READINESS RESOURCES

Below you will find information to assist you as you prepare your child for Kindergarten.
Please contact Square One if you have any questions!

The Virginia Department of Education & School Readiness 

“School readiness” describes the capabilities of children, their families, schools, and communities that will best promote student success in kindergarten and beyond. Each component – children, families, schools and communities – plays an essential role in the development of school readiness. No one component can stand on its own.

  • Ready Children. A ready child is prepared socially, personally, physically, and intellectually within the developmental domains addressed in Virginia’s six Foundation Blocks for Early Learning: literacy, mathematics, science, history and social science, physical and motor development, and personal and social development. Children develop holistically; growth and development in one area depends upon development in other areas.
  • Ready Families. A ready family has adults who understand they are the most important people in the child’s life and take responsibility for the child’s school readiness through direct, frequent, and positive involvement and interest in the child. Adults recognize their role as the child’s first and most important teacher, providing steady and supportive relationships, ensuring safe and consistent environments, promoting good health, and fostering curiosity, excitement about learning, determination, and self-control.
  • Ready Schools. A ready school accepts all children and provides a seamless transition to a high-quality learning environment by engaging the whole community. A ready school welcomes all children with opportunities to enhance and build confidence in their skills, knowledge, and abilities. Children in ready schools are led by skilled teachers, who recognize, reinforce, and extend children’s strengths and who are sensitive to cultural values and individual differences.
  • Ready Communities. A ready community plays a crucial part in supporting families in their role as primary stewards of children’s readiness. Ready communities, including businesses, faith-based organizations, early childhood service providers, community groups and local governments, work together to support children’s school and long term success by providing families affordable access to information, services, high-quality child care, and early learning opportunities.

For more readiness information, please visit the VDOE website.

Visit the Virginia Beach GrowSmart website for their Ready-Set-Kindergarten! materials to support families as they transition to Kindergarten.

  • Eat healthy during pregnancy.  Research demonstrates that malnourished fetuses suffer lasting behavioral and cognitive deficits, lower IQ, and/or poorer school performance due to inadequate brain growth.
  • Breastfeed if you are able or use iron-fortified formula.
  • The brain develops rapidly from 0-5.  Provide a safe and loving environment with age appropriate activities.
  • Talk, read and sing! Encourage your child to respond to you even though they might just be babbling. These back and forth “conversations” build connections in the brain and increase children’s educational success longterm. 

  • Provide responsive care (hugs, laughter, smiles, and bonding time). Children need to be connected to the adults in their lives. They need to feel safe, valued, and loved.
  • Foster a child’s natural curiosity through actively engaging them in play, keeping safety in mind.
  • Encourage fine/gross motor development (sitting, crawling, pointing, using rattles, blocks, or balls).
  • Ask open-ended questions and let them respond.  “Where is that ball going?”  “What is that sound?”
  • Encourage conversations by narrarating what you see them doing while they play.
  • Use nature to stimulate sensory experiences (observe a bird, watch the weather) then talk about what you see.  “What is that bird doing?”

  • Children who lack social and emotional skills cannot succeed in school.
  • 10% of all kindergarten children exhibit problematic behavior.
  • Children who enter school lacking social and emotional competence are less likely to be
    successful by the end of the first grade (US Dept. of Education 2002).
  • Ways you can promote social-emotional development:
    • Ensure your child attends a quality early childhood program.
    • Attend local parenting courses.
    • Help your child feel safe, valued, and loved. Look them in the eye and encourage touch as it build connection. Building attachment is just as imporant as the food they eat and shelter we provide. 
    • Help your child learn about different emotions and how to properly express them.

Children With Special Needs

  • All children are different and may have special needs as they grow. Don’t shy away from talking to your Peditrician.
  • The earlier a child receives intervention services, the better it is for their development long term.
  • Special needs can be overwhelming. Find a community that supports you and advocate for your family and most importantly, your child.

