What Should a Child Know Going into Kindergarten?

[nessz79]

I'm not exactly sure what our exact requirements are, but my son knew the following and has been doing very well in Kindergarten: recognize and write his letters, write his name, know his phone number, working on address (still), know numbers, shapes, colors and recognize a couple of words (Mom, Dad, his brother's name, Stop).

 

[nessz79]

Holy cow, that's nuts. I can see how that's a huge PITA to the teachers and I always compensated by putting my kids in easy on pants/leggings and double knotting their shoes before school. If that ws truly a deciding factor on kindergarten readiness, my 4th grader wouldn't have gone to kindergarten till last week. Heck, he still has issues with some buttons and snaps..I don't know what some of these manufacturers are smoking with some of the buttons and snaps they make for kids clothes! I guess he's still not truly ready for kindergarten.

Us, too. My son is in K and he still can't tie his shoes and he sometimes struggles with buttons. I just dress him appropriately and continue practice at home.

 

[jorem1]

I work as an aide in a kindergarten class. The most important thing you can do for your child is read to him/her every day They don't need to know how to read for kindergarten, but just spending a few minutes every day does wonders for their comprehension.

The children in our class range from being able to read above grade level to not being able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet. Some of the kids can't count to 20!! All children learn at a different pace. Just the basics (colors, shapes, letters, numbers) and your child will do fine.

 

[PrincessAbby'sMom]

My biggest thing that we didn't know was that they actually changed class rooms & teachers for: PE, Art, Music & Library. My husband is a police officer & of course we have always stressed the "stranger" thing to her. And well, lets just say since we weren't prepared - she wasn't prepared. She would melt down at school, the teacher would hold her in order for me to leave at drop off. And when the teacher would announce what other classes they had that day - melt down, enough that they made her sit in the hall until she would settle down because she was disrupting the class. They then started moving her from Green to Yellow or Red for the distruption. (a little harsh, but ???)
So, maybe find out how many teachers & try & meet them all at orientation, if they offer that at your school.

 

[miprender]

DD started Kindergarten this year. She went to preschool 2 days a week the year before. But before she entered school she basically knew her letters, colors and shapes. It just blows my mind on how much they want them to learn at such an early age. I thought she was fine until I found out that she is a little behind in her class. I didn't even know my ABC's in Kindergarten and some how I was able to even graduate with a MBA

But to the OP if you feel she is ready emotionally I would put in school. My DD has a reading teacher that she meets once a week during school and we do her sight words everyday at home.

 

[Erin1700]

My daughter was tested on knowing her left from her right at kindergarten testing. She still mixes it up in gr 2!

 

[worlok]

My kid was in pre-K for a year so he learned all that stuff early, in addition to being read to and made familiar with the essentials well before entering Kindergarten. It's never too late though. Kids are sponges and soak it up pretty quickly. You can probably crash course them in a few months (if not only weeks) time.... Good luck.

 

[sydprincess]

My DD6 was expected to count to 100 in K4. She could (she was reading short chapter books by age 3), but not sure what I am going to do with DD3 when she starts in the fall. She is not there yet, so we have a lot to do before then!

I would speak with the teacher directly. She can give you a print-out of what they will be expected to know/will be working on throughout the year.

Good luck!!

 

[monorailsilver]

My son is in Kindy this year.

So far they have learned (or relearned) the days of the week. Every day they count to whatever day it is. Today was day 92 or 93 of the school year.

They write their classmates names & do science with them or math.

They do a simple version of science & math with something like blocks, other shapes, etc...

They learn the sight words slowly. I think we are up to around 15-20 words now so they are starting to read. Some read better then others. My oldest (2nd grade), I never had to practice reading or the sight words with but my son, I do & he still forgets. Along with letter sounds (and upper/lower case letters).

They also have a star of the day & that person (today it was my ds) gets up & tells the class what the weather is, the day, date, etc... Then the next day (which will be Monday for my ds), that child brings in something that will fit in a coffee can & has to say 3 things about it & picks on a classmate to answer to try to guess what it is.

I forget what else but basically they are learning the basics playing in a way.

Oh & my ds turned 5 in September but our cut off is December 31st so he got to go to Kindy, yay!!

 

[ilandrazdsw]

...which classroom is theirs!

 

[ilandrazdsw]

My daughter was tested on knowing her left from her right at kindergarten testing. She still mixes it up in gr 2!

did she learn whith using the hands?

 

[mombare]

My daughter was tested on knowing her left from her right at kindergarten testing. She still mixes it up in gr 2!

Heck, I still have problems with this!

I have a daughter in K this year, and I would echo all of the above things. She had done a few years of preschool and could write her name (not a difficult name to write), knew all the basics of letters, numbers and shapes. Your son will do fine!

