School Readiness: Preparing Children for Kindergarten

Transitioning from preschool to kindergarten is a big milestone in a child's life. It marks the beginning of their formal education journey and lays the foundation for their future academic success. Families and educators play an important role in preparing children for this transition. 

School readiness focuses on various strategies that contribute to a child's well-being. As an educator, you can help increase school readiness in your community and prepare the children in your program for kindergarten by providing a solid foundation for the skills they'll need to succeed.

In this article, we discuss various school readiness goals and strategies to promote school readiness at your program and in your community.

School readiness goals and objectives

School readiness refers to a child's level of preparedness when entering kindergarten or formal schooling. It involves many developmental skills essential for children to thrive in an educational environment. These skills span various domains, including:

• Approaches to learning
• Social and emotional development
• Language and literacy
• Cognition
• Perceptual, motor, and physical development

Each domain represents different aspects of a child's overall development and is crucial to their growth and readiness for school. For example, the physical domain includes the development of gross and fine motor skills that impact a child's ability to do actions like run or hold a pencil. These domains are interconnected, and growth in one field often influences and supports development in others.

Early childhood education programs prepare children for kindergarten by helping them develop a foundation for their language, problem-solving, self-help, physical, and social-emotional skills. Through age-appropriate activities, play-based learning, and socialization opportunities, children can develop the essential skills that will prepare them for their first year of kindergarten. 

With brightwheel's progress report feature, you can log observations, track progress, and share learning milestones with families. Educators can create individualized progress reports for each child with photos and videos and use them to evaluate curriculum effectiveness and track kindergarten readiness. 

The collaboration between families and early education programs is also vital for promoting kindergarten readiness. Families play a critical role as children's first teachers and nurturers. By establishing a supportive home environment that values learning, families can foster a love for learning and actively engage in their child's development. 

While it is important to note that all children progress differently and reach developmental milestones at different times, the below goals are meant to serve as broad statements of expectations for children’s learning and development.

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Language and pre-literacy goals

Language and pre-literacy skills are crucial for children as they prepare to enter kindergarten. These goals focus on building a solid foundation in communication, vocabulary, and early reading skills. By the time they start kindergarten, children should be able to name letters, write their first name, recognize their written name, and more. These goals lay the groundwork for language development and pave the way for future literacy achievements.

Children’s language goals for kindergarten include:

• Saying the sounds of letters
• Speaking in complete sentences that others can understand
• Understanding and following directions with at least two steps
• Making comparisons
• Describing relationships between objects
• Making simple predictions about stories
• Repeating familiar songs, poems, or nursery rhymes

Problem-solving and reasoning goals

Problem-solving and reasoning skills are vital to a child's cognitive development. Before entering kindergarten, children should be able to demonstrate specific problem-solving abilities, such as matching two similar pictures in a set of five pictures and playing memory games. Achieving these goals enables children to think critically, analyze situations, and make logical connections, fostering their ability to tackle academic challenges in kindergarten.

Problem-solving and reasoning goals include:

• Classifying objects by physical features
• Grouping objects that go together
• Understanding position, directions, size, and comparison
• Completing simple puzzles with up to four pieces
• Identifying colors
• Understanding cause-and-effect
• Drawing pictures to help express ideas

Social-emotional goals

Developing strong social-emotional skills is essential for children's social integration, emotional well-being, and success in kindergarten. Before starting kindergarten, children should strive to meet specific social-emotional goals like taking turns and sharing with others. Children can develop empathy, effective communication skills, self-regulation, and a sense of belonging by achieving these goals, contributing to positive social interactions and a conducive learning environment.

Social-emotional goals before entering kindergarten include:

• Forming healthy relationships with peers
• Socializing with more than one peer
• Being assertive when necessary
• Following someone’s lead
• Handling conflict appropriately
• Respecting others’ property
• Working cooperatively in a group
• Showing respect
• Listening when someone is speaking

Self-help goals

Children should achieve specific self-help goals that promote independence and personal responsibility before they begin kindergarten. Mastery of self-help skills, such as getting dressed and undressed independently, empowers children to take care of their needs, fosters self-confidence, and allows them to actively participate in classroom activities without constant assistance.

Self-help goals include:

• Using utensils
• Brushing their teeth
• Using the toilet
• Washing their hands

Motor and coordination goals

To actively participate in kindergarten activities, children need to develop physical and body control skills such as walking in a straight line and skipping. These skills contribute to motor and coordination goals and enhance fine and gross motor skills, spatial awareness, and overall physical coordination. This allows children to engage in various classroom tasks and experiences.