  • Even babies enjoy being read to!
  • Reading just 20 minutes each day has a large impact on children’s readiness for school. It also provides opportunities to connect with your child and spend quality time with them.
  • Children love to reread books so don’t shy away from those that you have read before.
  • You don’t have to be a great reader to read to your child. Just spend time together and enjoy the story.
  • Make sure your child has access to books they can hold. While technology is great, books provide children the opportunity to learn important literacy and motor skills while holding books in their hands.
  • Spend time reading at your local library together. Check out the wonderful FREE programs the library offers and get engaged. 

Infants

  • Make mobiles with colored shapes or objects for eye stimulation.
  • Sing a lullaby or play music and “move” with your child.
  • Use a lightweight cloth to play “peek-a-boo.”
  • Make a textured block out of material such as satin, velvet, corduroy,  and flannel.
  • Provide a variety of interesting objects for the child to practice their thumb and index finger in a pincher grip.
  • Read, read, read storybooks.
  • Make a baby book with pictures of the infant and family members.
  • Create musical instruments with paper plates, bells, rattles, wooden spoons, and other objects.
  • Provide “tummy time” on the floor for the infant to build upper body strength.

Toddlers

  • Toss/catch a small ball.
  • Play “Ring around the Rosy.”
  • Provide playdough for the child to manipulate.
  • Finger paint with pudding – Let them taste too!
  • Play a “Body Part” Game -Touch your nose, head, ear, tummy, leg, etc.
  • Provide lots of books – Children need their own to handle and love!
  • Play a follow directions game – “Can you close the door?”, “Bring me the ball, please.”, “Can you find the red ball?”, etc.
  • Sing songs – “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.”
  • Play outside – Sand, water, riding, and push toys should be available.
  • Talk about emotions and use pictures to help them describe how they are feeling.

  • Oral language is the beginning of literacy. Speak clearly and encourage back and forth talk! It builds your child’s brain! 
  • Create a safe and comfortable print-rich environment.
  • Use multi-sensory experiences (smell, taste, touch, hearing, & sight) as you read together.
  • Cuddle up with a child and a book to build attachment. This act of responsive care reduces the amount of cortisol, a stress hormone to the brain. Increased levels of cortisol interfere with a child’s learning.
  • Use dramatic play and create prop boxes to act out the characters in a story.
  • Read aloud! Let them help you hold and turn the pages. As they get older, model using your finger to show left to right reading.
  • Repetition/Rhyme – Read it and Say it again and again! Children learn from repetition and are able to predict what will happen next.
  • Take a picture walk and point out the illustrations and talk about what you see. This helps the child understand the printed word.
  • Ask open-ended questions and narrarate what you see them doing as they play or interact with you throughout the day.
  • Compare and Contrast. “Is the elephant bigger than the mouse?” “Are they the same color?”
  • After you read, ask the child what happened at the beginning, middle and end.
    Introduce the parts of the book (title and author).

  • Early experiences with spoken and written language set the stage and are the building blocks for children to become successful readers.
  • Talk! – Children learn language through listening and back and forth conversations with those around them. Ask questions where they can explain themselves. This promotes brain development.
  • Read aloud EVERYDAY! – Just 20 minutes makes a lifelong reader.
  • Talk slowly and clearly.
  • Show and Tell – Talk about what you are doing as you do it and ask them questions.
  • PLAY – Children learn through play (building with blocks, painting, putting a puzzle together, sand and water, pretending) – Encourage children to talk about what they are doing or building by asking questions.
  • HAVE FUN AND VISIT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY – It’s Free!

Why LENA?

LENA is based on the belief that parents, caregivers, and teachers have the ability to unlock every child’s social, emotional, and cognitive potential. We focus on increasing interactive talk because it has been proven to be a key factor in early brain development – and we focus on the earliest years because research points to those as the most critical. The feedback we provide helps parents and teachers measurably increase talk and conversations with children. The results are stronger families, improved classroom quality, and children more prepared to succeed in school.

What is LENA?

LENA technology is the industry standard for measuring talk with children birth to three, a critical factor in early brain development. (LENA stands for Language ENvironment Analysis.) Used all over the world, LENA’s programs for parents and teachers will support your initiative to build early language and literacy, to close gaps in cognitive, emotional, and social development, and to improve school readiness.

Interested in joining a Virginia Beach LENA Start class? If so, please fill out the LENA Start Interest Form.
Click here to learn more about LENA.