Preschool is Transforming into Time to Learn and Not Just Play

An increasing number of public school districts have begun partnering with community child care centers, family early educators, and preschools to help prepare children for kindergarten. Kids today need to learn skills that generations previously learned in kindergarten, reflecting a national push for school readiness. So, what's the rush?

Expectations about a child's early school success continue to rise, and young students who do well in early grades tend to need less remediation or assistance to avoid lagging behind peers later. For most kids to be well-adjusted and kindergarten ready, they need to arrive knowing their shapes, colors and letters. Other skills include:

• The ability to describe similarities and differences between objects, such as how are a car and tractor similar, and how are they different.
• Be able to describe objects and their functions, such as what is a hammer and what does it do.
• Be able to predict what happens next in a story, such as what happens to the pig when his house is blown down by the wolf.
• Begin to use simple descriptive words and phrases to describe events, living things and objects, such as what does it take to get a plant to grow from a seed.
• Begin to be able to put together joining sounds, such as "th," "sh" or "ch."
• Identify words that rhyme, such as being able to answer two additions words that rhyme with "cat" and "bat."
• Able to use scissors to cut out shapes, color mostly within lines, glue things, and even able to navigate a keyboard (if the school uses computer labs).

Academic readiness is not the only skill that preschoolers should prepared for. Kindergartners of today are expected to have mostly mastered many social skills as well. Those skills include:

• Ability to exercise self control at appropriate times. Preschool programs work with kids and their socialization skills to eliminate outbursts, meltdowns, or other behaviors that might be considered inappropriate.
• Be able to independently use the bathroom, which includes lowering of clothes or unzipping as needed, and then re-dressing in a timely fashion.
• Confidence with independent eating. Kindergartners go through lunch lines and are responsible for opening milk, pouring ketchup, and opening straws.
• Able to stand in a line, follow directions, be quiet at appropriate times, and listen to instructions. In other words, basic "school readiness" stuff.
• Able to stay focused and participatory for a full-day kindergarten program. Consider that most kindergarten programs are now 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., although some school districts still only offer half-day programs (usually due to funding reasons). Afternoon naps are generally phased out of kids' lives by 4-to-5 years of age, at the latest, or by the time kindergarten year is started.
• Willingness to work in groups and share supplies. Most kindergarten programs feature shared resources, so kids may not always have "their" pair of scissors or "their" construction paper. Kids must understand the concept and know that pencils, scissors, glue, etc., may be used equally by all kids.

Early educators and school district personnel often work together in conjunction with families to help parents decide whether their child is ready for a full-day kindergarten program. Late spring and summer birthdays may mean a child is young for the age group, and in certain cases, especially where a child seems socially immature or disinterested in learning and staying focused, it may be considered preferable to have a child wait a year to enter kindergarten. In a growing number of cases, kids enter school with the plan to have them repeat kindergarten the next year. That way, they experience kindergarten and begin learning skills, but may likely repeat the year again to provide extra time to mature. Most school districts have plans in place so that kids who repeat kindergarten are placed with different teachers and a different classroom to avoid having them feel they are doing the same things twice.

There are pros and cons to whether to start a child, hold them a year, or have them repeat, and the best way to decide what is best for YOUR child is to have frank discussions with his teachers. The key is to be comfortable with your decision and confident of a child's progress. The ultimate goal is for your child to be secure of his growing abilities and learning readiness. Working together as a team of parents, child, early educators and kindergarten teachers helps to start youngsters off on the right foot for a successful school experience.