Vista Grande Elementary

Is Your Child Ready to Start Kindergarten?

At SDUSD, your child needs to be turning 5 by December 2nd of that year in order to enroll in kindergarten. If your child will be turning 5 after December 2nd, he or she will have to wait until the following year to enroll.

Age is not the best determination of kindergarten readiness. More is expected of kindergartners every year, and your child may not be ready to take on these tasks, even if their birthday falls within this time frame. Please give a lot of consideration to whether your child would benefit by waiting another year before starting school. Please read the information below.

Ask yourself these questions:

Does my child...

• have strong self-management skills?
• work independently?
• make his/her own choices without teacher or parent interaction?
• show willingness to try something new?
• is not apprehensive about new situations after a short adjustment period?
• wait his/her turn in a group situation in play, during snacks, sharing materials?
• interact well with other children on an equal footing?
• negotiate most of his/her own social problems fairly successfully?
• express his/herself well to communicate what he/she does and does not understand?
• have strong self-confidence and self-esteem?
• take care of clothes management (zipper, buttons, snaps) and bathroom needs?

It is also helpful if your child:

• knows how to count to 10, or even better, 20
• identifies some alphabetic letters
• can talk about a story that is being read to them
• can cut with scissors
• can draw shapes and objects (more than just scribbles)
• can play rhyming games
• recognizes the beginning sounds in words (repeat the sound back to you
• recognizes patterns
• can sort by color, shape, size
• can recognize groups of one, two, three, four, or five objects

If you are still not certain, or have any doubts, there is more to consider than just the onr year of kindergarten. Although many parents often want their children to start kindergarten due to the cost of day care, here are some things you might NOT have thought about...

• If your child is near the cut off date, they will be much younger than many students in the same class. When they are transitioning to middle school and high school, they will be less mature than some of their classmates.
• Your child could be leaving for college when they are 17 rather than 18.
• Boys may have a more successful high school sports experience if they are one of the older members of their grade level rather than younger.
• Girls will be faced with maturity/puberty/peer pressure issues earlier rather than later (girls are harder on each other than boys). This often starts as young as fourth grade! Maybe earlier.
• Boys mature less quickly than girls and are often not ready for school, even though they have turned 5 way before the cut off date. This may not actually be a problem in kindergarten, but could still become an issue as homework becomes more demanding in 3rd or 4th grade.