Getting Ready for Kindergarten: Parents and Parent Educators Offer Tips

When Rosario Padilla’s oldest daughter, now 12, started school in Manteca, “it was hard for her to adjust. She cried a lot and didn’t want to do the work,” she recalls. But Padilla thinks her youngest child will have an easier transition to school—she’s learning English from older siblings and has weekly visits from Ana Suche, a parent educator with the school readiness program, El Concilio.

Suche “taught me to sing to my daughter, to read to her, to explain to her what I’m doing as I’m doing it and talk to her about it,” says Padilla. Suche brings new books and toys—most recently a soft squishy ball and another with rubber bumps.

Getting ready for kindergarten isn’t just about learning letters, numbers, and shapes, say those who work with young children. “If a child can’t separate from mom without being upset, or tell an adult when they need to go to the bathroom, they can’t learn,” says Brandi Harrold, of the Tracy Unified School District’s School Readiness program. Parents and parent educators offer tips for helping children get ready for school.

Read with your child

“Read to your child, that’s the most important thing,” says Terry Eichel, a teacher at Washington Elementary in Alameda. The language in books is different from how we speak, she says—and if kids aren’t familiar with books, they can’t predict what’s going to come next. “It takes many students a long time to catch up,” she adds.

Reading with your child should be interactive, says Patty Casetta, mother of a four-year-old and a second grade teacher in Berkeley. She asks her daughter lots of questions about what’s going to happen, what the characters are doing and seeing, thinking and feeling. They also talk about how books are similar or different and how the events in books relate to their own lives. Casetta suggests parents check out their local library, but adds that children can also “start to recognize (words in neighborhood) signs. Trips to the store (can help children) learn new words and see new things.”

Teach letters and numbers, colors and shapes

“We make the letters of (my daughter’s) name out of Play Doh and we do finger painting,” says Casetta. She also suggests filling a box with salt or sugar and having children trace letters in the box.

“If you’re putting groceries away, let your child help,” adds Beatriz Leyva-Cutler, executive director of the Oakland-based BAHIA, which runs a bilingual preschool. “Say, ‘Give me the small red can.’’”

Foster independence

“In the American system of education we’re teaching children to be independent learners at a very young age,” says Leyva-Cutler. “A child needs to be able to separate from their parent, express their needs, and work for 20 minutes or more on a project with little supervision.”

Valerie Borges, mother of four in Tracy, says her daughter gets dressed, brushes her teeth, and eats breakfast with very little help. She goes to preschool so she can “get used to being away from home,” she says. Parents can encourage children to get their own snacks, put on shoes and jackets, work alone, brush their teeth, and clean up.