Prepping your child with basic skills before entering Kindergarten will most likely help ensure the child graduates high school and experiences financial independence later in life.
Align Southern Indiana has created a checklist of skills that should be acquired before the first day of Kindergarten:
Successful School Skills:
Communicates needs and thoughts
Follows rules and routines
Follows directions (sits quietly, knows the meaning of “no”)
Appropriately talks and communicates with others
Controls feelings and behaviors (emotions)
Holds pencil correctly
Math:
Recognizes numbers 0 to 9
Can touch and count up to 9 objects
Can count 0 to 9
Recognizes basic shapes: circle, triangle, rectangle, square
Self Help Skills:
Can dress and undress self independently
Is toilet trained
Zipping and buttoning
Appropriate use of toilet paper
Washes hands
Flushes
Literacy:
Book reading
Left to right, top to bottom
Understands how to hold a book correctly and turn the pages
Recognition of letters by name (a-b-c)
Knows how to respond using at least three words
Recognizes their name
Can write their first name
Listens to a complete story