Kindergarten: What your child should know
No two kids are alike. It's OK for children to be at different levels. A child's unique differences should be welcomed and accepted. Also keep in mind, that a child's level of readiness in August will be very different from what it is in December, for example. It does, however, help to have a rough idea of which academic and social skills your child should acquire at his or her grade level.
By the end of the year, you can expect your child to:
- Hold a crayon and pencil correctly
- Cut along a line with scissors
- Establish left- or right-hand dominance
- Understand time concepts like yesterday, today, and tomorrow
- Know the days of the week
- Know basic colors: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, black, white, pink
- Write and recognize the letters of the alphabet in upper- and lowercase forms
- Recognize sight words
- Count from 0 - 20 (possibly 0 - 100, count by ones and tens)
- Add and subtract numbers 1 - 10
- Use objects to show how to break up numbers (for example, 6 pens = 2 groups of 3 pens)
- Know basic shapes- square, triangle, rectangle, and circle
- Know how to hear and say rhyming words
- Spell his/her first and last name
- Know his/her address and phone number
- Give information about an event or topic by drawing, talking and writing about it
