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Kindergarten Readiness Last edited September 2007 In an affluent school district it is often assumed that children have available to them the best possible care and the most advanced support from parents and educators. It ain't necessarily so. In many wealthy areas of America, it is customary for young children to attend a daycare or preschool of some sort, even if there is a stay-at-home mom or dad around. Parents often assume that their children are getting what they need from these organizations in order to prepare for kindergarten and elementary school, but, again, it ain't necessarily so. While in 2005 some 70% of public schools nationally had a full day kindergarten program, some wealthy areas do not. That fact makes kindergarten readiness even more critical because there is precious little time for teachers to help students mature in areas they are lacking. Is your child ready for kindergarten? Preparation for the first day of kindergarten starts in the infant and toddler stage, when parents should begin reading to their child. Hearing the patterns and rhythms of language and touching the pages of a book are important first steps. As your child matures he should begin to find pleasure in the quiet time of his parent reading aloud, he should begin to decode the meaning of a book by looking at the pictures and answering your questions, and he should follow your finger along as you read. In time he will begin to memorize repetitive passages and to favor certain books over others. All of these precursors to reading must happen in the home. Similarly, parents need to help pre-K children learn to recognize sight words in their environment (stop signs or toy names, etc.), to pick out individual letters and their sounds, and to pronounce sounds and letters properly. Magnetic letters on the refrigerator or foam bathtub letters are simple ways to turn this into a fun game. Similarly, number recognition is a critical part of pre-K learning. Counting with your child as you shop or clean up toys and pointing out numbers in the environment are strategies to employ in this area. Drawing or painting and learning colors is another skill set that parents need to encourage. The growth of fine motor skills allowing a crayon to be gripped and the ability to recognize different colors of paint should be monitored by parents. Chip Wood, in his well known book Yardsticks, notes that four year old children: "...learn best through their own play, by being read to, by acting out stories and fairy tales, by manipulating clay, paint brushes, finger paints, building blocks, math materials. Outdoor play is also essential for fours...This is an age where much learning is transmitted through the large muscles. Learning goes from hand to head, not the other way around." While some of this may take place in daycare or preschool, parents must be vigilant to make sure their child is getting what he or she needs. Plus, in many cases guidance from parents is simply more effective than from others. Some of the things which children entering kindergarten should be able to do include:
These skills are the kinds of things that your child's kindergarten teacher will be looking for and evaluating. Your child should be able to accomplish them without your help or prompting. In addition to these things, it is critical that your child entering kindergarten be able to separate from you without issue. Emotional over-attachment or reliance on parents is no more helpful than parents who have ignored intellectual development. As author Nancy Balaban put it in her book Starting School, From Separation to Independence: "Since parents are largely the mediators of their young children's experiences, they help children understand the meaning of events and other people's behavior in the way that they explain these to children and the way that they, the parents, behave. Parents translate separation at school in many different ways and communicate a variety of ideas and feelings about the event to their children. Often these ideas and feelings are expressed through the attachment relationship, so it is not easy for a teacher to distinguish a secure attachment relationship from one that is insecure." In other words, it is as much the way in which parents act as it is the confidence of the child which determines how successful kindergarten separation will be. An otherwise self-reliant child can be brought down by a parent who is not prepared to let go and it may take a teacher some time to sort this out. It is better for parents to take a look in the mirror to see if they are acting in the best interest of their child or merely preventing their child from maturing. To review, then, kindergarten readiness depends not on the work of daycare or preschool providers (no matter how expensive), but on how well parents themselves have done their job. It is in the daily rhythms of home life that pre-K learning truly takes place and no daycare or preschool can substitute for that. Parents need to help their child with pre-K skills and to work at bringing their child up to a level of self-reliance whereby separation is not an issue for the child or the parent. *** Copyright 2007, rationalamerican.com *** To cite this article: Painter, John. Kindergarten Readiness. (September 2007). Retrieved month x, 2xxx, from <http://rationalamerican.com/education> |
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