writing the numbers, calender (months weeks days, seasons) , full name , address phone #, patterns , basic math skills...

Feels like so long ago

Re: What happens in 4 yr old preschool?

Pre-Reading Skills

Pre-reading skills are the skills children need in order to help them to become a reader. Many of these skills are learnt naturally, during the course of a normal childhood, at home and in the nursery/preschool environment. By talking and reading with your child, you will be doing a great deal to help these essential skills to develop.


Matching: When we read, part of what we do involves matching. Children learn to match shapes, patterns, letters and, finally, words.

Rhyming: Research shows that children who can understand about rhyming words have a head start in learning to read and, even more, to spell.

Letter skills: As well as recognising letter shapes, learning the most common sounds that each letter makes will give children a head start.

Direction: Print goes from left to right, so children will need to be familiar with where to start each line and which direction to go in.

Motor skills: Practicing writing letters and words as they learn to read them will help it all to sink in, so a good pencil grip and control is useful.

Concepts of print: This is all about knowing how to handle books - holding them the right way up, turning the pages in sequence, exploring the pictures, knowing that the words can be read to tell a story.

Language skills: The more experience children have of language, the more easily they will learn to read. Your child needs to hear and join in conversations (with adults and children), and listen to stories and poetry of all sorts.

Message edited 6/14/2011 3:38:47 PM.