Readiness for school is an important parenting skill. We each need to learn as much as we can about ways to help promote this with our young children from their earliest days. There is more knowledge today about what it takes to succeed in school than we have ever had.
We have more research to consider and to use to help us do a better job.
We have learned that readiness for school is more than knowing how to count or how to read some words. Readiness includes developing social readiness, increasing independence and encouraging communication.
Social readiness
As you continue to help your child be ready for school, you don’t want to forget the importance of social readiness. This skill is as important as academic readiness. Social readiness means your child is able to get along with other children, follow directions, take turns, and say “goodbye” to parents.
Here are multiple things you can do to help your child be socially ready for school, from the National Education Association:
• Set rules and be sure to enforce consequences for breaking them.
• Have regular routines for mealtime and bedtime that your child can depend on.
• Encourage your child to play with and talk to other children.
• Encourage your child to take turns and share with other children.
• Encourage your child to finish difficult or frustrating tasks once they have begun them.
• Encourage your child to consider the feelings of others.
• Model and discuss positive ways for your child to express his or her feelings.
• Discourage hitting, biting, screaming and other negative behaviors.
• Kiss and hug your child several times a day. (www.nea.org/home/59838.htm)
Independence
Another readiness skill you need to encourage is your child’s independence. As your child grows, he learns to do many self-help tasks such as putting on socks, tying shoes or zipping a jacket. Each of these learned skills increases his sense of pride.
His self-esteem increases with each new skill. This independence certainly carries over into school. There are many ways you can help your child learn and feel good about his growing independence.
To make sure your child is independent in school, you should:
• Buy shoes and clothing that are easy for children to buckle, zip and fasten on their own.
• Let your child get dressed and put on shoes by himself.
• Encourage your child to take turns and share with other children.
• Let your child do simple chores like setting the table at mealtimes or cleaning up toys after playing.
• Encourage independent toileting and handwashing.
• Let your child work independently on activities such as completing puzzles. (www.nea.org/home/59838.htm)
Communication
Listening and speaking are the beginning of reading and writing in the preschool years. Through any conversations a child has with his parents, teachers and friends, he learns about the new things that he will later read and write about.
After he learns through listening, he is then able to let us know through speaking that he can tell us what he knows and understands.
To be sure your child can listen and communicate you should do the following:
• Have regular conversations with your child.
• Encourage your child to listen and respond to others when they speak.
• Answer your child’s questions, even if the answer is “no.”
• Help your child learn and use new words.
• Explore language through singing, rhyming, songs and chants.
• Model the language you want your child to use.
• Write notes to your child.
• Help your child dictate letters to family and friends. (www.nea.org/home/59838.htm)
You can see that there are many ways you can help your child be ready for school. The child who enters school who has been helped to be ready to learn really has an advantage.
Readiness certainly isn’t just reading, writing and arithmetic that make a child successful in school; it includes many other skills such as listening, talking, thoughtfulness, independence and social skills. Teaching these important skills takes time and effort each day.
It is exciting to see your little one growing so rapidly and in so many different ways. Have fun being your child’s first teacher.
Cynthia Martin is the founder of the First Teacher program and former executive director of Parenting Matters Foundation, which publishes newsletters for parents, caregivers and grandparents. To reach current First Teacher Executive Director Nicole Brewer, email nicole@firstteacher.org or call 360-681-2250.
