Five-year-old Karley Jo Jackson isn't reading yet, but her kindergarten teacher at Twin Echo Elementary School said she will be by the end of the school year.

"Ninety percent of them will be reading before they leave," said Jody Valerius, about her 24 students. "When I started teaching kindergarten, you played, took a nap, had snack time, learned your letters. Now, we're already doing letter sounds and how you put them together and blend them to make words."

And it's only the first week of school for students in the Collinsville School District.

Valerius, who has been teaching kindergarten for 14 years, had already taught the students how to line up in number order, get in the "peace walk" position and use their "listening ears." "When we use our listening ears, we can do the work, and that gets us to ... what?" Valerius asks her class.

"Fun!" they say in unison.

But the lessons came first. Valerius stood before four tables of six students. Each table was a different color and she identified the students by table color.

"The red table is really following directions," she tells the students, as she demonstrates the proper way to handle scissors "These little scissors have a lot of rules," Valerius said.

With a stern face of concentration, Karley Jo took her scissors-handling very seriously as she sliced through the line leading to the kite drawn on the paper.

But a smile appeared during music time. She patted her tummy to say "yum yum" and held her nose to say "pee yew" while the music guided the students in song play.

Mom Kim Jackson said Karley Jo was still singing the song when she got home that day. She said Karley Jo has been excited all week.

"When they both get in the car, I ask them what was the best part of their day and what was the worst part of their day," Jackson said of Karley Jo and her brother Logan, 9. "She said the best part was nap and lunch time and she didn't say anything about the worst part, so I guess it went pretty well."

Karley Jo said it's fun to learn new stuff.

"We learned about calendars and we learned about how many days of the week there are and stuff," she said. "Then we learned how to sing stuff and do the moves. And then we went to sleep and then we packed up and went home."

Jackson said it's still a challenge for Karley Jo to make the adjustment from summer time fun to having a schedule. She said it helps that Karley Jo picks out her outfits on the weekend for the entire week.

The excitement may be waning already.

"The very first day when she heard my alarm go off, she was up and ready to go," Jackson said. "Now it's taking a little longer for her to get up."

Contact reporter Ramona C. Sanders at 618-344-0264, ext. 136