Kindergarten: Ready or Not--Here They Come!
by Roberta Shreve
Minnesota State University - Moorhead
Moorhead, MN

With the onset of spring, you may be approached by the parents wondering if their child is ready for kindergarten. Is he smart enough, big enough, quiet enough, talkative enough, or adequate in a multitude of other ways?

What a dilemma! So much seems to be at stake. You don't want children to be unhappy because they are in a setting that doesn't meet their needs, whether it is kindergarten or preschool. You worry about how children will feel if their friends get on the bus to attend "big kids school" and they are left behind. However, you also worry about what will happen if they are expected to fit into a classroom that may not be ready for them.

The National Association for the Education of Young Children Position Statement on School Readiness states, "It is the responsibility of schools to meet the needs of children as they enter and to provide whatever services are needed. . . to help each child reach his or her fullest potential." Kindergarten programs should be ready to provide a developmentally appropriate curriculum that meets the needs of any child enrolled in school. NAEYC indicates that the only legal and ethical measure for accepting children into school is whether they have reached the legal age for school entry.

Is there harm in encouraging parents to hold their children back? Isn't this a way of giving them a "gift of time?" Graue notes that this "gift" is actually a "theft" of the child's opportunities to be a part of a group and of the teacher's responsibility for making a place for the child. When a child is held back, we are "mistaking variability for deficit."

The range of ages within a kindergarten classroom is frequently more than two years, with developmental differences of a much greater range. In order to challenge the older children, curriculum needs to become more appropriate for first grade than for kindergarten, leaving even more children to struggle with inappropriate expectations. By sending children to school according to their chronological age, we make it more possible for teachers to meet the needs of all of the children in the classroom.

However, the greatest potential danger of making children wait to attend kindergarten lies in the lowering of the parents expectations for their children. As parents begin to view their children as less capable, these expectations are transferred to the children. This is a very serious concern since parental expectations are the most powerful predictor of children's later school success.

Encourage parents to send their children to kindergarten. Even children with developmental delays can benefit because of the special services they may possibly receive from the school system. Help parents become advocates for their children instead of protectors! Assist them in arranging a visit to kindergarten. If there are several classrooms, suggest they visit all of them and then request that their child be assigned to the teacher they feel is the best match. Recommend that they keep up regular communication with the teacher and ask what is expected of their child.

• Familiarize your child with the school and the route to school. Walk the route or ride the bus. Visit the school and take pictures of the teacher and the classroom to refer to during the summer.
• Establish some routines that will be followed during the school year - a regular bedtime, a good breakfast, time spent outdoors, limited TV. Start these routines well before school begins.
• Help the child become as independent as possible. Purchase shoes, boots, and clothes that the child can easily put on. Make sure the child can take care of toilet needs with little or no assistance. Label clothing so the child can identify her belongings can find their own possessions without help.
• Build your child's language skills. Read, read, read to your child! In addition to reading, talk about the stories and illustrations. Spend time in conversation with your child. Take him on errands and give him responsibilities, such as picking out the cereal for the week or helping with sorting the recycling.

Build language skills through daily informal activities:

• Spend time reading to your group every day and include discussions about the stories.
• Repeat nursery rhymes, songs, and fingerplays regularly so that the children can soon say them with ease and pleasure. Play with the rhymes by making up new words or verses to the songs and poems.
• Talk with the children about routines and events of the day over lunch, during quiet times, and as part of your group times.
• Play word games, such as thinking of words that rhyme, words that start the same as their names, etc.
• Use the children's names written on cards as part of your daily activities use them to mark their spots for lunch, dismiss them from story time, play games with them, etc. You will soon find they recognize not only their own names but also the names of their friends.
• Include environmental print in your classroom, such as food containers with labels in the housekeeping corner, matching games made from small cereal boxes and puzzles made from the fronts of larger cereal boxes.
• Make pencils, markers, staplers, stampers, scissors and a variety of kinds of paper available to the children, thus encouraging them to explore writing and drawing.

Your goal is to send children to school loving books and language. This will increase their likelihood for being successful in an academic setting. Become an advocate for young children by supporting parents.

Graue, M. E. (1998, March). What's wrong with Edward the Unready? Our responsibility for readiness. Young Children, 53(2), 12-16.

NAEYC. (1990). NAEYC position statement on school readiness. Young Children, 46(1), 21-23.

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