Make a Successful Transition into Kindergarten
by Dorothy Heitjan, Kristen DeVooght, and Deb Kraft
Q. How can we as parents help our preschooler make a successful transition into Kindergarten?
A. It is vital in the preschool years to provide your child with the experiences that will build the foundation for later success in school. Keep in mind the amazing developmental changes that occur in a child's body and brain during the preschool years. In order to help your child build these neural connections, parents should provide:
- A variety of hands on experiences-dig in the dirt, cook, build, paint, sculpt. These types of activities foster curiosity and vocabulary development.
- Time to read. Make reading part of your daily life. This is important because it helps to build your child's vocabulary and ability to recognize words.
- Unstructured time to move and use the body-play on the playground, jump, swing, run. Using the body not only promotes the essential skill of body awareness which is needed for understanding right vs. left, but also understanding of prepositional concepts.
- Use toys that encourage imagination or thinking - plain blocks, old clothes for dressing up. This is important for development of social language and imagination.
- Attend preschool, library story hour, or church where your child will learn and practice common social courtesies, such as turn taking, listening, and responding to a question.
- Recite and recognize upper and lower case alphabet letters.
- Count to 20 orally. Count number of objects to 10. Identify numerals to 12.
- Write name. Hold pencil correctly in 2 finger pinch grip. Use upper and lower case letters. Write letter from top down or from the c position. Ex. Ben
- Limit screen time-TV, computer, hand held devices. Less time looking at a screen means more time engaging in real life interactions which teach a multitude of skills!
- Establish a good home routine - healthy meals and snacks, set bedtimes. School is all about routines. Important for Kindergarten and beyond!
Kindergarten bridges preschool to elementary school. Your child moves from dependence on others and working one-on-one with parents and preschool staff to independence and working together with peers in small and large groups with one teacher. Excellent kindergarten programs address the social and emotional as well as the academic needs of your child. They provide opportunities for your child to play and learn in structured and unstructured situations. Kindergarten provides hands-on experiences to enable your child to connect what they already know to their new learning.
Expectations for kindergarten students have changed drastically in the last ten years. First grade skills are now the standard for kindergarten. Former kindergarten skills are the standard for preschool. The new national Common Core State Standards include reading and writing, sight word knowledge as well as emergent spelling skills. Knowing what a word and even what a sentence looks like in a story as well as reading and writing their own words and thoughts are expectations.
There are also new Common Core Standards for math and others in the works for social studies and science. Our students will recognize characteristics and patterns, know numerals to 100, count by twos and fives to thirty, understand tens and ones, and express story equations with drawings and numbers. They must be able to use mathematical data, understand its use in everyday life, and express the data in mathematical form.
All these expectations require your child to be ready to learn in a school environment. Their ability to listen to explanations and then use the information is vital for success. These abilities are directly related to their developmental readiness and maturity. Most states adopting this core curriculum have changed their school start age to 5 or 5 1/2 years of age in September. School funding for Michigan schools has declined and student-teacher ratios have increased. Our start age remains at 4 1/2 years of age but the expectations for developmental maturity for these standards is 5 to 6 years of age. Grosse Pointe Public and Harper Woods Public Schools now provide full day kindergarten programs to meet many of these needs.
An excellent read for parents is Outliers The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. While researching those who attain phenomenal success, Gladwell has determined factors that help all of us reach our potential. Many of these factors were effective very young. Others are common sense: the more you do something the better you get. The 10,000 hour rule makes the difference between good and impresario! The world has become very competitive and the activities you provide for your child now will affect your child's future.
Enroll your child at your school district's administrative offices. You will need to provide a birth certificate, immunization records and physical examination forms (in September), and proof of residency. You should enroll your child as early as possible. By enrolling your child, you are placed on the public school mailing list and will receive important information by mail. When enrolling your child, you may have to choose between programs. Current Kindergarten programs include the traditional half-day program as well as all-day programs (ADK) or extended day programs (EDK).
Until then, enjoy talking, playing, riding, cooking, building, and exploring with your child every day!
Save The Date
'Kindergarten: Get Ready!' presented by The Family Center
Thursday, November 17, 2011
6:30-9:00pm
Barnes Early Childhood Center, 20090 Morningside Dr., Grosse Pointe Woods.
Grosse Pointe Public School System presenters: Deb Kraft, Kindergarten Teacher, Kristen and Dorothy Heitjan, Early Childhood Program Teacher and Speech-Language Pathologist
Fee $5 per family
Register Early online at www.familycenterweb.org!
Or contact The Family Center at 313.432.3832 or
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The Family Center, a 501C 3, non-profit organization, serves as the community's hub
for information, resources and referral for families and professionals.
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