The Ultimate Kindergarten Readiness Checklist

​Children grow up so fast that without making you realize, they are in schools and doing their own things. However, it can be straining for you, as a parent, to understand if the child is ready to participate in the world outside of your loving embrace. If you understand that the child is going out to achieve more while going to school than staying at home, you will be more than happy to let your child go to school. There is not a single skill or a set of skills which can tell you whether your child is ready for kindergarten or not. However, there are a number of skills or a skill set which will help you figure out if you can trust your child to go out in the real world. You will have to observe the child meticulously and ask him/her a lot of questions if you want to be sure about his/her readiness to go to kindergarten. You will have to observe these skills in your children every month to see if they have mastered these skills or if they have learned other important skills. This is because younger children learn fast, and they are more likely to learn new skills in a matter of days and not months.  

Checklist

​You need to understand that this checklist is to only give you an idea, and different children can be on different levels of expertise on this skill set. This is because of the different pace of development and level of intelligence in different children. Be careful while observing and understanding these skills in your children.

1. Attention Span
Observe your child to see if he or she is paying attention to what is being said to them. See if they can pay attention for short periods of times to the tasks assigned to them by an adult. A child's attention span is definitely shorter, but he or she must be able to pay attention to the tasks at least for a few seconds. They should be able to listen to the stories without interruption and stay quiet during the storytelling session. 
2. Rhymes
A child must recognize the rhyming sounds in children rhymes. This is another area that you should be paying attention to because a child who is ready for kindergarten should recognize the rhyming sounds, but not necessarily understand these rhyming sounds.
3. Time Perception
A kindergarten-ready child will not be able to tell you if it is half past ten, but he or she must show a general understanding of different times of the day such as a morning or an evening, and a day or a night.
4. Understanding of Authority
A kindergarten-ready child must understand the meaning of authority and how they need to obey the commands because this is probably one of the skills children need to learn as they will not be able to understand or do anything if they do not obey authorities’ demand.
5. Causes and Effects of Actions
​ They also should know that every action has its causes as well as its effects. If they are going to do something, it will have consequences. They might not know the technicality of this whole process, but they should understand the basics of it.

6. Sharing
These children will be sharing their space with different class fellows and friends; they must understand the concept of sharing their things and belongings with others. This training is provided by the parents, especially mothers, and children have mostly learned it by the time they enter kindergarten.
7. Tracing
Children become active in drawing and other artistic activities and one of the indicators in the checklist is for the children to learn how to trace and how to cut papers using scissors. They do not have to be perfect in doing so, but they should have an idea.
8. Toilet Training
It is one of the crucial skills which is a must-have for a kindergarten readiness checklist. A child will not have his mother by his side in the classroom so he or she must be trained enough to inform the class teacher about his bathroom needs.
9. Dressing
A child is not able to dress himself properly at such a young age, but before moving onto kindergarten, you must notice whether your child is able to zip up his zipper or pants. It will also be required for toilet training and for bathroom needs of the child.
10. Understandable Speech
​Before going to kindergarten, a child must be able to utter words properly so that he can address to the teachers and staff in the school. He should understand the rules in the school and also know how to follow these rules. It also means that the child has learned to speak small sentences made up of five to six words. He should also identify rhyming words and be able to identify some alphabet letters. His abilities to look at the pictures and tell stories about these pictures should also be refined before going to kindergarten.

11. Calm
Before you leave your child in kindergarten, you, as a parent, must know that they need to be calmed down and they must have learned how to separate themselves from you without getting upset.
12. Counting
A child in kindergarten knows how to count to ten, so if your child is preparing to start to attend kindergarten, he must know at least how to count to ten. He should also be able to identify and sort objects of the same color, size and shape. A child in kindergarten is also able to recognize a group of one to five objects.
13. Physical Abilities
A child should learn how to bounce a ball before entering kindergarten. It is one of the simplest methods to see if the child is able to handle kindergarten school or not.
14. Grip
This should be one of the first things to be noticed when you are thinking of sending your child to kindergarten. Your child must be able to have a firm grip on a pencil, crayon or a marker with the help of his thumb and forefinger.
15. Recognize Words
​A child at this stage will not be able to understand all the words out there, but he must be able to recognize some common sighting words such as a “stop” sign, and he should be able to understand the meaning.
If your child has achieved all or most of the skills on this checklist and is at least four years old at the start of the summer, he or she is probably ready for kindergarten. You can look at Blossoms Montessori Preschool in Spring, Texas if you are looking for the best Montessori Preschool in Spring, Texas.