How to
Help Your Child be Successful in Kindergarten
Your
child’s first year of school should be a fun and exciting
time. Children who are comfortable with and
prepared for this
first
school experience are more likely to have rewarding and
productive
years, and therefore associate positive feelings with
education. Since parents are children’s first and most
important
teachers, you can play a key role in preparing your
children
for a successful school experience by pre-exposing them
to key
concepts they will experience in school.
This can be
done in a
fun, enjoyable manner by making everyday play
experiences
learning experiences as well.
New
learning builds on prior knowledge, therefore the more
exposure or
background a child has with a concept the easier it
is for new
learning and deeper comprehension to occur.
Providing
your child with pre-exposure to concepts such as the
alphabet,
numbers, following directions, listening, reading,
cutting,
tracing, etc. will help them feel more comfortable and
confident
when they experience these similar concepts in school,
thus better
enabling learning to occur. Schools are
becoming
more
academic, dependent on standardized tests, and fast-paced.
Giving your
children some familiarity with concepts they will
encounter can
help lessen the anxiety and stress that often
accompany these
experiences. Children who are overly stressed
or
uncomfortable are less likely to be able to concentrate and
learn.
Children
have a natural motivation to learn and a curiosity
about the
world. You can enhance and nurture this
natural
motivation
by making enjoyable play experiences learning
experiences
as well.
For
example, children’s games are great resources for combining
learning
with physical activity. Duck, Duck,
Goose can be a way
of
reinforcing concepts such as the alphabet by having children
say the
name of a letter in place of the word, duck, and a word
that begins
with that letter in place of the word, goose.
Hide and
Seek can become a learning experience by hiding numbers,
letters, colors,
your child’s name, phone number, address, etc.
around the
house and asking your child to find them.
Simon Says
is a great game to practice following
directions
and positional words such as on, above, below, etc.
Bingo can
be used to reinforce number recognition, letter
recognition,
the difference between upper case and lower case
letters,
letter sounds, colors, etc.
You can
have a treasure hunt while shopping, driving, or at home
by seeing
how many letters, numbers, colors, or shapes your
child can
find.
You can
also play I Spy where you state, “I spy with my little
eye
something that is…” and you describe a letter, number,
shape,
color, etc. that you can plainly see.
Your child then
tries to guess
what you are describing. Your child can
also
take a turn
describing something (this helps develop verbal
skills).
Children’s individual
interests can also be incorporated into
learning experiences.
Blocks or Lego’s
can be used to teach patterns
(have them
build towers with alternating colors), counting,
sorting
(separate the blocks by colors, shapes, size), etc.
If your
child likes to color, have them create rainbow tracings
of letters
or numbers by tracing them with as many colors as
possible.
Play dough
can be made into shapes, letters, and numbers.
An interest
in cars and trucks can be used when learning how to
trace by
telling your child to keep his car (crayon or pencil)
on the road
(whatever is being traced).
An interest
in animals or dinosaurs can be used when learning
how to cut
with scissors by relating the opening and closing of
the
scissors to the opening and closing of an animal’s mouth.
You can
pretend the animal is “eating” the lines on the paper.
Your
child’s surroundings can also play a part in preparing them
for
school. Providing a number and variety
of books for your
child and
taking time to read to them is one of the most
important
things you can do for their education.
Reading to a
child
teaches them vocal skills, vocabulary, listening skills,
left-to-right
orientation, cause and effect, knowledge about the
world
around them, and pre-reading skills.
Most importantly, it
instills a
love for reading and books which will benefit them
throughout their
entire education. After all, every
subject
(even math)
requires reading.
Our brain
absorbs information from our surroundings on a
conscious
and unconscious level, and between 80-90% of all
information
absorbed by the brain is visual.
Therefore,
providing
visual displays in your child’s room or elsewhere can
actually
aide in learning. Things such as the
alphabet, colors,
numbers,
etc. can be hung up or displayed in places where your
child will
see them. Even magnetic letters on the
refrigerator
can aide in
retention and learning. This is why many
schools
have plenty
of visuals displayed in the halls and classrooms.
Young
children can also learn many concepts through music.
For
example, they usually learn their abc’s by the alphabet
song. There are many children’s tapes available
that teach
concepts
through music. Playing these while in
the car or while
your
children play can aide them in learning.
Even though they
might not
be singing along or seem like they are even paying
attention,
subconscious learning can be occurring.
You may
also want to practice separating from your child for
short
periods of time, such as enrolling in a program or play
group or
having them spend time with a babysitter.
Separation
anxiety can
be traumatic for some children if they are not used
to being
away from their parents, and this anxiety can inhibit
their
ability to learn and relax while in school.
Lastly, no
matter what methods you try with your child, the most
important
thing to remember is to make them enjoyable.
You
want your
child to associate positive feelings with learning.
Take turns
choosing activities; give your child some choice
sometimes. This makes them feel less dictated to and
more
willing to
learn. Also, offer them some variety in
activities,
do not
always use the same learning methods all of the time as
this can
create boredom and disinterest. Choose
the methods
that work
best with your child (every child is different) and
have
fun!
Children
are like flowers, they all bloom at different times.
But,
parents can help nurture them by providing experiences that
enable them
to blossom into children who love learning and
school.
Tina
O'Block holds a Master’s degree in Curriculum and
Instruction
and a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education.
She has
been teaching kindergarten/preschool for 13 years.
She is the
author of Now I Know My ABCs and a Whole
Alphabet
Activities for Preschoolers and Kindergarteners which
is
available at http://www.oblockbooks.com
.
You may
also contact her at oblockbooks@worldnet.att.net
.