Parkland’s first year of full day kindergarten is so successful, administrators are working ahead to prepare for the children’s continued advancement when they enter first grade in September.

Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Professional Development Kelly Rosario told the school board at its Feb. 21 meeting the district will stay with the Reading Wonders course.

“It’s a challenging program and we’ll keep it, but we’ll add more enrichment in curriculum and instruction to move them forward,” Rosario said.

“We want to take kids where they are and keep challenging them.”

She explained the Reading Wonders curriculum includes many books, a writing element and authentic children’s literature.

“It has all of the literacy components,” Rosario said.

She showed a video of kindergartners reading aloud from books.

“This spring and summer, we will work with first grade teachers on professional development,” Rosario explained.

She reported the district had all positive feedback since full day kindergarten was approved.

“No one was vocal about not wanting it,” Rosario noted.

Elementary Curriculum Supervisor Diane Neikam said kindergarten children came to the district a bit more advanced than in previous years.

She attributed the improved readiness to district efforts to distribute information packets to parents before the beginning of school and to working with area prekindergarten programs.

Rosario presented a diagnostic report using midyear data to compare half-day kindergarten skills of 2016 students with the full day 2017 assessments.

The full day kindergartners scored higher than the half-day students in every category, including alphabetic principles, word concepts, visual discrimination, phonemic awareness, phonics, structural analysis, vocabulary, sentence and paragraph comprehension, and early numeracy.

Rosario pointed out the amount of children needing intervention and urgent help declined considerably.

“We’ll see a ripple effect in years to come as kids move through the system,” Superintendent Richard Sniscak said.

He mentioned Parkland demographics have been changing, with 25 percent of students now receiving free or reduced lunch and increased numbers needing English as a second language instruction.

With children receiving the advantage of full day kindergarten, the district is striving to have everyone reading efficiently by the end of third grade.