10 Things To Practice for Kindergarten Readiness

When I first began my teaching career, kindergarten was a half-day program and primarily focused on play and socialization. Wow, have those days changed!

Today, many kindergartens are on a full-day schedule and are much more academic and structured. Kindergarten readiness is not the simple transition into elementary school that it once was. Common Core State Standards and children’s preschool experiences make modern kindergartens the true start of a child’s elementary school experience.
If your child is entering kindergarten, here are 10 simple things you can practice beforehand to help him face the challenges of a modern kindergarten classroom.

• Practice upper- and lowercase letters as “partners.” That means learning “Aa, Bb, etc.” together, rather than all capitals. And practice until he can recognize them out of sequence.
• Hear and recognize rhymes. This promotes phonemic awareness and is a precursor to reading.
• Start to recognize the sound of letters in the beginning of words. For example, knowing that “bunny” starts with “b” and “sun” starts with “s.”
• Write his name, using one capital letter and the rest lowercase. One way to practice this is for an adult to print the child’s name with a highlight marker (any color but yellow, since it’s too light) then have him trace inside the highlighted letters with a pencil.
• Count numbers 0 to 20, and recognize those numbers in and out of sequence.
• Encourage playing well with others. If possible, arrange play dates, visits to local parks with other children, or library group story hours.
• Know and be able to draw four simple geometric shapes: circle, square, triangle, and rectangle.
• Know the days of the week, starting with Sunday.
• Be able to draw a simple person, with recognizable arms, legs, and facial features such as eyes, nose, lips, ears, and hair.
• For safety reasons, young children should know their full name, address, and telephone number.

Having knowledge of these simple skills can help your child transition into kindergarten with ease and with confidence.

> Kindergarten Social Changes: What To Expect

> Kindergarten Academics: What To Expect