While starting kindergarten is an exciting time for your little ones, the first day of “big kid” school can also be daunting and overwhelming for them. Many kindergarteners struggle with adjusting to the longer days, time away from home, and a comprehensive curriculum. To ease the transition into this important milestone, the following are a few readiness skills parents and children can work on together to have a successful year.
- speaks in complete sentences to voice their wants and needs
- expresses their feelings in a calm manner without crying or being aggressive
- uses words such as “please”, “thank you” and “excuse me”
- works cooperatively with others by listening, sharing and taking turns
- participates in clean-up activities
- understands simple directions and can follow rules
- pays attention, can focus and listen to what the teacher is saying
- independently uses the bathroom from fastening themselves to washing their hands
- holds and uses crayons, colored pencils and markers correctly
- cuts along a straight line and cuts out basic shapes
- stacks building blocks on top of one another
- ties their shoelaces
- picks up small objects using their pincer grip
- puts together simple puzzles
- can run, skip, jump and hop on one foot
- able to bounce, kick, throw and catch a ball
- can recite the alphabet
- able to identify some letters and the sounds they make
- blends sounds into words
- recognizes rhyming words
- identifies most upper and lower case letters
- holds a book correctly and understands the concept of reading from top to bottom and left to right
- able to write several letters
- writes their name with an upper case letter first and remaining letters in lower case
- can count from 1 to 10
- recognizes and identifies basic shapes (circle, square, triangle) and colors
- arranges objects in size order
- can differentiate between numbers and letters
It is perfectly fine if your child has not achieved all the skills mentioned above. The list is simply a general guideline to help prepare parents and children and to identify areas where they may need extra attention.