Is Your Child Ready for School? Emotional Awareness and Vocabulary

Have you been wondering if your child is ready for school? Getting ready for school is such an exciting time, for both children and their parents! There’s nothing quite like the excitement (and nervous anticipation) of purchasing school supplies, heading to orientations, and watching your child prepare to navigate the world of higher education. 
 
One of the biggest questions parents often ask when it comes to their pre-school-aged children, is ‘How do we know that they are ready for big school?’  

It’s easy to become overwhelmed when considering the skills your child may need to have mastered by the time that they start school. The most common skills that parents assume their child needs include reading, writing, counting, or spelling. However, while there is absolutely a place for these skills, there are many other, arguably more important areas of development that should also be investigated while establishing school readiness.  

Emotional Awareness and Vocabulary 

Being able to express their needs and wants is important, as is the language that your child is using in their everyday conversations with their friends, family, and educators.  

• Can they recognise different emotions, and how they make them feel? 
• Can they practice making faces or expressions to mimic those emotions, if their verbal language doesn’t explain them well yet?  
• Are they able to use appropriate emotions when dealing with conflict or disappointment?  
• Do they have the resilience to try again, even when frustrated, disappointed, angry or upset? 

While these are skills that will develop over time, it’s never too early to start observing how your child’s emotional language is growing and changing as they get older. 

Some simple ways to assist in developing this further for your child, are:

• Encouraging them to speak about how they are feeling, and this could become a discussion that happens on a regular basis as a check-in
• Using feeling playdough mats, where your child can represent different emotions
• Acting out different stories and exploring how the protagonist might be feeling

What's Next?

As you can see, there really is so much more to school readiness then whether your child can pick up a pencil and write a story, or read a written story independently.

The most important thing is to look at your child as an individual, as opposed to comparing to others – and if you need a little extra support or guidance, look to a qualified speech pathologist to help you on your way.

If you would love to assist your child in getting ready for school, then my Kick Start Kindy program would be perfect. Otherwise, download the free School Readiness checklist to see if your little one is ready for big school!