How to Get Your Child Ready for Kindergarten

Kindergarten is still a big deal, no matter how much day care or pre-school your child and your family has been to. For many parents the question of ‘is my child ready’ keeps popping up. Here are a few guidelines to look for that I look for during Kindergarten ‘round-up’ and the first few weeks of class. Remember that there are no hard and fast rules here, just a few ‘benchmarks’ to look for and work on. Every child really does develop at their own pace, and that truly is fine. Also, different school districts might have different ‘benchmarks’ that they look for. You may be able to find what your district is looking for on their website.

Writing (See also Fine Motor):

• Your child should be writing their name. They may be using all caps and they might be using both upper and lower case letter. Either way is fine. They might still be flipping letters about backwards, and this is also very age appropriate. What you are looking for is the right letters in the correct order from left to right.
• They should hold a pencil with a three point or equivalent grip, not a fist.
• We expect that most children will have had enough practice writing and coloring at this point that they are either ‘left’ or ‘right’ handed. Either way is fine, and some children are still switching back and forth when then enter into kindergarten. If your child is still switching, don’t worry. Just provide more opportunities for practice, like drawing and coloring. They will figure out which is better for them.

Letters:

• They should recognize all the letters in the alphabet and be able to say the alphabet in order. They may not know all of the lower case letters, but it is a definite plus if they are at least on the road to knowing all of them correctly.
• They should understand that letters form written words that have meaning, and they should be recognizing some words by sight. Such ‘sight’ words might include their name, mom, dad, and other simple things that can easily be placed like cat and dog.

Numbers and Math:

• Your child should be able to count to at least ten, twenty is better.
• They should understand what numbers are for, and should be able to count for quantity, that is count out the number of things. For example they should be able to count four apples or more as for apples.
• They should recognize each number form up to ten, and it would be a good idea if they have at least been introduced to writing those forms.
• Verbal math skills to understand the manipulation of objects is also something that your child’s teacher is going to look for. Answering the question of ‘what is 1 plus 1’ should get the answer of two. Story problems such as ‘if I have one apple in one hand and another apple in my other hand, how many apples do I have altogether’ are often used.
• Simple ‘A’ ‘B’ patterns should be able to be repeated. For example if I had a pattern of red, green, red, green, red, green, what would come next?
• They should know a set of simple shapes to include a square, triangle, circle, rectangle and oval at least.

Personal Information:

• Your child should know their first and last names and the names of the other people in their family, like Mom’s name is ‘Ann’.
• Your child should know their address, at least the town and state.

Fine Motor and Art Skills:

• They should be able to color objects and stay in the lines.
• They should be able to place features on a face with a little bit of accuracy when drawing.
• They should know what all of the basic colors are-red, yellow, blue, purple, orange and green.

Gross Motor Skills:

• They should be able to take stairs one stair at a time correctly.
• They should be able to throw a regular nine inch ball and at least attempt to catch one.
• They should be able to run with a regular gait.
• They should be able to jump and hop in place.
• While balance is important, we don’t test it here anymore. It is a good idea if your child is able to walk a couple of steps on a balance beam, however.

Before kindergarten make an effort to talk to your child’s future teacher, particularly if you have not had any pre-school. They can give you some pretty good ideas about what they expect and what you might be working on with your child. Enjoy the time together and the excitement of kindergarten!



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