School Readiness
West Virginia defines kindergarten readiness as a stage of
transition that encompasses the child's various learning
experiences and general knowledge, physical well-being, social and
emotional development, and familiarity and ease with expressing
themselves and understanding language. Children develop
holistically and at an individual rate. As a result, children
enter school with varied levels of skill and learning
experiences. These variances are further impacted by the
resources children have access to prior to entering school including
home, family and community supports.
Since each child's degree of readiness differs and is highly
individualized, kindergarten readiness also entails the capacity of
schools to be prepared to serve all children effectively regardless of
a child's individual developmental level in each of the five
developmental domains of school readiness. The five
developmental domains of school readiness are:
- Health and physical development,
- social and emotional development,
- language development and communication,
- cognition and general knowledge, and
- a child’s individual approaches to learning.
Defining Kindergaten Readiness
REL-A, 2010 - REL Appalachia Reference Desk summary that helps to describe various definitions of Kindergarten "readiness."
It reviews some of the definitions proposed in the literature on early childhood development, and contains
some information on how the other Appalachian states are defining kindergarten readiness.
