Dear PIRC,

My daughter is 5 and will be starting kindergarten this fall. Do you have any helpful advice for me?

Parenting Quick Tips:

Kindergarten Tips: Visit your local public school and find out how to enroll your child in kindergarten. Some private kindergartens have waiting lists, based on available slots.

Make sure you are aware of how to give your child the best chance to attend the school you select by learning as much as you can about the school, teachers, forms that must be completed, kindergarten program, school-year calendar, type of transportation available, meals and snacks served, and how you can become involved in the school’s activities and help your pre-schooler at home.

Help Your Child Get Ready for Kindergarten

Every child grows, develops, and learns at a different rate. Your child may already be successful with some skills and may need more time to develop others. The key is to give your child plenty of opportunities to practice and learn these skills by interacting naturally with family and friends. Review these skill areas, observe your child, and identify areas of strength and areas for improvement. Then use the Ready! Set! School! Lessons and Activities to find ways to develop your child's skills. 

Skill Areas

By reviewing these skills, you will be prepared to adapt Ready! Set! School! lessons to your child.

Social/Emotional Skills

• Tries new things
• Takes turns
• Shares materials
• Listens while others talk
• Shows concern for others
• Plays cooperatively with other children
• Works well independently or in small groups
• Separates from parent without undue anxiety
• Knows parent or guardian's first and last name
• Knows own first and last name and can tell an adult

Large Motor Skills

• Hops, jumps, and runs
• Bounces, catches, kicks, and throws balls
• Walks in a straight line forward and backward
• Balances on dominant foot for five seconds
• Participates in simple games

Small Motor Skills

• Holds writing instruments correctly
• Holds scissors correctly
• Uses scissors to cut straight or curved lines
• Turns a single page in a book
• Puts together simple puzzles

Math Skills

• Counts to ten
• Creates groups of up to five objects
• Places like items together (e.g., red cars and blue cars)
• Plays with, identifies, and names the shapes (e.g., circle, triangle, and rectangle).
• Uses comparative words (e.g., heavier, shorter, less, taller, bigger)

Language and Literacy

• Listens attentively and responds to stories and books
• Speaks in complete sentences
• Speaks clearly enough to be understood by unfamiliar adults
• Has a vocabulary that includes words to name colors, parts of the body, and positional words (e.g., in/out, to/from, around, upside down).
• Expresses feelings and ideas
• Knows poems and songs
• Identifies signs, symbols, or logos in the environment
• Identifies 10 or more letters of the alphabet, especially those in own name
• Writes using drawings and made-up or real letters

What to Do with Your Child on a Daily Basis

1. Allow your child to do things independently even if he/she takes longer than doing it yourself. 
2. Provide plenty of social experiences for your child. Whether in a formal or informal playgroup, preschool, or other setting, your child will learn skills that can only be taught by other children. Sharing objects or time with an adult is different from doing so with another child. Children develop their imaginations by role-playing and pretending. Pretend play has been consistently linked to cognitive, intellectual, language, and social growth.
3. Provide daily opportunities to develop strength and coordination of large and small muscles. Go to the park, play ball games and tag, practice lacing, pouring, stirring, and participate in other functional activities.
4. Play games in which your child counts out loud (such as hide and seek), play board games that require your child to count the dots on a die, and use household items such as cans, boxes, and balls to explore shapes. Complete puzzles and play with interlocking building toys.
5. Provide plenty of opportunities and materials for writing and creative expression: crayons, sand, water, paint, paper, markers, scissors, hole punch, yarn, beans, and popsicle sticks.
6. Read picture books, poetry books, nonfiction books, nonsense books, nursery rhymes, and signs. Exposure to a wide variety of literature allows your child to learn different sentence patterns and hear vocabulary that you might not ordinarily use at home. 
7. Talk WITH your child. (You talk TO your child when giving directions.) LISTEN to your child's stories. TELL your child stories. ASK questions. SHARE your ideas using descriptive language. Children learn language when they HEAR it and USE it.
8. Visit your local library or bookmobile regularly.

Kindergarten Entrance Requirements

• Your child must be five years old before September 2nd of the enrolling year.
• You must provide:
  - An official birth certificate.
  - An immunization record or exemption form.
  - A vision screening certificate.
• Some school districts require a record of a recent health examination. Check with your local school to find out what it requires in the health examination and whether it offers a kindergarten vision screening.