Understanding your child’s Kindergarten readiness
When we started Mighty Kids Virtual Academy we wanted to make sure that we weren't taking something built for in-person and just shoving it online. When the pandemic started we were not entirely sold on the idea of virtual preschool (it's true!). Early development in children is supposed to be focused on:
Social-emotional growth
Foundational learning concepts that they can build on in Kindergarten.
We wanted to create more time in zoom to connect and build on that ever-important social-emotional growth. To facilitate this we needed a way to accommodate the learning portion so that it didn't impede the limited face-to-face time the kids had. We also wanted to make sure there was enough time to accommodate all of the different learning levels and styles.
In-person, the teachers are able to sit with the children see where they are struggling or excelling, and adjust accordingly. We didn't want our program to just be in Zoom, it's hard to keep little ones attention as it is, and we wanted to focus that on social. We wanted to make sure that every child had the same care as an in-person teacher would give but with the new reality of virtual learning. So we set out to create the customized learning solution that parents and caregivers could implement at home without having to become early childhood professionals themselves.
Every child gets a unique custom-tailored video curriculum based on their assessment results in 30 learning standards.
The Standards
Math
There are 14 standards that children are tested against that are common among all state standards in the US.
Kindergarten Foundations
Building/gross motor
Position words/concepts
Time of day and sequence concepts
Sorting by attribute
Counting objects (1:1 correspondence)
Matching numerals with quantities/groups
Writing numbers properly
Measurement concepts and using measurement vocabulary and tools
Shape recognition and number of sides of shapes
Patterning
Spacial awareness concepts
Rote (memory) counting
Color recognition/color mixing
Language & Literature
There are 11 standards that children are tested against that are common among all state standards in the US.
Kindergarten Foundations
Knows the alphabet rote
Recognizes and can name many uppercase letters
Recognizes and names many lowercase letters
Letter sound recognition
Understands and names parts of a book
Recognizes own name and names of some family in print
Predicts what will likely happen next in a story and can retell a familiar story
Tells Steps for a simple activity
Produces and recognizes rhyming words
Uses and understands increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary
Understands opposites
Writing & Fine Motor
There are 5 standards that children are tested against that are common among all state standards in the US.
Kindergarten Foundations
Ability to express thoughts/ideas through pictures, scribbles and/or words
Fine motor skill development
Holding scissors properly to create increasingly difficult projects
Writing own name properly
Writing letters, words and sentences properly with good form
The Assessment
In-person teachers perform observational and paper assessments. We developed our assessment to be a hybrid of these, from the parent or caregiver's perspective while providing guidance on how parents or caregivers should record the results. Some of the questions will be from the adult's experience with the child and some will be interactive with the child. All 3 parts of the assessment will take 30-60 minutes but can be done individually as not to overwhelm the child.
The results are computed and an individualized learning plan is made for that child. A child can be in multiple levels in a subject i.e: level 1 in Math standard 1, and level 6 in math standard 2. We build the lesson plan so that each standard is taught to the level the child is at. Some days a child will get lower-level content and another gets higher level and the next day it could be opposite depending on each child. Every child is unique in their learning journey.
Every Child Is Unique
With 6 levels and 30 standards, there are (6!)^30 combinations which is not quite a Googol number but definitely headed in that direction. No child will have the same video schedule for the school year. Every student is taught to their own level. Each day when a standard is presented in a subject, every child will get their level of that standard in the subject. No child is just one level across the board and neither should the learning.
An example of how 3 different children might score on the assessment and have different video curriculum schedules each day.
