Kindergarten Readiness Skills
Parents often want to know if their child is ready for kindergarten. Listed below are some of the ideal skills an incoming kindergartner should possess in order to have a most successful year of kindergarten. While we don’t expect every child to have mastered every one of the skills below before entering kindergarten, this list is intended to help give parents and preschool teachers a general idea of what skills will make the transition into kindergarten a smooth and positive experience for both children and parents. Research has proven that a child’s chronological age isn’t the best way to decide whether he is ready for kindergarten. It is important to consider all five domains, as listed below. If your child has preschool experience, her preschool teacher’s assessments and suggestions are highly valuable and should be taken into consideration.
Social Domain
Can your child:
Emotional Domain
Can your child:
Academic Domain
Can your child:
Fine/Gross Motor Domains
Can your child:
Spiritual Domain
Can your child:
Social Domain
Can your child:
- Begin to take turns and share?
- Follow 1 and 2 step simple directions?
- Answer questions other than yes and no?
- Speak understandably and in sentences of 4 words or more?
- Participate willingly in large and small group activities?
- Bathroom independently?
- Take care of personal needs (blowing/wiping nose)?
- Play alone and with others?
Emotional Domain
Can your child:
- Listen to stories without interrupting?
- Separate from parents without being upset?
- Pay attention for short periods of time to adult directed tasks?
- Recognize and respond to authority?
- Verbally express wants, needs, and feelings without using physical aggression?
- Complete activities most of the time?
- Make choices and stick with decision (such as choosing an activity and stay with it for 10-12 minutes)?
Academic Domain
Can your child:
- Identify many upper and lower case letters (about 80%)? Begin to identify the sounds of some of the letters?
- Begin to identify beginning sounds of some words?
- Look at pictures of a book and tell a story?
- Sort objects by size, color, shape?
- Identify 8 basic colors?
- Begin to recognize rhyming sounds?
- Rote count to 20?
- Count objects to 10?
- Recognize his or her name in print?
Fine/Gross Motor Domains
Can your child:
- Begin to write first name (first letter capital, followed by lower case letters?)
- Cut with scissors?
- Trace simple lines and basic shapes?
- Put on coat/jacket and begin to zip zippers?
- Walk up and down stairs independently?
- Run easily and stop quickly?
- Catch a ball with 2 hands?
Spiritual Domain
Can your child:
- Remain quiet during times of prayer or say a prayer?
- Participate in times of singing?
- Listen to a Bible story (5-8 minutes) and recall simple details of story?