It’s that time of year again. It’s time to get kids ready to enroll in kindergarten. Is your child old enough to start school next year? For most districts the rule is if your child will turn 5 years old by the end of July they can start school in August.
Before starting school your child will go through some testing. There are skills that your child needs to know for these tests. Some school districts start this process as early as the end of February others wait until closer to May before they do enrollment testing for kindergartener's.
What do the schools test pre-kindergartener’s on? There are a lot of things that the school will ask and have the child do. You may wonder if your child is “Ready for Kindergarten?” Here are a few ideas of things to work on with your child before testing into kindergarten.
Cognitive Skills- Your child should know their first and last name and be able to tell someone when they ask. Your child should know all parents first and last names. Knowing home address and phone number is important but harder to remember. Other more comment skill s to know are: counting 1-30 out loud, pointing and counting items, knowing letters by sight out of order, knowing numbers out of order, and knowing names of shapes.
Fine Motor Skills- Your child should know how to write their own first and last name holding a pencil correctly. Cutting with scissors, coloring inside the lines, and draw recognizable pictures are other fine motor skills they will look at.
Gross Motor Skills- Gross motor is probably the easiest area to be ready for. Schools look at skills like: jumping, running, walking heel- toe, walking backward, walking heel-toe backward.
Self-help Skills- It is very important that children can do self-help skills by themselves. These skills are things like: go to the bathroom by themselves, washing their own hands, blowing their own nose, tie their shoes, put on and zip their own coat without help.
These are just a couple of things your child should know. For other things to work on with your child go to “What Every Child Should Know Before Entering Kindergarten.” Every district is a little different with what information they ask the children to know. Every district is also a little different with what information they need you to provide. Everyone will want a copy of the birth certificate and current shot records. Some districts will also want parent’s driver’s license and proof of residence. They will also have you fill out information about your child and emergency information.
If you haven’t received any information from your school about enrolling your child give them a call and find out when enroll will be for your district and what information they will need from you.