Kindergarten Readiness

Is your child getting ready to start kindergarten? A child can show many signs of being ready for school. It is up to the parents to recognize these signs such as oral language skills, social skills, motor skills, and identifying letters and numbers. Having some preparation before starting kindergarten can help your child build readiness for starting school. Pre-kindergarten claims that preparation is very important for kindergarten readiness.
What is kindergarten readiness? It is determining whether or not a child is ready for kindergarten. With so many child development surveys on children aging from three to five years of age, over six million children entering kindergarten are not adequately prepared for school. (Staff and wire reports, 1987). Children are required to have a certain amount of independence before they start to attend school. (Harker, 2012). To be successful in kindergarten a child must have more skills other than knowing the alphabet or how to write their name. The child’s age, social, motor, and academic skills are a big part of the preparation process. (‘Kindergarten Readiness: More Than Academics”, 2009). Pre-kindergarten preparation has its benefits with teaching children social skills and basic letter recognition needed for kindergarten. On the other hand, children without any kind of kindergarten preparation do not seem to be far behind on social skills but are indeed unprepared in other developing skills such as oral language. (‘Preparing for Kindergarten”, 2012).
A little preparation can go a long way. (Biale, 2012). Therefore pre-kindergarten does have its importance’s with teaching and preparing children for school. At pre-school children learn writing and sound recognition. Where they are taught how to identify the letters of the alphabet. How to write their name and how to identify the sounds in words like their name. They are also taught numbers and counting recognition by learning to count to small numbers, for instance to ten or to twenty. With learning numbers comes identifying each number for example the child could count how many gold fish he has on his plate at snack time. (’10 Kindergarten Readiness Skills Your Child Needs”, 2013). In pre-school children also learn social skills by learning how to work in groups, share, listening to new rules and how to behave around other children in a group setting. Those are all parts of developing their social skills for when they do start kindergarten.
The sum of five hundred teachers participated in a nationwide survey that conducted almost two-thirds of America’s kindergarten teachers believe the child going into kindergarten are academically unprepared for school. (“Preparing for Kindergarten”, 2012). Children that do not have the chance to go to pre-school, parents can prepare their youngsters at home by teaching them the alphabet with the ABC song, the basic colors like red, yellow, orange, blue, green, brown and black, teach them their beginning numbers one to ten. Parents can also teach them how to concentrate on a tasks such as picking up their toys and helping them with their social skills by scheduling play dates with their friends. Reading to them every day can help them apply their minds, if the lesson you are trying to teach them is about numbers, reading a book about numbers enforces the learning process. This method applies to all categories with the alphabet, numbers, colors and rhymes. (Banas, 1999).
Since kindergarten focusses on some of the same things as a preschool would such as circle time, play time and learning. Kindergarten would be considered a pre-school for older children. The children learn how to write and also start to learn how to read. (Biale, 2012). Studies conducted be Early Development Index (EDI) has found that forty percent of children going into kindergarten are at risk for reading disabilities. (Burnett, 2010). When entering kindergarten children are expected to know how to behave in a classroom setting like listening to the teacher and following the classroom rules, following directions given to them and not hitting when they get angry about something. They develop social skills by working and playing with other students. In kindergarten children will specifically learn reading and writing skills. First by learning the sounds of the letters and then putting the sounds together to form words. Additionally children will be writing more and starting to spell words and put them together. (“10 Kindergarten Readiness Skills Your Child Needs”, 2013). Some first words they learn to write are their names, the, little, small, big, I, have, and, & am.
Preparation for kindergarten depends on the child’s temperament. When the child is shy, takes a while to warm up and does struggle with change in her environment she will need more support and preparation from the parents and teachers. (Biale, 2012). When children are given the opportunity for pre-kindergarten preparation with a pre-school program, they tend to excel more at learning new things. Children will pick up letters, colors, numbers, shapes, motor skills and social skills more easily. Parents that read to their child everyday are giving their child some preparation with understanding letters and words and just finds reading more enjoyable. Which keeps the child more motivated to learn new things and will enjoy going to kindergarten. Children with preparation transition better then kids without preparation. They are less likely to get nervous about starting something new in their life such as going to school.
However without given the opportunity for pre-kindergarten preparation children are finding the transition to be harder. When all they might need is a little help and support in common areas as language and speech. (Burnett, 2010). Kindergarten is ever changing to meet the demands of the children and society and parents tend to feel pressure in preparing their kids for school. Most children already possess many of the skills needed to be successful in school. (“10 Kindergarten Readiness Skills Your Child Needs”, 2013).
Try considering what kind of learner your child is and what setting of learning environment works best for your child. Getting your child ready to start kindergarten can be fun for both of you and helps your child understand that learning can be fun. Deciding if your child will benefit from getting the right kind of preparation from a pre-school or if your child will do well without having preparation before kindergarten is up to the parents but knowing kindergarten readiness is important for children to have before starting school will be a deciding factor with parents wanting the best start for their kids.

Banas, C. (1999, August). Kindergarten Preparations Should Stress Social Skills. Tribune Publishing Company LLC, ProQuest Central.
Biale, R. (Aug 10, 2012, August). A little preparation eases transition to kindergarten. The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California : J, 116(31), 40. Ethnic NewsWatch.
Burnett, S. (2010, November). Kids preparing for Kindergarten. Alaska Highway News, 1. ProQuest Central.
Freitas, L. (Jan 27, 2009). Kindergarten Readiness: More Than Academics. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/magazine/article/Ed_Kindergarten/
Geiser, T. (July 30, 2013). 10 Kindergarten Readiness Skills Your Child Needs. Retrieved from http://www.education.com/magazine/article/kindergarten-readiness-secrets/
Harker, J. (2012, May). Head start on kindergarten. The Midland - Penetanguishene Mirror, 1. ProQuest Central.
Preparing for Kindergarten. (2012, February). The Education Digest, 77(6), 28-32. ProQuest Central.
Staff and wire reports, . (1987, August 20). Kindergarten Preparation . Sun Sentinel, p. 0.