School Readiness Goals

I. Physical Development

  • Children will identify and practice healthy habits such as washing hands, brushing teeth, eating healthy foods, and toileting.
  • Children will develop independence in performing self-care tasks such as carrying out classroom routines, dressing themselves, and participating in classroom jobs.
  • Children will demonstrate control of large muscles by jumping, skipping, marching, hopping, climbing, running, throwing, kicking, and pedaling. 
  • Children will demonstrate control of small muscles by interacting with writing tools, scissors, manipulatives, paintbrushes, and play-dough.

II. Approaches to Learning

  • Children will sustain interest in self-chosen activities/tasks and persist until all problems are solved, ignoring distractions.
  • Children will show eagerness and curiosity in exploring a variety of topics and materials in their learning environment.

 III. Social and Emotional Development

  • Children will demonstrate a growing independence indicated by attention to self-care and willingness to participate in daily routines.
  • Children will recognize, then internally manage and regulate, positive/negative emotions when given a consistent and predictable environment with appropriate encouragement and support through multiple experiences over time.
  • Children will comfortably interact with familiar adults, trusting them as resources to share mutual interests and develop positive relationships.
  • Children will follow simple rules, agreements, and familiar routines, and will use materials with increasing care and safety with appropriate support through multiple experiences over time.
  • Children will show increasing confidence in taking responsibility for their own well-being, while expressing their individuality and preferences, with appropriate encouragement and support through multiple experiences over time.
  • Children will initiate, join in, and sustain positive interactions while developing special relationships with peers in small groups.
  • Children will identify basic emotional reactions of others and correctly identify their causes.
  • Children will initiate a sharing of classroom materials and suggest solutions to solve common social problems with appropriate encouragement and support through multiple experiences over time. 

IV. Language, Communication and Emergent Literacy

Language Development

  • Children will show an understanding of spoken language by engaging in conversations consisting of three or more exchanges, using acceptable language, social rules, appropriately complex statements, questions, vocabulary and/or stories to ask/answer questions and add comments relevant to the topic with appropriate support.
  • Children will listen to and follow directions of two or more steps related to familiar objects and experiences.
  • Children will use an expanding expressive vocabulary describing and telling the use of many familiar items and telling simple stories about objects, events, and people not present.
  • Children will use four to six word sentences using logical order and major details, being understood by most people.
  • Children will use category labels to correctly place objects in two or more groups based on differences of a single characteristic, e.g., color, size, or shape.
  • Children will use and respond appropriately to positional words indicating location, direction, and distance. 

Literacy

  • Children will state whether two words rhyme.
  • Children will combine and delete syllables in words.
  • Children will make and delete compound words.
  • Children will distinguish individual words in a sentence.
  • Children will interact with printed material appropriately and will ask to be read to.
  • Children will recognize almost all letters when named.
  • Children will name most letters.
  • Children will name some letters when given the sounds and say some letter sounds when given the letters.
  • Children will comprehend and respond to books and other texts by identifying the events, problems, and resolutions during conversations with an adult.
  • Children will retell a familiar story with or without props.
  • Children will pretend to read using pictures or props while supported by an adult.
  • Children will use scribble-like form when writing to convey meaning.
  • Children will write their own names and other words using letters or letter like shapes.

V. Cognitive and General Knowledge

Mathematical Thinking

  • Children will verbally count to 20 and tell how many.
  • Children will use one to one correspondence to create sets to 15. They will compare sets, indicate more, less or same, and will assign numerals to items in amounts up to 10.
  • Children will name up to five ordinal positions.
  • Children will combine and remove items in sets to solve problems.
  • Children will extend and create simple patterns with at least two elements.
  • Children will sort, order, compare, and describe units according to their size, weight, capacity, or area.
  • Children will manipulate, draw, sort, describe, and represent two dimensional shapes including circle, triangle, square, rectangle, and oval.
  • Children will manipulate, sort, and name three dimensional shapes including cone, cube, and sphere.
  • Children will use and respond appropriately to positional words, directional words, distance words, and locational words.
  • Children will use multiples of the same unit to measure.
  • Children will represent data and analyze it using simple charts and graphs.
  • Children will predict results of data collection with adult support and multiple experiences over time.

Scientific Inquiry

  • Children will develop scientific inquiry skills by showing curiosity about the environment through questioning, predicting, explaining, and drawing conclusions.
  • Children will demonstrate an awareness of the natural environment through their ability to classify living and nonliving things and an understanding of how things grow and change in different habitats.
  • Children will use a variety of writing, mechanical, and measuring tools to explore and classify things in their environment.

Social Studies

  • Children will demonstrate knowledge about themselves such as hair and eye color, favorite activity or favorite food, and by telling, drawing, and/or movement.
  • Children will recognize the roles and relationships of people in their family, classroom, and community by participating in opportunities/activities for observing real world workers and by role playing within the classroom. 
  • Children will name geographic locations such as the beaches, mountains, or bridges.

Creative Expression through the Arts

  • Children will explore and discuss visual arts, music, creative movement, dance, and dramatic play through active participation in daily classroom activities.
  • Children will use words, media, and tools as they create their own artistic expressions and demonstrate an appreciation of the arts of others.