That’s why it’s important for parents to have some disciplinary standards and model good social transactions. But it’s better still that they come to an understanding of why these things are important in their own home with the adults that are already in their lives. ![]() It’s one thing to tell a child that when they get into kindergarten they need to pay attention, listen to the teacher, and behave themselves. “It’s making a child able to function.”Ĭontext is also important for the social and emotional skills children need to know before heading into kindergarten. “All of this is functional,” Smerling says. It all shows the power of numbers in context. Eventually, the marbles can be tallied and exchanged for a treat or a toy. The same concept can be accomplished by collecting marbles in a jar, one for every time a child does something right. ![]() To foster this idea, she suggests parents collect pennies with their kid, counting them and exchanging them for other coins or treats. We pay for things with money identified by numbers.” “I think kids should know how to recognize money, because that’s an exchange,” Smerling explains. To help things along, Smerling encourages parents to point out words, whether they be in the pages of a book or on business signs on Main Street.Ĭontext is key for numbers as well. This is one of the reasons parents reading with kids is such a key to literacy. But it’s more important that a child be able to recognize that the alphabet is made up of letters, and that letters form words, and that those words can create stories. It’s not an abstract stage of life: It’s a very concrete stage of life.” “That experience should have to do with what’s going on in their world, and learning how to function in the world. “The first five years of a child’s life should be experiential,” explains family therapist and former kindergarten teacher Kathryn Smerling, Ph.D. In fact, a seemingly impressive kid may be behind if they don’t know numbers can aid in a transaction or that letters create a book. Just because a 5-year-old knows the capital of Vermont doesn’t mean that he or she understands Montpelier’s historical significance or demographics (or needs to). So whether they’re academically a little ahead or a little behind, everyone’s going to know their letters, numbers, and colors by the time they head towards the numbered grades.Īnother reason the memorization of digits, letters, animal names or state capitals makes no difference in kindergarten is because knowledge doesn’t count for much without context. One of the reasons an alphabet and centenary of numbers is not necessarily helpful is because every kid will come into kindergarten with wildly different levels of knowledge based on where they went to pre-k. ![]() ![]() Yes, that sounds harsh, but there are reasons for that assessment: The list of skills children need to succeed in their early childhood education is relatively short and doesn’t include rote memorization. But neither of those kids actually have skills that are particularly useful for kindergarten, or life. A 4-year-old who can count accurately to 100 is pretty impressive. A preschooler who knows their ABCs from the alphabet song is adorable.
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