Kindergarten readiness checklist Missouri

Is Your Child Ready For Kindergarten?

It's never too early to start preparing for school. If your child is enrolled in a preschool, he or she is probably learning a lot of these important skills at school. Either way, it's important for parents and caregivers to be familiar with the key areas of development to ensure they are providing opportunities for their child to gain the skills they need to be successful in kindergarten.

Not sure if your child is ready to tackle the world of kindergarten? The checklist below is designed to help you prepare your child for school. It is a GUIDE designed to help you look at your child’s physical, social, emotional and academic development. It is intended for FOUR AND FIVE YEAR OLDS. The criteria on the checklist should not be applied to children three years or younger.

Kindergarten Readiness Checklist

You can find more helpful tips and developmental milestones at bornlearning.org.

The US Department of Education  has a detailed list of activities that will help your child prepare for kindergarten.

What Should Parents Know Before Their Child Enters Kindergarten?

If this is your first experience with the school district, take the time to get to know policies and practices. Talk to neighbors, friends and others who already have children in the school. Visit your school district's web site to find important information about kindergarten readiness and registration. Don't wait until school is about to begin. Your preparation should begin at least six months before your child is ready to start kindergarten.

Visit the US Department of Education for a full list of information parents should know about the school before their child begins kindergarten.

When kids are getting ready for kindergarten, many families wonder about academic skills. But self-care and social and emotional skills are important for kindergarten readiness, too. For example, does your child need help using the bathroom? Learn about the different kinds of skills kids are expected to have when they start kindergarten.

• Speak in complete sentences and be understood by others most of the time

• Use words to express needs and wants

• Understand two-step directions

• Make comparisons and describe relationships between objects like big/little, under/over, and first/last

• Enjoy listening to stories

• Know how to find the first page of a book and which way to flip the pages

• Recognize familiar logos and signs, like stop signs

• Recite the alphabet and identify most of the letters

• Recognize and try to write their own name

• Recognize when two words rhyme (like cat and bat)

• Start to connect letter sounds to letters (like the sound of the first letter in their name)

• Draw a picture to help express an idea

• Count from 1 to 10 without skipping numbers

• Match a number to a group of five or fewer items (“I see three cats”)

• Recognize and name basic shapes (square, circle, triangle, rectangle)

• Understand more than and less than

• Arrange three objects in the right order (like from smallest to biggest)

• Name or point to the colors in a box of eight crayons

• Use the bathroom and wash up on their own

• Get dressed on their own (but may still need help with buttons, zippers, and shoelaces)

• Know and can say their first and last name and age

Social and emotional skills

• Separate from a parent or caregiver without getting overly upset

• Interact with other kids

• Pay attention for at least five minutes to a task an adult is leading, like listening to directions for an activity or discussing the day’s weather during circle time

• Use a pencil or crayon with some control

• Use scissors

• Copy basic shapes

• Make distinct marks that look like letters and write some actual letters, especially the ones in their name

• Put together a simple puzzle

• Run

• Jump with feet together

• Hop on one foot

• Climb stairs

• Bounce a ball and try to catch it

How to help your rising kindergartner

Kids develop skills at different rates. It’s not unusual for kids to have strong skills in one area and weak skills in other areas. Some states use kindergarten readiness tests to get a sense of which early learners might need extra help in some areas.

If you’re concerned your child isn’t ready for kindergarten, talk with your child’s preschool teacher and work together to come up with a plan to address any trouble spots. You might also want to talk with your child’s health care provider. Learn about the pros and cons of  delaying kindergarten  for a year.

October 8, 2019
Contact: Cailin Riley, 573-882-4870,

Starting kindergarten can be a challenging time for children as many are leaving home and learning to interact with others for the first time. As such, it is important for kindergartners to receive proper support from their teachers.

Now, University of Missouri College of Education researchers have found that a readiness test can predict kindergarteners’ success in school after 18 months. Melissa Stormont, a professor of special education, says identifying students early in the academic year who may need additional support can allow teachers and parents more time to build essential academic and social-behavioral skills.

Researchers at the University of Missouri College of Education have found that a readiness screener can predict kindergarteners’ success in school after 18 months.

“Kindergarteners come to school from varying backgrounds and have different abilities,” Stormont said. “This is a critical time to assess student academic and social readiness, so that teachers can provide support as early as possible before issues worsen and become harder to change. This screening tool is a simple first step that can help children in the long run.”

The researchers distributed the screening tool to 19 teachers in six elementary schools. Early in the school year, those teachers used the screener to rate 350 students. The MU researchers then compared the students’ scores from the screener to their performances on a math and reading achievement test and to teacher ratings of their social and emotional skills 18 months later. Children who rated poor in academic readiness were nine to 10 times more likely to have low reading scores at the end of first grade. In addition, children who rated poor in behavior readiness were six times more likely to be rated as having displayed disruptive behavior and poor social skills by their first-grade teachers.

Professor of Special Education Melissa Stormont says identifying students early in the academic year who may need additional support can allow teachers and parents more time to build essential academic and social-behavioral skills.

“Using this tool could help teachers in developing lessons and interventions to help their students who are having difficulties,” Stormont said. “This study highlights the need to support children more when they transition to kindergarten and these positive results definitely merit further study.”

Stormont recommends that parents support children entering kindergarten by talking with their child about social behavior expectations in kindergarten and have them practice doing things like taking turns and following directions. In addition, parents and their children can meet with teachers to discuss what those expectations are. Parents also can explore summer programs before school starts that can help acclimate children to the classroom and learn routines. The study results also support efforts to help children with reading and math, as initial poor academic readiness predicted problems 18 months later.

“Teacher-rated school readiness items in a kindergarten sample: Outcomes in first grade,” was published in School Psychology. Stormont’s coauthors from the MU College of Education included Keith Herman and Wendy Reinke. Daniel Cohen with the University of Alabama is also a coauthor.