DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — When Mary Bonosky began her teaching career 37 years ago in a one-traffic-light-town in rural Ohio, she taught her kindergarten students the alphabet, how to count to 10 and where to find their cot for nap time.

Anything beyond that was an educational plus.

"If they knew letters and letter sounds by the end of the year, that was considered success in kindergarten," said Bonosky, now a kindergarten teacher at Westwood Elementary School in Dayton.

Back then, kindergarten was a half day affair for students, and still is for many Ohio children. But that will change if Gov. Ted Strickland gets his way.

Midway through his first term, the Democrat announced last week a massive overhaul of how we educate children in Ohio and how we pay for it. One part of the plan calls for all-day kindergarten, five days a week.

"It is widely accepted that all-day kindergarten is desirable and helpful, especially for people with impoverished backgrounds," Strickland said Thursday, Jan. 29, during a visit to Stivers School for the Arts.

That's the case for many of Bonosky's students, who attend school all day, as do kindergarten students in Dayton Public Schools.

"Kindergarten has changed so much from what it used to be when I started teaching over 35 years ago," Bonosky said.

"Now the state has a large number of indicators that children are supposed to master by the end of kindergarten and it's in four core areas: language arts, math, social studies and science."

"The full day is an excellent way to go."