School Readiness is not about starting a formal approach to learning as early as possible.
Your child learns and develops mainly through play. It cannot be stressed enough how valuable play opportunities are for your child, allowing him/her to explore the world around them and make connections in their thinking which leads to deep level learning. All the positive experiences that babies and young children can receive contribute towards them being ‘ready for school’.
Supporting your child to become independent, communicative, feeding and dressing themselves, using the toilet and knowing and understanding their own needs is great preparation for later when these skills will be invaluable.
Children progress and learn at different rates and will, hopefully, demonstrate a wide range of unique capabilities supporting their readiness for school by the time they enter Key Stage 1 (KS1). However, we need to be mindful that ‘school readiness’ is NOT about …
- being compliant
- being able to sit still
- being able to ‘line up’
- being able to read
- being able to write
- being able to count to 20
- being able to do homework
- being able to tie shoe laces on their own
YOU as a parent are your child’s most important and on-going educator—support and encourage them with …
- Chatting about likes, dislikes, feelings and emotions —use pictures and stories
- Dressing and feeding themselves, and using the toilet
- Making healthy nutritious food and drink choices, especially water
- Being active every day—run, jump, dance, hop and skip
- Exploring the outdoors—look at nature together
- Developing a love of books, stories and songs
This information can be found on KELSI website; http://://www.kelsi.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/76509/School-Readiness-A-Guide-for-Families.pdf