The following is an excerpt from a letter sent by the principal of Greenwood School to the parents of all incoming kindergartners.
"We have decided to institute a policy of all-day kindergarten, instead of half-day kindergarten, for all students at Greenwood School. All-day kindergarten will help all our students achieve at their highest levels. The classes will be 'tracked'; so that average students are together, but high-achieving and low-achieving students will be put together in classes. In this way, the high-achieving students will be able to help pull the low-achieving students up to their level, so that no student falls behind. The all-day kindergarten classes will cover the same material previously covered in the half-day kindergarten classes, but will go at a slower speed to accommodate learning differences. In addition, the students will receive extra instruction in music, art, and physical education. One of the greatest benefits of the plan, however, is that students will be in a structured environment for longer hours, reducing the numbers of hours that otherwise would be wasted at home or in day care."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The Principal of Greenwood School in his letter to the Parents of all the incoming kindergarteners writes about a new policy that has been sketched for the kids who are going to join them very soon. The policy states the major change of Full-day Kindergarten from a half-day Kindergarten for the benefit of its students. This policy is based on many assumptions that deflect from the main objective of helping students achieve great milestones.
One such assumption being the separation of students based on the merit level so that the high achieving students can help the low achieving students. This may not really happen as the students they are talking about are just kindergarteners and entrusting such responsibility on those kids would not create great results.
Another assumption that the principle makes here is that only by increasing the duration of stay at school the kids won't waste their time at Home. Giving a generalized statement as the students would waste their time at home is not right. Kids of that age require personal attention, love, and care from the family the most. Spending time with family is mandatory to help them create a bond and attachment that is required. This cannot be termed as wastage of time. And moreover staying long hours at school, learning things continuously may turn out to be exhausting for them.
However, I found some of the points mentioned in the letter acceptable. Teaching the syllabus at a low pace will actually help the kids grasp ideas easily. And extra instructions pertaining to Music, Art and Physical Education is also a good idea keeping in mind the over all development of the Kids.
Therefore, though some of the assumptions that the principal mentioned were not thoughtful, some were good. This policy can be worked on a trial basis for a month. And based on the results, it can be decided whether to continue or to discard it,
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 323 350
No. of Characters: 1549 1500
No. of Different Words: 177 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.239 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.796 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.68 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 101 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 75 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 58 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 36 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.739 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.412 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.558 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.092 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 7, column 18, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...hausting for them. However, I found some of the points mentioned in the letter acceptab...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 9, column 19, Rule ID: SOME_OF_THE[1]
Message: Simply use 'some'.
Suggestion: some
...ment of the Kids. Therefore, though some of the assumptions that the principal mentione...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, however, may, moreover, really, so, therefore, such as, talking about
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 12.9520958084 69% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 11.1786427146 72% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 13.6137724551 66% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 24.0 28.8173652695 83% => OK
Preposition: 41.0 55.5748502994 74% => OK
Nominalization: 9.0 16.3942115768 55% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1587.0 2260.96107784 70% => OK
No of words: 322.0 441.139720559 73% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 4.92857142857 5.12650576532 96% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.23607819155 4.56307096286 93% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73479784389 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 181.0 204.123752495 89% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.562111801242 0.468620217663 120% => OK
syllable_count: 481.5 705.55239521 68% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 2.0 8.76447105788 23% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 0.0 4.22255489022 0% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.4546822368 57.8364921388 70% => OK
Chars per sentence: 93.3529411765 119.503703932 78% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.9411764706 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.0 5.70786347227 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.255998199262 0.218282227539 117% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0681135864568 0.0743258471296 92% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0842341898902 0.0701772020484 120% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.131363694073 0.128457276422 102% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.133915193725 0.0628817314937 213% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 61.67 48.3550499002 128% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 12.197005988 75% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.31 12.5979740519 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 98.500998004 77% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.