Fellow Teachers (and any Preschool Parents reading) – I share this information because we all care for our children and because after 48 years of experience and 3 big fat degrees in Early Education, I know it to be true.

When we think about the question: “Is This Child Ready for School?”, some of us tend to think in terms of academic skills like reciting the alphabet and recognizing numbers, but when it comes to REAL readiness for Kindergarten, the most important ABC’s and Three R’s are these:

A     All by Myself  Can this child dress, open food containers and eat without help?

B     Bathroom/Hygiene  Can this child find the bathroom and take care of the entire potty process without assistance?

C     Communication  Can this child ask for help if needed and communicate his needs to the right adult?

These are the most basic needs for Big School Survival. Many children come with brains full of letters and numbers, but cannot tie their shoes, snap their pants, find the bathroom (and use it for every step of the process from pants down to hands washed) or know which adult to turn to if help is needed for eating, toileting, or safety issues.

On my son’s first day at Kindergarten, he had been reading for two years but could not tie his shoes or hold a pencil, fell soundly asleep every day at Noon, and twice, TWICE put a lego up his nose. His teacher, who knew of his gift for literacy, asked him to accompany an injured child to the school nurse – by himself.

When he told me about this at home, I said, “Geeze T., how did you do that?” He said, “I just held her hand and we walked all over the school until I saw the letter ‘C’ for ‘Clinic’.” I went to his school the next day and explained to the teacher that she was lucky he hadn’t taken the child out of school, down the street to his mama’s office in the preschool, and asked for the first aid kit.

Because a child has a singular gift for academic skills, does not mean he is ready for being responsible, thinking clearly and using adult reasoning skills.

The Old 3 R’s of Readin’, Writin’, and ‘Rithmetic are hugely important to a child’s success in school, but they are NOT the first skills of readiness. These are:

Relaxation          Can this child calm himself when upset, frightened, or frustrated?

Regulation          Can this child listen to and understand basic rules and then regulate his behavior most of the time to follow those rules?

Reasoning           Does this child have common sense and the capability to figure things out by logic, deduction, and cause & effect so if unknown or unexpected experiences present themselves, he or she can make simple, logical, safe decisions?

These are the skills I urge you to practice in relaxing, non-threatening, real ways – NO FLASH CARDS, NO TABLETS, NO BRAINIAC READING PROGRAMS – but a gentle building of the life skills your child will need to make his way into and through BIG School.