Thinking more on the idea of readiness for school.Â
How do we make the change from five years old as the ideal time to enter school to either making as assessment of each child (complicated) or making more pre-K opportunities available for all young students?Â
Assessing each child is too risky: those who are found wanting are starting out behind and they or their families may be the least able to cope with that. I’m sure in many cases, getting a child off to school is considered liberating. Maybe not ideal but it is what it is. So making sure they’re ready makes more sense.Â
So what does an incoming kindergartener need to know?Â
- their letters, both as memorized symbols and as sounds. We perhaps forget that singing the ABCs is nothing more than memorization without any real value beyond that.Â
- numbers: 1-10 or 20 is good. Surprising how many get tripped up on fifteen as it breaks the naming pattern. And simple addition/subtraction as well: if you have seven pieces of candy, I have three, and I give you two more, how many do you have and how many do I have?Â
- shapes and colors are also valuable. These can be combined with the numbers, as in “bring me three red shapes” or “bring me six triangles.”Â
Doing some some interviews with K/1s today, I was glad to see so many enjoyed math games and simple math work. The challenge is to keep that going: mathematics is a language and the only way to master a language is to use it. Written and oral language will come, unless there is some profound learning disorder or impairment but math can easily be neglected. And with math comes science, another subject that got a lot of interest.Â
Do they need to know how to read? No, though some can. But a mastery of the fundamentals, of letters and sounds, and the idea that those arcane squiggles make up words and sentences and books is important.Â