Dear Readers,
How can you tell your child is ready for Kindergarten through 12th grade?
The perfect formula has not been developed to determine if your child is ready for Kindergarten. B4 Literacy has found a Kindergarten Checklist for you to use as a guide.
This list will help you determine the skills your child has before starting Kindergarten. Use this list throughout your child's Kindergarten year to see what skills he/she has gained.
• 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
If all of these skills are not mastered by your child send them to Kindergarten anyway. The Kindergarten teacher will thank you if you send a child that is healthy, mature and eager to learn on the first day of school.
Source:Peggy Gisler, Ed.S. and Marge Eberts, Ed.S.
