Kindergarten Checklist
As another school year approaches I am faced with the fact that my oldest daughter will be heading off to kindergarten next fall. While we have made the choice not to send her to preschool, there are still skills that we know she needs to have in place before she begins her “academic career” ;) There are many activities & games you can do at home with your child to help prepare them for school.
Whether your child is starting school next year or five years from now, here is a simple checklist of developmental goals you can work on together:
- Listen to stories without interrupting
- Recognize rhyming sounds
- Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
- Understand 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
- Be able to recognize authority
- Manage bathroom needs
- Button shirts, pants, coats, and zip up zippers
- Begin to control oneself
- Separate from parents without being upset
- Speak understandably
- Talk in complete sentences of five to six words
- Look at pictures and then tell stories
- Identify rhyming words
- 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 Kindergarten Readiness Checklist - FamilyEducation.com
It is important to keep in mind that in a child’s early years, learning is done through play & social interaction. Preschool can be a positive and rewarding experience, however it is not a necessity for entering kindergarten.
Check out the link below for some fun ways to encourage reading & writing with your young child!
Reading Rockets: Build Your Child’s Early Reading Skills at Home
