The Kindergarten Transition

“She can’t read yet!” “What if he’s just not ready socially?” “But her lowercase ‘e’s . . . she still writes them backwards!”

Take a deep breath, parents of preschoolers. While kindergarten is on the horizon and worries about what your child isn’t able to do yet loom large, you don’t need to panic. We’ve surveyed a group of local experts—trained and experienced teachers and school administrators—to learn more about the skills and abilities that reflect your young student’s potential readiness for kindergarten.

What are the most important social skills kids should have going into kindergarten? According to these teachers and preschool pros, compassion, empathy, communication, and the ability to share are among the most important social skills that kids need to have prior to kindergarten. Being able to follow multistep directions, separate smoothly from parents, and take turns also stood out. Patience and self-control, perhaps two of the most difficult skills for young children to master, were also at the top of the list. And let’s not forget being potty-trained; kids are expected to be 100 percent proficient before entering kindergarten. Here’s what the experts have to say (edited for length and clarity) about what social skills are necessary to your kindergartner's success:

• “Socially it is helpful if children have experience sharing—materials, toys, the attention of the adults, the decisions about what to play, etc. If they cannot read social cues telling them when to yield to someone else, there is often conflict and they don’t even realize they are the cause.” —Claire Dant, Bethel Christian Academy

• “Understanding the importance of working well within a group; having a strong sense of self.” —Barbara Oglesbee, Indian Creek School

• “Using words to solve problems, knowing some different methods to help solve these problems, verbally answering peers and teachers (not ignoring). We teach kids all year long how to be problem solvers (on their own before asking a teacher to help).” —Jen Holcomb, Nichols-Bethel United Methodist Church Preschool

What reading readiness skills should kids have going into kindergarten? Preschoolers definitely don’t need to know how to read to enter kindergarten. According to the experts, awareness is the name of the pre-reading game. Knowing the alphabet, recognizing one’s name, familiarity with letters and their sounds, and rhyming were popular survey responses. Being able to spell simple words and match upper and lowercase letters is generally expected, too. Our pros on kindergartners’ early reading skills:

• “Phonological awareness is one important component of reading readiness. In the early years, children should be encouraged to identify words in a sentence and syllables within words, and learn to recognize their name in print.” —Dr. Erin Stauder, The Hearing and

• “It is helpful if children have become lovers of listening to stories read aloud; creating their own stories; experiencing significant adults in their lives loving to read; have a developing sense of the sounds of letters; and have growing desire to read for themselves.”—Oglesbee

What are the top math skills for kids to have going into kindergarten? Our experts suggest that counting to at least 20, being able to put things in sequential order, and number recognition are some of the top math skills preschoolers should carry with them to kindergarten. Identifying/ recognition of numerals and one-to-one correspondence are key.

• Beginning to develop ‘number sense’ is more important than recognizing numerals. Understanding what the numerals represent is an abstract concept that is critical to growing math skills.” —Dant

• “Being able to count forwards and backwards; and understanding more and less.” —Susan Jeglinski, St. Andrew by the Bay

What’s something parents should NOT worry about as their kids head into kindergarten?

• “Don’t rush your child to be a scholar. They are not scholars, they are children!”—Donna Stewart, Calvary Baptist Church Academy

There you have it. You can rest easy knowing that every kid matures at his or her own pace and need not have mastered everything to head into kindergarten.