What your child should know before entering Kindergarten

As an early childhood educator, it saddens me to see many 3 and 4 year olds who are not even close to being prepared for Kindergarten. So may parents rely too much on their day care or preschool to teach their children, and, when they don't do an adequate job, the parents get upset.

Problem there is, parents are a child's first teachers, and what is learned at school, should be enforced at home. This is very important for a child's future school career. A 3 and 4 year old child needs to be prepared for the competition ahead of them throughout their schooling.

More importantly, education starts at birth. The moment your baby is born, is when they should start learning about their world...talk to them about colors, textures, smells, and do forth. Signing and reading are both excellent ways to help your child start to understand their world.

By four years of age (or sooner), a typically developing child should be able to:

• write their full name 
• count to and write numbers 1-20 and possibly more
• say, write, and recognize all 26 letters of the alphabet 
• know their address, phone number, and parents names 
• drink from a regular cup 
• go to the bathroom on their own 
• recite the days of the week 
• recite the months of the year
• dress themselves 
• brush their own teeth 
• know how to share and take turns without whining or arguments 
• shapes 
• colors 
• reading at least 100 basic sight words (2 and 3 letter words) 
• do a 100 piece puzzle by themselves
• know how to follow rules 
• walk in lines 
• sit at a desk (unless, of course, you are sending them to Montessori or the like) 
• understand simple concepts (yesterday, tomorrow, night, day, today) 
• hold a writing utensil the correct way 
• color inside the lines 
• basic letter phonics 
• retell a story
• know the main parts to a story and the main characters

That is the basics they should know before kindergarten! PLEASE help your child know these concepts. When a child does not know basic concepts entering Kindergarten, it hinders the teachers ability to teach the rest of the class. It may actually hold the class back, which will not properly prepare them for 1st grade (and so on). This is a highly competitive world, and we want our children to succeed! 

I am the mom of 4 wonderful kids, 3 boys and 1 girl. Looking at them, you know I have had many years working with and enriching the lives of children. I have an Associates (Magna Cum Laude) in Business Management, and a Bachelors in Early childhood Development and Education with a concentration in Child Psychology. I have almost 20 years in the Early Childhood field, and loving every minute of it! You can visit my site here