Kindergarten Readiness is Not Child’s Play
Kindergarten Readiness is Not Child’s Play
Reminder: Now is the time to sign children up for kindergarten for the 2024-25 school year!
The class of 2037 is getting ready to start school. Do you know what else is interesting about this class? These are the children who were around 1-year-old when the COVID-19 pandemic began. They were the children to miss the most of formalized early childhood education because many childcare centers shut down and stayed closed during the most formative time of their early childhood. There was no storytime at the library, no preschool, no playdates—and this has made an impact. Prior to the pandemic, 60-percent of children nationally tested ready for kindergarten. That number was concerning, but the data is now out on how children are testing presently. A study in JAMA Pediatrics last month found that only 40-percent of children in the Cincinnati-area tested ready for Kindergarten, and only 21.5-percent of underserved children tested ready. This is startling data.
When children start kindergarten behind, studies have shown that they likely never catch up. Children learn to read by third grade; after that, they read to learn. If children do not start kindergarten with the necessary literacy and vocabulary skills, they have a very hard time becoming proficient readers by third grade. After that, it becomes very difficult for them to keep up.
Kindergarten-readiness is a process that begins at birth with a healthy bond to a parent or caregiver, which provides a firm foundation in social-emotional learning, trust, and self-esteem. Children need to hear a minimum of 1,700 words spoken to them per hour in order to build their own vocabulary for learning, which leads to literacy skills. It is critical that parents talk to babies, read to babies, and sing to babies often, beginning at birth.
Children learn through their senses and through experiences. Providing as many experiences as possible throughout the first five years of life is paramount for new learning. Children also learn best through human interaction—so screens and electronic toys are never recommended for learning before the age of five, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Children also learn from outdoor play and imaginative play. They should be allowed to engage in creative play where they have to problem solve, work together, and use their imagination. This builds important school-readiness skills in the areas of self control, collaboration, turn-taking, and creativity.
Children are still not getting all of the enrichment they could be getting in the first five years of life, due to continued restrictions related to the pandemic and the childcare crisis.
The children entering kindergarten this fall are our future leaders, thinkers, healthcare professionals, policy-makers, and more. They deserve the best possible start, to be able to compete in a global workforce rich in STEM occupations; all of us should be concerned with helping them get just that.
This is a call to action. If you are a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or an American taxpayer—please consider how you can help a young child. Volunteer to clean up a playground, make a donation to a preschool or childcare center, read a book to a child, donate books or healthy foods, and—most importantly—support an overwhelmed parent.
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By Aimee Ketchum
