The Kindergarten Question- Part 5 (or 5 Questions About Readiness)

You can also read: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Please read the comments on each article, also. They are great, and add a lot to this discussion. Many thanks to each of you that have commented so far!

My suggestions for deciding if your child is ready for kindergarten:

1. Can your child sit in a chair and color or write for 15-20 minutes- uninterrupted and otherwise unsupervised or directed?
2. Does he/she know the alphabet verbally and recognize most of the letters, either upper or lower case?
3. Can he/she count to at least 10?
4. Can your child sit next to other children and not disturb them for the full length of a story?
5. Can your child focus long enough to follow 3 step directions? i.e. "Joey, go upstairs, get the trash, and take it outside."

These are the things that seem to be most important to the success of the children just entering kindergarten. Can you think of more? I am well aware that every child is different, but if you can answer yes to 4 or 5 of these questions then I think that your child should be ready.

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Ok, so there is one more post in this series. Shoot me. Next up will be my final thoughts on this subject and response to some of your comments. Thanks for following this and adding to the discussion!