Kindergarten readiness

Kindergarten readiness refers to the developmental domains that contribute to children's ability to adapt to the kindergarten classroom, which is often a new and unfamiliar environment. There is no single agreed upon definition of Kindergarten readiness. The domains often included in the definition include, academic skills (e.g., early literacy and mathematics understanding, etc.), social-emotional development (e.g., self-regulation, prosocial behaviour, etc.), and physical development (e.g., motor development, sensory development, etc.). In addition to these competencies, the child's environment and opportunities for learning should also be considered. This includes the child's home environment and their interactions with teachers and peers.

When assessing children's readiness for kindergarten, much of the discussion is focused on the emergence of basic academic skills, including reading, writing, and arithmetic, which are commonly referred to as the “three Rs” (United States Department of Education, 2001). This is likely because upon entering kindergarten, academic skills—such as literacy and numeracy—predict later academic success.  Reading edit Reading is an important skill as reading ability during primary school predicts academic achievement and later success. Therefore, particular emphasis is usually placed upon the development of literacy skills for preschool and kindergarten students to prepare them for the future. Children are not expected to read upon entering kindergarten. However, they are expected to have phonemic and phonological awareness, as well as a knowledge of print. Phonemic awareness is the first step in learning to read; it refers to the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest forms of langua...

The transition to Kindergarten often requires children to adapt to a new and different environment. This new environment is typically more structured and filled with more prolonged social engagement than their home environment. Children use their social and emotional abilities in order to navigate this new and unfamiliar environment. Although social and emotional skills are sometimes not included in definitions of Kindergarten readiness, focus groups surveys indicate that teachers often advocate that developed social skills are more important than academic skills as children enter school. Social skills function as tools to help children learn more quickly and promote peer acceptance, contributing to a more positive outlook on school. Social and Emotional Development edit Between the ages of 3-6 children undergo dramatic development in their social and cognitive abilities. The development of these skills provides them with the tools to navigate the social context of a kindergarten class...

Upon entering kindergarten most children should have passed certain developmental milestones in their motor and sensory development. Fine motor development, which involves manipulating small objects and forming pencil grips are necessary for the development of other academic skills. For example, by age five, children usually possess the fine motor skills to allow them to print some letters, draw a person with a head, a body, legs, and arms, as well as other shapes, such as triangles, squares, and circles. Similarly, they can also manipulate scissors to cut a straight line, use a fork and knife effectively, and tie their shoelaces. Fine motor skills upon entering kindergarten are associated with academic performance in reading and writing in later grades (QLSCD 1998-2010), as well as academic achievement in mathematics.  Developmental milestones for gross motor development include learning to skip, catching a ball, jumping over small objects, and walking down stairs using alternate feet...

Oral-language development involves the development of receptive language, which is the ability to understand when spoken to, and expressive language, which is the ability to produce language. Kindergarten readiness requires development in both. For example, students are expected to have a vocabulary of approximately 2000 words by age five; Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network, 2009). Similarly, they are expected to be using approximately five to eight words in a sentence. In general, however, children entering kindergarten are expected to understand instructions and communications from adults and peers (Pivik, 2012). They are also expected to communicate their needs and ideas in a way that can be understood by others. Simply stated, they must be able to use language as a tool to be functional within the kindergarten setting. Oral language is of particular importance for children entering kindergarten as it is a predictor and necessary requirement of literacy development (H...

In order to learn and engage in a classroom environment, children must be able to direct their attention effectively. Specifically, children need to be able to extract the important messages from the surrounding noise or distractions. Adults are much more adept at blocking out distracting information in their environment compared to children. Therefore, the distractions that might impact a child's ability to focus his or her attention may be difficult for an adult to appreciate. Distractions can present themselves in the form of auditory sounds, such as other children talking in the classroom, noise from a television, cars driving by outside, etc. However, visual information can also be distracting to children, hindering them from properly focusing their attention. For instance, if a child is attempting to concentrate on a given task in a room where there are many interesting things around her, the abundance of visual information will make it harder for her to concentrate on the ta...

There are four key risk factors that are associated with educational disadvantages upon entry into kindergarten in the United States. They include having a mother with less than a high school education, living in a family that receives food stamps or welfare, living in a single-parent home, and having parents whose native tongue is other than English (United States Department of Education, 2001). Individuals with a single risk factor are likely to lag in reading or writing skills; those with multiple risk factors have a 50% chance of scoring in the bottom quartiles in reading, mathematics, or general knowledge. For example, those with multiple risk factors are less likely to know the alphabet or be able to count to 20 before beginning kindergarten, which puts them at a disadvantage in comparison to other students without risk factors (p. 21). Families who live in poverty are generally less able to provide learning opportunities, such as books or toys to their children. Lack of school r...

Recent discussions have moved from the traditional focus of developing the “three R’s” to considering skills that are inherent to the digital age. For example, through exposure to tablets, children are learning traditional skills in new ways. As opposed to manipulating books and toys, many children spend their time learning via technology. Literacy apps, videos, and games are most commonly used. However, the manipulation of the iPad itself lends to a different type of motor development than traditional paper instruction, such as swiping, touching, and tapping (Burnett & Daniels, 2016). Nevertheless, children may have similar interactions when reading with adults using tablets as they might when using printed materials (Burnett & Daniels, 2016). Many efforts by large television networks has been directed at developing media content for pre-schoolers with the aim of fostering healthy social-emotional development (Nikolayev, Clark, & Reich, 2016). However, the online games tha...