Principals: More youngsters need extra help

BENTON – Six in 10 kindergartners now leave Fairfield Primary School truly ready for first grade.

By the end of this year, Principal Sally Comeau hopes to have raised that figure to eight in 10 children.

Fairfield Primary, like schools throughout Maine, continues to face youngsters needing extra help grasping the basics of reading and arithmetic, Comeau told the SAD 49 board Thursday night.

“We have more children at risk for failure,” she said during a break in the board’s meeting at Benton Elementary School.

To help children entering school without basic skills prepare for the first grade, teachers at Fairfield Primary have focused on group activities that encourage children to learn together.

Common tools include so-called “big books,” which have larger print, to help children make connections between words and images. Visual cues are key.

“Children have more opportunities to practice,” Comeau said, adding that children also are encouraged to take books home to share with their parents.

Administrators told the board they began years ago to notice skill levels declining among children entering school. Parents are busier than ever, they said, and such simple but vital tools as bedtime stories no longer are taken for granted.

Many youngsters now spend more time watching television than reading. As a result, the jobs of teachers in kindergarten and first grade have become harder.

“Children seem less and less ready,” Comeau said.

Upon entering first grade, children are expected among other things to know how to write the alphabet, how to count and how to sound out basic words in books.

At Benton Elementary School, which accepts children in the first through the sixth grades from Fairfield and Benton, half of all first-graders require some type of remedial reading.

“There’s a lot of intervention that needs to take place to get kids where they need to be,” Suanne Giorgetti, principal of Benton Elementary, told the board.

The irony, Giorgetti and others said, is that teachers today are working harder than ever to reach children.

Time remains a challenge, especially for kindergarten teachers. “We have a 21/2-hour [daily] kindergarten session to teach the entire kindergarten curriculum,” Comeau said.

One possible solution lies in all-day kindergarten.

This fall, SAD 49 launched an experimental all-day program at Clinton Elementary School.

Supporters believe the additional three to four hours in school might give some children the extra attention that could make a difference later on. The program will run for the school year, after which officials will evaluate its success.

Kindergarten at Albion Elementary and Fairfield Primary, which serves Fairfield and Benton, remains half time. A decision about whether to move to full-day kindergarten in all schools will hinge on funding, officials said.

School districts throughout Maine are trying similar approaches to meet the challenges of reaching children who arrive unprepared, administrators said.

“What we’re experiencing is typical of what is happening in the state,” Giorgetti said.