First, talk to your pediatrician. At every well child visit, your pediatrician will conduct developmental screenings to assess whether your child is on track, and identify any potential concerns. You can also get formal assessments from the school to ensure that your child has all the basics to be ready for the first day.
Next it’s important to think about what skills your child needs to get through a typical day in kindergarten. These include fine motor skills such as using scissors or being able to draw basic letters. Watch when you are working at home together and see if they are putting these fine motor skills to use.
Social skills are another large piece of assessing whether your child is ready for kindergarten. Observing how your child plays at the playground or with cousins at family events can help you see if they are ready.
Another useful indicator of kindergarten readiness is analyzing how your child responds to challenges. Some kids need a lot of challenges to keep from being bored, and sometimes these are the kids who are better off if they begin school earlier. Other kids need a lot of early ‘wins’, so waiting another year to enroll them in kindergarten would help them be much more confident when they start.
If your child gets through the year in kindergarten and you still feel like they are struggling or falling behind, talk to the school about additional services or consider having your child repeat if necessary.
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