What I wish someone would have told me before my son started school…

First let me set the stage, because I realize that depending on where you live, the situation could be very different.  My son just started Prep in Queensland Australia…prep is what they call the year before grade 1 in Queensland.  The school year begins at the end of January and if your child will be turning 5 on or before June 30th of that year he or she can begin school.  My son turns 5 at the end of May so he began school this January at the age of about 4 1/2.  This was great because he was getting really bored at home and with two other younger children to look after, it was hard to keep him entertained with something besides the TV.

My expectation of his year at Prep was that he would be learning his ABC’s and 123’s with a lot of cutting and pasting in between and because he is a boy and has no interest in sitting down and learning anything of the sort at home, I’ve let him run around and climb trees and do whatever else strikes his fancy (except when he is roaring incessantly at his sisters)…turns out things have changed since I was in school…

Prep’s have to learn 100 words by the end of the year, and he’s got 12 words he is supposed to be able to read by the finish of this term (which is a week away).  They have to be able to recognize their numbers and begin to write words…

When I discovered all of this I was a touch overwhelmed to say the least.  I can’t imagine the pressure on the teachers trying to teach kids all this stuff, and because my son never went to preschool, he did not have any exposure to this stuff.  I’m not quite sure what the ‘policy makers’ think this is going to accomplish..
We are now working hard with him at home, trying to let him be the boy he is and get his play time, but also teach him to recognize all his letters and numbers and to read all at the same time!!!

I’m not posting this to get any sympathy.  Worst case scenario is that he will have to do his prep year over again, and that’s not all that bad.  But I have found as I have talked with parents of children who aren’t at school yet, they had no idea what was awaiting them.  If I had known this, we would have worked more with my son to recognize his letters and numbers before going to school so that there wasn’t so much pressure on him…

So I thought I would put it out into the universe of the internet for anyone who might benefit from having this knowledge when you can work on it without the time restraint of school.  If you are reading this and know someone who has young kids not yet in school, please give them the heads up!!

I’d also be curious to know if other parents have found a similar situation in other states in Australia as well as other countries??

If you are interested to know what strategies we are using to teach our Son the plethora of things he needs to know, while not making him completely bored out of his brain…leave a comment and I will put something together to post.  My younger two kids are girls, so I am expecting it to be easier teaching them as I have found girls take to this stuff quicker than boys.