Practicing Kindergarten skills

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With summer approaching, it’s a good time for parents with children who will be entering kindergarten to start preparing and orienting them for the classroom.

In Kindergarten, children will work on naming upper and lower-case letters and matching those with their sounds. Practice in this area is especially helpful.

Children will compare the adventures and experiences of characters in familiar stories like fairy tales and folk tales. This can be fun to do together.

Kindergartners also use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to describe an event and include their reaction to it.

They learn to recognize, spell, and properly use those grammatical little words that hold the language together, like “the,” “to,” “of,” and “is.” Helping them practice that will make them feel more confident.

In math, they will count objects and compare groups to tell which has more units. They will solve simple addition and subtraction word problems, with sums of 10 or less.

Also, they will name shapes regardless of orientation — if a square is oriented as a “diamond,” it is still a square.

Parents and children can both have fun practicing these skills over the summer to help prepare for the coming school year.

Learning on trips

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Summer is often a time for family vacations and trips. But going away doesn’t mean that learning has to stay at home. Try these activities to help keep young minds active:

Put reading skills to practical use whenever the opportunity arises.

Gather bus routes, and schedules, to places like a zoo, a museum, or a baseball stadium. Let your children plan a portion of a trip, figuring out the travel time required, the cost, and the best time to go. Let them write out a schedule to follow.

You can also help sharpen their math skills while on a trip.

When filling your tank, ask your children to compute the gas mileage for your car.

On the highway, ask your children to read the signs and check the different speed limits. They can check off license plates from different states. Have them estimate distances between cities and check the estimates on a road map.

Of course, one of the most important parts of a summer vacation is the valuable time spent interacting with your children in a setting that is different from your home, without the normal interruptions.

Showing your children you love them and are proud of them is the best teaching tool of all.

Combine this with activities that stimulate the mind, and you will teach your children to appreciate life and lifelong learning.

Road to readiness

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Making sure that every child comes to school ready to learn is a worthy national education goal. But we are not yet nearly to that point.

One researcher examined the steps that must be taken to make it happen. The researcher determined that the quality of the parent-child relationship is key to language development.

Children need rich verbal experiences to draw from as they enter school. Parents should talk with their children all the time and read to them as often as possible.

Parents can share stories, and ask open-ended questions to spur thinking skills. This helps get children excited about learning new things.

According to the research, there are several preconditions for learning.

Good health comes first. Then come unhurried time with family, safe and supportive environments, and special help for families in need.

This sounds like commonsense, but unfortunately these items are not always in great supply.

The researcher wrote: “These principles are deceptively simple. Assuring that every child has the opportunity to learn requires collaboration among community and health care agencies, families, and schools.”

It involves institutions and neighborhoods working together to help meet basic needs.

It is a promise unfulfilled in this country at this time, but it is a worthy goal to pursue for all our children.

This is the road to readiness.

Pool safety

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Swimming pools are a great place for children to have fun and get exercise. But they can also pose some dangers.

The American Red Cross has important safety tips for supervising children anytime they are at a pool or pond:

Never let a child swim alone. Constant supervision is a must.

Never leave a child unattended in the pool area — even for the length of time it takes to answer a telephone.

Pool owners should make sure there is fencing around the pool, with a locked gate.

Deep and shallow sections of the pool should be clearly marked and separated with a line if weak swimmers or non-swimmers use the pool.

Anyone supervising children near water should know simple reaching techniques for rescues.

These can include extending a towel, shirt, branch, or pole to the swimmer, or throwing a life preserver or other buoyant object.  

It is also important to know how to administer CPR.

With water safety always in mind, everyone can have fun at the pool this summer.

Summertime reading

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Experts agree that children who read during the summer gain reading skills, while those who do not can lose some of them.  

As children’s first and most important teachers, parents have a major role to play in motivating children to read during the summer.  

Here are some tips to help keep your child learning and reading.

Combine activities with books. Summer leaves lots of time for children to enjoy fun activities such as going to the park, seeing a movie, or going to the beach.  

Why not also encourage them to read a book about the activity?

If you’re going to a baseball game, suggest your children read a book about their favorite player beforehand. In the car or over a hot dog, you’ll have lots of time to talk about the book and the game.

Visit the library. If your child doesn’t have a library card, summer is a great time to sign up. In addition to a wide selection of books to borrow, many libraries have fun, child-friendly summer reading programs.

Lead by example. Read the newspaper at breakfast, pick up a magazine at the doctor’s office, and stuff a paperback in your beach bag.

If young people see the adults around them reading often, they will understand that literature can be a fun and important part of their summer days.

Avoid hollow threats

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Parenting is a challenge — mostly because children seem determined to make it so. 

When a parent is trying to get a child to do something — or stop doing something — it is often easy to issue a threat.

Some threats, delivered in the “heat of battle,” can be counterproductive and undermine credibility:

“If you don’t come take your bath right now, we are not going to Disneyland this weekend.”  Or, “If you don’t stop bothering your sister, I’m going to give away your new toys.”

It’s easy to think, “I’d never say that” — but it’s a rare parent who has never gone that route under stress.

The problem is that children are very good at sensing insincerity, and they know when a threat is so wild that you will not follow through. That makes the process ineffective. It simply doesn’t work.

Stating consequences can be a very effective means of discipline, especially if there is a logical relation between the response and the behavior, and if the consequences are carried out exactly as described.

The bottom line is that it’s very important for children to learn that you mean what you say. If a consequence is credible, and if you follow through, the behavior stands a good chance of changing in the direction you are hoping for.

Make yourself clear when explaining consequences, and always follow through. That’s the best advice of all.

Poisoning

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We’ve made a lot of progress in reducing the number of children who are accidentally poisoned each year. Much of the credit is due to public education on the topic.

In the 1960s, more than 450 children under the age of 5 were dying from accidental poisoning each year. That total has fallen to about 30. But it’s still too high.

Simple precautions remain critical:

• Keep medicines in their original childproof containers, stored out of reach.

• Follow the doctor’s instructions carefully when giving medicine to children.

• Store household cleaners safely — a high percentage of poisonings involve everyday cleaning products, cosmetics, cough and cold remedies, antibiotics, and vitamins.

• Teach children never to eat anything you haven’t approved.

A typical household contains products such as bleach, fertilizers, or paint stripper that can be fatal to a child.

If your child swallows a poison, you must act quickly and calmly:If the child is conscious, determine exactly what was swallowed. The child could lose consciousness at any time.

Call 9-1-1 or the local poison control center.

Have the container on hand so you can tell the center the exact contents of what was swallowed. If the child must go to the hospital, be sure to take the poison container with you for the doctors there.

Stay calm and give the professionals short, precise answers, because time is often critical.

Empowerment

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Feeling safe makes children feel more confident when they can meet new people, try new tasks, and take on new responsibilities.

As children grow, they also need time to explore their power and abilities. This means parents need to let go of some control and help their children take “healthy risks.”

How do parents help their children learn what it means to be more self-sufficient? Think about these questions:

How do your children work through their fears or doubts? How often do you do things with your children rather than for them?

What do your children do that makes you laugh or feel proud? Do they know it?

To help empower your children, tell them often that you appreciate what they do around the house, at school, and for friends.

When your children tell you about problems, confirm their feelings and help them think through solutions.

Encourage children to take new roles at school or try new activities that will be enjoyable but not stressful.

Let children take full responsibility for some chores. When you do your own chores, do them with good cheer even if they aren’t fun. Your children will learn from your example.