Smooth Sailing to Kindergarten

Stepping Stone School Austin PreschoolEnsuring your children acquire the knowledge and skills to be ready for kindergarten is the highest priority in our advanced pre-K classrooms.

Our Early Achievers Program blends into our Kindergarten Readiness Academy not only the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines criteria, but kindergarten-level activities as described in the Kindergarten Standards of the Texas Education Code. We have purposefully designed our curriculum to target the skills your children will need to succeed as they move into elementary school.

For example, the kindergarten standards for language arts and reading require that kindergarten children participate in activities to develop their oral language skills, build their vocabularies and extend their comprehension of concepts. Consequently, our advanced pre-K classrooms children:

  • Practice following directions, deriving meaning from texts read aloud, listening and asking questions;
  • Work on understanding story structure and ability to retell stories; and
  • Continue to work on recognizing letters, understanding that letters represent sounds, that words are formed using letters, and that print is read from left to right.

In response to the kindergarten standards for writing, spelling and composition, our curriculum engages children in activities that encourage their excitement, interest and skills in:

  • Writing names, familiar words or meaningful words;
  • Writing the letters of the alphabet and understanding upper and lowercase letters;
  • Gaining increased control of pencil grip, paper position and beginning stroke; and
  • Dictating messages for others to write, creating written messages and cards, moving left-to-right, top-to-bottom.

Learning to read is developmental, and every child learns at his own pace. Still, the curriculum that children are exposed to has an invaluable impact on their learning. While many children begin reading in kindergarten or first grade, we have a growing number who start in our pre-K classrooms.  We are ready for them and encourage their skill development in all that we do.

Our Kindergarten Readiness Academy curriculum also includes specific activities related to the other kindergarten academic areas – mathematics, science, social studies, health education, art, music, theater and technology.  This enables our children to get an early start on the academic tasks of their kindergarten year and be a step ahead!

 

Topics:

Age Groups:

Share This Article: