Deciding whether or not a child is ready for Kindergarten is an important and challenging question facing many families. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when deciding whether or not a child is ready to begin attending school.
The following list is provided to give families a sense of the skills that children should have before entering Kindergarten. Not every skill on the list must be acquired before a child can enter Kindergarten. The teachers in Keystone Oaks' Kindergarten program will work with children to develop these skills over the course of the year.
Families who have questions about whether or not a child is ready for Kindergarten are encouraged to reach out their pediatrician, pre-school teacher and/or child care provider, who may have valuable input. Additionally, before entering Kindergarten, children will go through an interview and screening process with Kindergarten teachers, who will assess readiness skills in a number of areas.
Click here for more information about the screening process.
Typical Kindergarten readiness skills include:
- Sharing and understanding the concept of taking turns
- Cooperating and playing well with others
- Sitting still and listening to an entire story
- Attending to a task for at least 10 minutes
- Speaking and asking for what they need
- Recognizing their own name and answering to it
- Helping to pick up and put away materials after an activity is finished
- Using the toilet independently
- Playing by themselves for a short period of time
- Identifying some letters of the alphabet (upper and lower case)
- Counting to 10 and identifying some numbers
- Sorting objects by color, shape and size
- Identifying colors
- Recognizing and writing his/her own name
- Being away from parents for a brief period and understanding that they will come back
- Demonstrating large motor skills, such as hopping, catching a ball and using alternating feet to talk up and down the stairs