Oh, and to teach kids how to tie shoes without the actual shoes...take a piece of heavy paper and make a "flip flop" out of it. Lace some ribbon like the ties of a shoe. Our daycare provider made one of these last year for my daughter and she was doing it in no time! And now she pulls it out and talks about how she learned to tie her shoes. It'll be going in her scrapbook pretty soon!

You will be truly amazed, though, at how they completely take off! Our school does "reading rolls" for them, where they take a toilet paper roll and add sheets of paper to it. The first ones are things likes name, address, telephone number...they progress through small letters and capitals, numbers, sounds, and finally on to words. There are a total of 21 sheets. Some kids had them all done in the fall, while others are currently on 5/6. It just goes to show the different levels, but even more importantly the focus on developing at one's own pace. My daughter just "graduated" her reading roll earlier this month. The next step is a series of books (19 total) and she was flying through those until she came upon a jungle book with the word rhinocerous. Needless to say that one hung around for over a week until she could remember what it was!

 

[Erin1700]

did she learn whith using the hands?

We tried the whole making an L with your hands trick, didnt work. She used to not even know which shoe went on what foot until I would write her name in the inside bottom of her shoes. Left one had Rachael and Right one had Last name. I told her if she can read her name the right way, the shoes are on right.
The ONLY thing that worked with left and right is that she got a medical implant in her left arm. so I taught her implant=left

 

[ilandrazdsw]

We tried the whole making an L with your hands trick, didnt work. She used to not even know which shoe went on what foot until I would write her name in the inside bottom of her shoes. Left one had Rachael and Right one had Last name. I told her if she can read her name the right way, the shoes are on right.
The ONLY thing that worked with left and right is that she got a medical implant in her left arm. so I taught her implant=left

shoes+name=GREAT IDEA!!!

 

[bartleby1]

...which classroom is theirs!

Or how about which school is theirs! My middle child got off the bus at the wrong school on his first day and the poor little girl sitting next to him followed!

Thankfully, it was my older daughter's school and she found a teacher and took care of the situation. They sent a bus back for him and took him to the right school. I was so afraid that he would be horribly distraught but he didn't seem phased in the least! He was actually very excited because he got to meet the principal personally on the very first day!

 

[ilandrazdsw]

Or how about which school is theirs! My middle child got off the bus at the wrong school on his first day and the poor little girl sitting next to him followed!

Thankfully, it was my older daughter's school and she found a teacher and took care of the situation. They sent a bus back for him and took him to the right school. I was so afraid that he would be horribly distraught but he didn't seem phased in the least! He was actually very excited because he got to meet the principal personally on the very first day!

Schools share busses??? Know schools share same busses, just not until all the kids for the first school are picked up/dropped off.

 

[bartleby1]

Schools share busses??? Know schools share same busses, just not until all the kids for the first school are picked up/dropped off.

Our town is set up kind of strange. We have a kindergarten school, a school for grades 1 and 2, and a school for grades 3,4,5 on each side of town. Then they all meet up in middle school and high school. So, our bus stops at the three lower grade schools. The schools are close by though, so the kids are only on the bus about 10 - 15 minutes.

 

[LisaMommy]

I work as an aide in a kindergarten class. The most important thing you can do for your child is read to him/her every day They don't need to know how to read for kindergarten, but just spending a few minutes every day does wonders for their comprehension.

Classic books are the best. Seriously, things like Winnie the Pooh (the A.A. Milne stuff), Curious George... they do great things for kids' vocabularies.

 

[barkley]

definatly check to see what your district's expectations are-they vary greatly.

where we used to live a child was expected to KNOW the alphabet (not recite/sing it) to the extent they knew the short and long sounds of each letter. this was to facilitate reading by around october. the private schools in the same area required an entering k'r to be able to read already (they taught the traditional k curriculum in preschool and "early kindergarten" classes).

one thing that seems to drive the expectations are an individual state's testing practices. in some (like where we live) standardized tests are'nt given till grade 3 so there's not quite the psycho push on being able to read in k. where we used to live they started testing in k-so for your child to complete the test they had to be able to read and write fairly well (and while some schools did those tests at the end of the year, others like the privates did them in the fall so those little ones had to "hit the ground running" ).

 

[SnowWhite607]

Kindergarten teacher here.....

I would love for every kid to come into my class knowing MINIMUM:

how to write their name

letters - be able to identify them at least, if you can say some sounds, all the better. If you can write some, super!

numbers - be able to count to 20 but also to assign a value (ex. see the number 4, be able to pick 4 blocks from the jar). Just being able to rote memorize counting doesnt mean you actually know "how many" a number is. If you can write them, BONUS!

shapes and colors

how to dress yourself

how to take care of your personal needs when you go to the bathroom

how to wipe your own nose

how to open your juice pouches and cheese sticks and potato chip bags at lunch

We teach them to read as well as write in their journals during this year. Also many math skills (adding, patterns, time, money, subtraction, sorting, measuring) as well as the all important social skills (sharing, using words instead of hands, etc)