Motor and coordination goals include:

• Running, climbing, and moving with agility
• Throwing and catching a ball
• Hopping on one leg
• Jumping with legs together
• Standing on one leg for five seconds while maintaining their balance
• Holding a pencil or crayon correctly
• Cutting along a line with a pair of scissors
• Using glue, tearing paper, placing pegs on a board
• Determining their dominant hand
• Moving rhythmically to music
• Sitting at a desk with good posture and without slouching
• Sitting on a floor with their legs crossed without falling over

Kindergarten readiness assessment

A kindergarten readiness assessment is a developmentally appropriate tool that measures children's school readiness, identifies gaps in their skills, and evaluates how prepared they are to begin learning their state’s academic standards.

Kindergarten readiness assessments aren’t required in every state. The Education Commission of the States provides a detailed breakdown of each state's kindergarten policies and whether the state requires incoming kindergarteners to complete a readiness assessment.

Strategies to promote kindergarten readiness

To prepare children for success in kindergarten, early childhood educators need to use intentional strategies and practices that promote kindergarten readiness. Five actionable methods that educators can implement in their programs include:

Offering professional development and coaching to staff

Offering such opportunities to staff across various program options and settings will enhance early learning practices that help with kindergarten readiness. Professional development opportunities ensure staff are up-to-date with the latest education trends and they acquire new skills. There are various ways in which you can ensure your staff has access to such opportunities:

• Host in-house training sessions for your staff, which can be tailored to areas you and your educators identify as most relevant.
• Discuss individualized learning goals with your staff, identifying areas of potential growth and interest.
• Provide financial support for your staff’s continuing education, to enable them to access such opportunities.

Developing personalized wellness plans for each child

Developing such plans will support each child to foster their growth and development, which are important for kindergarten readiness. Wellness plans should address the following areas, setting goals suitable for each child, and tips and suggestions on how to achieve them:

• Exercise to support physical health and fitness, mental clarity, and emotional well-being
• Nutrition to ensure the child has a balanced nutritious diet
• Stress management, including tips on stress management techniques
• Rest with tips on how to maintain good sleep quality and get adequate rest

When creating wellness plans that will help with kindergarten readiness, consider:

• Setting clear goals for each child
• Emphasize the importance of commitment and accountability to pursuing those goals
• Engage the children and their families in the process
• Revisit the plan every few months to ensure it is attainable for the child and their circumstances

Establishing a collaborative partnership process with families

Through such a partnership, you can support their understanding of their child's progress and encourage active involvement in learning and leadership. 

Keep in mind that family engagement is an interactive process between the program staff, the families, and their children. Families have unique insights when it comes to their children - they know their personalities, their strengths, their temperaments, and their individual needs and circumstances. All this can be very valuable to promoting kindergarten readiness. To build such relationships:

• Encourage parents to share information, and provide opportunities through forms and meetings for them to do so
• Foster a welcoming environment, in which parents feel their insights is valued
• Build a feedback loop, with information from the educators getting back to families with consistency to ensure you are aligned in setting goals and on action steps. 

Maintaining regular and effective communication with local kindergarten and other programs

Communication can promote the exchange of information and aligning services for early learning, health, and family engagement. Through this process you can:

• Identify common goals
• Align resources to maximize how efficiently and effectively they are used
• Share data to help each side improve and build an effective partnership
• Keep families informed on any recent developments and new opportunities in the community and local area

Cultivating a cohesive learning community among staff

This can be very important in fostering innovation, continuous improvement, and integrated services spanning education, family services, and health. It can take different forms, so you may want to consider:

• Encouraging collaboration and mentoring, so your educators can learn from each other’s expertise and experience.
• Setting a specific time and place where you and your fellow educators can share ideas and discuss ways to improve further.
• Streamline assessment of kindergarten readiness skills, through surveys where teachers can compare students’ knowledge, skills and abilities, so you can have more time to teach and provide guidance and support.

Supporting school readiness in your community

A study by First 5 Alameda County found that children's kindergarten readiness can be impacted by socioeconomic factors, such as their household income, race, environment, health and development, and the readiness of schools in their community. The study recommends policy changes and investments that communities can make to support school readiness in children negatively impacted by socioeconomic factors.

• Implementing policies that support families’ basic needs.
• Establishing early identification and intervention systems for children at risk for special needs and children experiencing trauma.
• Promoting policies that build livable communities with parks and libraries, affordable housing, and safe, reliable transportation.
• Investing in professional development for teachers, including equity and implicit bias training.
• Recruiting a diverse, culturally and linguistically competent teacher workforce.

Bottom line

Kindergarten readiness lays the foundation children need to meet kindergarten's social, physical, and academic expectations. Help the children in your childcare program prepare for kindergarten by teaching them the skills they’ll need, advocating for support in your community, and prioritizing your state’s academic standards.

Brightwheel is the complete solution for early education providers, enabling you to streamline your center’s operations and build a stand-out reputation. Brightwheel connects the most critical aspects of running your center—including sign in and out, parent communications, tuition billing, and licensing and compliance—in one easy-to-use tool, along with providing best-in-class customer support and coaching. Brightwheel is trusted by thousands of early education centers and millions of parents. Learn more at mybrightwheel.com.