As an early childhood teacher in America, my job is to get children ready for big kid school. In my corner of the country, preschool is for 3 to 4-year-old children. Here, we teach the skills for the magical age of 5 when they go to kindergarten. But how do we know when children are ready for kindergarten? Many assume they need to count to 100 and know all the letters in the alphabet. I often hear, “The neighbor’s kid can count to 100 and my child can barely make it to 20! They’re the same age, so what’s wrong?” Nothing! They are both ready for kindergarten because of the range of learning at this age. A five-year-old should count to twenty, and if they get to 100, that’s fine as well. Let’s take a look at the domains of social/emotional, cognitive, language, literacy and math, and check out what a child should in order to successfully enter kindergarten in their school district.
Social & Emotional Domains
We begin with a big one, folks. It’s hard to diagnose certain disorders, like autism spectrum disorder, when children are 3 and 4 years old, especially when the cognitive capabilities are present. For example, a 4-year-old who knows all the letters in the alphabet and can count past 100 is quite impressive. But as they approach 5, try to recall the last time that child called upon you to share their knowledge? By 5, a child should be socially able to interact readily with trusted adults, engaging in positive interaction and seeking adult help when needed. They should also engage in joint play with at least one other child, coordinating goals, planning roles, and playing games with rules. You should also have a child who uses a variety of skills for entering social situations with other children, suggesting an activity, sharing a toy, and taking turns in conversations. They should also develop a friendship with one or two other playmates. If by five years old you still have a child who prefers to play alone with Thomas the Train, and doesn’t interact with other children, it’s a huge red flag. Tell parents to get it checked pronto.
Initiative, Curiosity & Creativity
But hey! I’m not saying they can’t play alone! Engaging in independent activities is something they SHOULD be doing. They should be able to make choices in their independent play and communicate those choices to the adults. And when they’re done, they will identify what they completed to the adult. Example: Child goes to puzzle area, takes out puzzle, builds puzzle. When finished, looks for the teacher, finds the teacher, approaches the teacher, pats teacher on arm, says teachers name, and happily shares by saying, “Look, Ms. Daisy! I just did that puzzle.” This is also displays the multiple means of communicating to express themselves, which they should be doing as well. So playing independently is good, but always being alone and never sharing with adults is another huge red flag.
Emotional Behaviors & Self-Regulation
As I’ve shared in previous posts, 3 and 4-year-old children are walking time bombs. At the magical age of 5, however, they should be able to express emotions in ways that are appropriate to the situation. When the child has a breakdown over sharing a Play Doh knife, the 5-year-old will shrug their shoulders, take the Play Doh pizza cutter, and slice away. This isn’t to say they don’t need big people every so often, and when they do, they should be able to look for adult assistance and use a range of strategies to manage. Talking to an adult, taking deep breaths, using words with the other child, or even going to a different area to sulk are all strategies those fivers should be able to use. The more impulsive behaviors should cease, like yelling out answers at group time. They should be able to wait to be called on during group discussion or requesting materials rather than grabbing them.
Language & Communication
There are many ways they communicate at age 5. These include:
• They should use both verbal and non-verbal signals to acknowledge others, like calling to them, waving at them, or even tugging at a sleeve.
• Typically, they use complete sentences of more than five words with complex structures.
• As they participate in a conversation, there should be an ongoing connection to the conversation as well as watching when others speak, gesturing with a head nod, continuing the flow of the conversation.
• And those conversations should last with multi-turn conversations with adults, other children, and within larger groups by responding in increasingly sophisticated ways, such as asking related questions or expressing agreement.
• When they aren’t understood, they should Uuse language to clarify themselves*.
• Their tone and volume of expression should match the content and social situation, such as by using a whisper in the library and a loud voice on the playground.
• They should produce and organize multiple sentences on a topic, like giving directions or telling a story, including information about the past or present.
Literacy: Phonological Awareness
These are skills that kindergarten will focus on as well, but to begin, a child should be able to provide one or more rhyming words for a given word, like what rhymes with log. They should also recognize the beginning sound in a spoken word, like dog begins with /d/. And they should provide the word that matches a group of words with the same initial sound. For example, toy, tiger and Tim start with the /t/ sound. What else starts with /t/?
Literacy: Print & Alphabet
The National Head Start Early Learning Outcomes from Birth to Five says children should name 18 upper and 15 lower case letters at age 5. They should also know the sound for several letters. At my preschool, we use Teaching Strategies Gold which is an assessment system for birth to five, and this is where the range comes in. With this assessment, a child should at least recognize and name 10 letters (especially those in own name). The range increases, to identifying 11-20 letters when presented randomly, up to identifying and naming all letters. For letter-sound correspondence, a child should at least identify a few letter sounds, to producing correct sounds for 10-20 letters, to producing at least one correct sound for each letter. Again, this is the range according to the assessment for my particular school.
As far as being able to read, that is not a kindergarten requirement, however, a child should be looking at print differently at age 5. They should recognize different purposes of print, like a list, note or storybook. They should notice that words are made up of letters and be able to point to single-syllable words when reading a familiar book.
Literacy: Comprehension & Text Structure
This is the fun part, loving literacy like I do. Get reading with your kids! They should be able to retell stories, and even put a story in the correct sequence. They should identify characters and main events. They should answer questions about the story and predict what may happen based on information from the story. Ask them to *infer the character’s feelings and see if their answer is grounded in the text&. Lastly, they should be able to provide a summary of the story.
Mathematics: Counting
There's a lot here. I’ll summarize what children should know by 5:
• Verbally count to 20.
• Instantly recognize small quantities of up to five.
• Counts objects in order and connects the word to the counted object (up to 5).
• Counts up to five scattered objects.
• As you count up, the numbers are larger.
• When you’re done counting the objects, that’s how many are in that set.
• Identifies whether one group is more than, less than, or the same another group of objects (for at least 5 objects).
• Knows position numbers from first through tenth.
• Recognizes and, with support, writes some numerals up to 10.
Mathematics: Operations & Algebraic Thinking
Sleeping yet? I’m such a literacy buff. This math stuff is killing me … This area of math involves using fingers, objects, drawings for addition or subtraction. It’s also good if a child can solve a simple math word problem, for example if you had 5 cookies and I took 2 away. If you have a group of 3 objects, the child should be able to count ON from 3 to add more. Patterns also begin that algebraic thinking, so they should be duplicating simple patterns and extending patterns with blocks and stuff like that.
Math: Geometry & Spatial Relations
A child should be able to name AND describe just a few shapes, which they should identify regardless of size or orientation. They should be able to create and build shapes from building toys. Lastly, language related to direction should be understood and used, like the order and position of objects such as up/down, front/behind, below/above.
There you have it. Everything a child needs to know for kindergarten. Again, these are all very specific to the U.S., as the information comes from a national agency that lays the groundwork for early childhood, head start classrooms. But as an experienced early childhood educator, these are the steps a child should take for a successful future in school.
