Preparing Your Child

While kindergarten may mark the beginning of your child’s formal education, your child has been busy learning since infancy. As your child’s “first teachers,” you have already taught your child so many valuable skills and lessons. To make the big step into kindergarten as smooth as possible, here are a few more things that will help prepare your child.

  • Read with your child daily. Talk about the story and pictures. This is one of the most important things you can do. When you read with your child, he or she learns that books are fun and they soon want to be the reader.
  • Watch for daily opportunities to expose your child to numbers. For example, count trucks as you drive; ask your child to bring a number of something to you (forks, blocks, books); point out numbers you see in signs.
  • Give your child simple home responsibilities that are consistently carried out.
  • Take your child to the Shaker Heights Public Library, The Nature Center at Shaker Lakes, Shaker Family Center, The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, and local museums.
  • Enroll your child in the Shaker Heights Safety Town program held the summer before kindergarten starts.
  • Take advantage of opportunities for your child to visit his or her new school. Call the school to find out about upcoming events.

Above all, parents’ love, support and understanding are the most important elements of kindergarten readiness.

By the time your child starts kindergarten, he or she should be able to:

  1. Give his or her full name as well as the full names of parents/guardians;
  2. Remember his or her address and phone number;
  3. Cross streets safely;
  4. Dress, zip, button clothes, put on boots, and tie laces;
  5. Go to the bathroom independently and remember to wash hands;
  6. Listen to and follow simple directions;
  7. Play cooperatively with others;
  8. Recognize his or her own name in print;
  9. Count to 10;
  10. Recognize colors, shapes, numbers, and letters of the alphabet;
  11. Take care of toys and equipment and put them away after play;
  12. Separate from parent/guardian without distress.