5 Skills Children Should Develop Before Kindergarten

It can be an exciting time when children are getting ready for the first day of Kindergarten. They will want to pick out their favorite outfit and parents would want to take a first day of school picture of them. These children are off to receive an education, but are they ready to learn the information they are going to receive?

There are skills we must develop in order to think and learn to understand concepts taught in school. These skills include fine motor, emotional, social, executive function, and basic academic concepts.

Fine Motor

Lots of children are active enough to attend Kindergarten, which is apparent by the constant fidgeting and moving around that young children do. Their gross motor skills are typically well developed, but what is lacking in lots of children are the fine motor skills. These are often the small, finger movements and hand-eye coordination. Children are going to preschool not having the fine motor skills to hold a pencil.

The dilemma that is causing this is not being exposed to activities that strengthen those fine motor skills. Nowadays, children are using their fingers to press against touch screens instead of holding art utensils to write and create. Children learn when they do and experience things rather than being directly taught and passively watching. In order to do this, they must develop fine motor skills enough to hold and manipulate with. Marcy Guddemi, an expert in early childhood education, said this regarding fine motor skills,

“If children arrive at school lacking the fine motor control and finger strength necessary to hold a pencil, they will struggle to master other requirements in kindergarten. This is a huge problem because today’s kindergarten demands so much more writing and desk work than ten years ago.”

Children can develop these fine motor skills through manipulative activities. These could include, but are not limited to:

• Sculpting play dough
• Doing kitchen projects
• Doing art projects through coloring, painting, cutting, gluing, and so forth.
• Participating in wood working projects where children handle tools and take contraptions apart.
• Playing with loose materials
• Stringing beads
• Limiting technology

Emotional

When children are able to handle their emotions, they will think and process information more clearly. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child from Harvard University mentioned that in order for children to listen, sit still, and grasp the academic concepts, they must have adequate social/emotional skills. They said,

“Children clearly need the social and emotional capabilities that enable them to sit still in a classroom, pay attention, and get along with their classmates just as much as they need the cognitive skills required to master the reading and math concepts taught in kindergarten.”

These skill can be learned through parent and teacher support. They can help children develop emotional skills through:

• Helping them label their emotions
• Validating emotions
• Understanding why they are having certain emotions
• Allowing them to solve problems
• Correcting behaviors, not the emotions
• Teaching them to ask
• Teaching them to express their emotions and problem solve

I mention each of these points in detail in my article, “Part 2: Is Learning Academics Early the Indicator of Success?”

Social

This concept ties along closely with emotional development, because developing it requires using some level of socialization. Often times, some of the best ways we learn is through collaboration with others and talking about what we learned with someone. Children are not much different. They learn to a greater extent when they are able to express their thoughts and feelings with others.

Children can develop social skills through a lot of the same strategies as emotional development. Parents and teachers can also promote social development through asking children open-ended questions that can allow children to give more than a “yes” or “no” answer. Cheryl Lock, who wrote an article in Parents magazine, mentioned that children can also develop social skills through being taught empathy and personal space, and practice social overtures and taking turns.

Executive Functions

Executive functions are the basic skills needed to think and learn. These skills also tie along with emotional and social development, except it consists of three specific points within executive functions.

• Inhibitory Control: This is very similar to emotional regulation. In simple terms, this is being able to control your emotions, behaviors, and responses.
• Mental Flexibility: This is being able to pay attention or shift your attention to something else. This could also be willing to change the rules in a game or routines in a day. There is also a level of cognitive development within mental flexibility.
• Working Memory: This is being able to sustain information for a short or long period of time, such as remembering to hang a coat up or tie a shoe.

These executive function skills remind me of the Marshmallow Test done back in the 1960s conducted by Stanford University. Preschoolers were given one marshmallow and were told if they wait for fifteen minutes, they could have two marshmallows. Some could not resist the temptation and ate the marshmallow immediately, while others were able to use self-control to wait for a second marshmallow. As the years went by, they reported back on these individuals and found that the preschoolers who exemplified delayed gratification did better academically and had greater life satisfaction than those who did not have that self-control.

These executive function skills are crucial for not only academic success, but having a greater, more successful, life. Amanda Morgan, who blogs for Not Just Cute, said,

“Children with these strengths will listen in class when there are distractions, will take the time to look for right answers beyond first-glance answers, and will get their school work done when they’d rather be playing video games. They’re better able to take their other talents and strengths, build on them, apply them intentionally, and use them in working toward their goals.”

With the help of an adult, children can develop these skills through stop and go games and activities, such as Red Light, Green Light or Dance and Freeze. Playing opposite games and Simon Says can help with changing directions, working mental flexibility, and working memory. In fact, even playing pretend can help executive function skills greatly. Amanda Morgan said this regarding pretend play,

“Dramatic play is full of benefits for young children, not least of which is the flexibility of thinking and self-control required for a child to take on another character and play out the role. Even better, as young children build their play scripts with other children, they begin to negotiate and share ideas and build a plan for play — the next avenue in building executive functions.”

If there is any one set of skills I would choose for children to develop before Kindergarten, it would be executive function skills, especially as children are now required to sit still and pay attention. Well developed executive function skills will help children accomplish that.

Basic Academic Concepts

Even though children are going to learn the letters, sounds, numbers, and so forth in Kindergarten, it is good for children to be introduced to these concepts before they enter school. Through emergent literacy and mathematics, they will be able to gain an interest for these concepts and be willing to apply them in real-life contexts.

Parents and teachers can practice emergent curriculum by pointing out the everyday uses of literacy and mathematics. Adults can teach emergent literacy through:

• Oral language and rich vocabulary
• Phonemic and phonological awareness
• Writing
• Environmental print
• Reading books
• The alphabetic principle

I mention these ideas in great detail in my article, “How to Teach Meaningful Literacy to Preschoolers.” Adults can introduce math concepts through manipulative activities and blocks. Songs and fingerplays can also teach mathematics when they state taking away objects. Asking questions while a child does these activities can activate children’s brains to think about an answer and explain their problem solving process.

Of course these skills will not come all at once, but through a gradual process of learning and practicing, children will grasp these skills at some point or another and have success in school. I once heard from a professor that Kindergarten teachers would rather have children come into their classroom with proper skills necessary to learn and pay attention than knowing pre-reading skills. Through fine motor, emotional, social, executive function skills and basic academic concepts, will children be able to thrive in the classroom.

References:

Clear, James. (n.d.) “40 years of Stanford Research Found The People With This One Quality Are More Likely to Succeed.” James Clear. https://jamesclear.com/delayed-gratification

Guddemi, Marcy. (2016). “What is Happening to Fine Motor Development?” Community Playthings. http://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/2016/fine-motor-skills

Lock, Cheryl. (2013). Improving Kids’ Social Skills. Parents Magazine. https://www.parents.com/kids/development/social/improving-kids-social-skills/

Morgan, Amanda. (2011). “Want to Give Your Kids an Advantage? Build Executive Functions.” Not Just Cute. https://notjustcute.com/2011/11/02/want-to-give-your-kids-an-advantage-build-executive-functions/

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (n.d.). “Children’s Emotional Development is Built into the Architecture of Their Brains.” Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/childrens-emotional-development-is-built-into-the-architecture-of-their-brains/

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (n.d.). “Executive Function and Self-Regulation.” Harvard University. https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/executive-function/