Help Your Child Have A Smooth Start To Kindergarten

kindergarten-students-kids

It’s that time of year where most parents are gearing up for the new school year to begin and also face the big transition from preschool to kindergarten. The question has been asked time and time again by all parents: “Is my child really ready for kindergarten?”All kids are different so there is no real clear-cut answer about whether your child is truly ready for this next big step. Luckily, Peggy Gisler, Ed.S and Marge Eberts, Ed.S came up with a Kindergarten Readiness Checklist on familyeducation.com to help parents see what skills their child has mastered. Remember, kids change on a daily basis so if they can’t do some of these skills, check back in a few weeks to see if they have mastered those that you haven’t checked off.Can your child…

• Listen to stories without interrupting

• Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed needs

• Understand that actions have both causes and effects

• Show understanding of general times of day

• Cut with scissors

• Trace basic shapes

• Begin to share with others

• Start to follow rules

• Recognize authority

• Manage bathroom needs

• Button shirt, pants, coats, and zip up zippers

• Begin to use self control

• Separate from parents without being upset

• Speak in a way that others understand

• Talk in complete sentences of five to six words

• Look at pictures and tell stories about them

• Recognize rhyming sounds

• Identify the beginning sound of some words

• Identify some alphabet letters

• Recognize some common sight words like “stop”

• Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape

• Recognize groups of one, two, three, four, and five objects

• Count to ten

• Bounce a ball

Children who have turned four years old at the beginning of the summer before they start kindergarten and have mastered the majority of the skills on this checklist are more likely to be ready for the transition to kindergarten.