Preparing Your Child For A Successful Transition From Kindergarten To Grade 1
I never went to Kindergarten due to my family’s financial circumstances. I started Grade 1 at the tender age of five and graduated at sixteen.
It was certainly not easy. At the time, of course, I was unaware of the impact this decision would have on my educational experience. I always felt not as “advanced” as my classmates.
It wasn’t until my younger sister went to Kindergarten that I realized I had apparently “missed a step” in my educational journey.
The dual-income nuclear family was the trend of those times so my preschool years were spent with an older babysitter who chain-smoked all day.
Our babysitter did not read to us nor do crafts or games. We had to entertain ourselves. My sister and I would watch TV for 2 hours in the morning, play in the dark unfinished basement, eat lunch, have a nap, and then play in the yard until our parents came to pick us up.
Even though this was our experience during the week, my mom took us to the library every weekend, and we took out bundles of books each time. Both my sister and I became avid readers at a young age, likely due to the novelty of such a form of entertainment that was missing in our weekday preschool years.
Fast forward fifty years to today and the dual-income idea maintains its status more so due to the financial necessity of our current times.
Day homes and daycares are filled to maximum capacity with long wait lists. The mainstream school system has also adopted preschool programs to help kids prepare for the structure of formal schooling and learning.
There is a new generation of young teachers entering the workforce to replace the veterans yet the burnout rate is high resulting in significant staff turnover.
At the same time, there is a growing movement of homeschooling parents who are financially able to have one parent stay at home to help their children with their academic learning.
The great thing about all of these modern establishments is that they tend to be a very warm, inviting, and highly educational environment for preschool children.
Regardless of where you are in your parenting journey, there are a few ways you can help your child prepare for a successful transition from Kindergarten to Grade 1.
Diet & Sleep
Make sure your child eats a healthy diet every day and gets enough uninterrupted sleep at night time. This is at the foundation of their ability to grow and develop both personally and educationally.
Literacy
Read every day together any time of the day you can fit it in, especially at bedtime. You can help your child learn to recognize and read predictable ‘word family’ words individually (see our suggestions below) and within sentences (I highly recommend Dr. Suess books as they are full of predictable words).
Social Skills
Establish routines and expectations as this is what your child will experience in the classroom and be expected to follow. Let your child play in the yard or nearby park in unstructured “free time” every day. This will allow your child to explore independently in a safe environment.
Numeracy
Spend a few minutes each day together at the kitchen table just sorting objects and/or counting and quantifying objects as more than or less than or the same as.
Here are some resources from our K-6 Learning Library to help with literacy and numeracy:
Thank you for reading this blog post on preparing your child for a successful transition from Kindergarten to Grade 1.
The lesson plans in our K-6 Learning Library will help you and your child or students right now and for years to come. The best part is you can edit these resources so that your child or students can focus on what they can do right now and build on it rather than internalize that they are not performing at grade level.