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Children Ready for Kindergarten
To be effective teachers, parents and teachers both need a
road map of child development. Child and family psychologist Harry
Ireton, Ph.D. provides this summary of the major areas of
development:
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Social Development starts with a babies' interest in mother's face expressions
and voice tones. It includes response to and interaction with
parents, other adults and children - from individual interaction to
group participation.
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Self Help
includes the desire to "do it myself" and development of skills
including eating, dressing, bathing, toileting, independence and
responsibility.
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Gross Motor skills include moving about by rolling over, crawling, walking, running,
jumping and riding. Balance and coordination are important.
Clumsiness for age can be a symptom of a physical problem.
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Fine Motor
includes eye-hand coordination, from visually following objects to
reaching for, picking up and manipulating small objects, to
scribbling and drawing simple pictures, to beginning printing.
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Language Development includes three elements: talking, speech intelligibility
and language comprehension. Of the three, language comprehension
is the most relevant to school performance. For each child, all
three questions must be asked and answered:
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How well, compared to age, is the child talking?
Talking starts with gestures (pointing at things) and simple
word-sounds. A child then progresses from words to phrases to
simple then complex sentences.
o
How understandable is the child's speech?
Speech intelligibility refers to how much you understand of what the
child says - specifically, to how well the child articulates speech
sounds.
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How well does the child comprehend language?
Language comprehension, or understanding language, moves from
following simple, single instructions to several more complex ones,
to understanding concepts or abstract ideas, for example,
"responsibility." Low language comprehension may reflect a hearing
problem or a primary problem in understanding.
Along with language, the "readiness skills" we look for in
preschoolers as they approach kindergarten entry include some
knowledge of quantity/numbers and books/letters.
From age two to three years, children show a beginning understanding
of quantity, numbers and counting; also of letters and reading. For
more details, see the
Child Development Chart
(pdf) and read about the
five critical early
literacy skills. |