Making the Grade
Kindergarten Prep instructor eases transition for young members

Kindergarten is a big deal. Learning the alphabet, motor-skill stretching activities and sitting still in a classroom are all gargantuan tasks for the typical 5-year-old—especially when surrounded by a group of peers.

Instructor Shirley Davis has been teaching youngsters for more than 16 years in the school system, but it wasn’t until her granddaughter was born that she began teaching Kindergarten Prep at the Bellevue Club. As a kindergarten teacher, Shirley knew how to work with her granddaughter, Brooke, on simple scholastic skills. Other parents began to notice and requested that Shirley work with their children too. Pretty soon, Shirley thought the Bellevue Club’s family-friendly demographic would benefit specifically from her specialized teaching. Now in its first year, the Kindergarten Prep class is a hit with kids and parents.

“Our standards today are pretty high,” Shirley says. She teaches the class based on what she expects of incoming students in her own kindergarten classes.

“If they can follow a direction by listening to a teacher, they’re ready to learn,” she says. In her six-week sessions, Shirley uses an inventive curriculum to develop fine motor skills, alphabet letters, basic sight words and lots of hands-on projects. The class runs 45 minutes once per week and helps 4- to 6-year-olds ease the transition into the classroom setting. Above all, Shirley helps nurture a positive sense of personal responsibility in the kids.

“I really encourage the kids to answer for themselves,” she says.

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