15 Oct 2018

Development of school readiness skills allows teachers to expand and further develop a child’s skills in specific areas of social interaction, language, emotional development, physical skills, literacy and fine motor skills.

In an interview after the Strategy Management Team Reflection Time Committee workshop, Regional Performance Improvement Coordinator for Kgalagadi Educational Region, Mr Daniel Zulu said children that begin school with the foundation skills in place advance quickly, as opposed to those that start school only to then begin the slow process of developing school readiness.

He said building blocks are necessary to develop school readiness because they enable self-regulation, the ability to obtain, maintain and change emotions, behaviour, attention and activity level appropriate for a task or situation.

He also said school readiness enabled an accurate processing of sensory stimulation in the environment as well as in one’s own body that influences attention and learning that affects how a child sits, holds a pencil and listens to the teacher.

Furthermore, Mr Zulu indicated that school readiness determined the ability to engage in mutual interaction with others, either verbally or non-verbally, to compromise with others and to be able to recognise and follow social norms.

“If a child has difficulties with school readiness they might get easily frustrated when expectations are placed upon them and struggle to follow instructions in daily activities. They struggle to attend to tasks and are socially immature, are unable to share, unable to shift with changing rules of a game in play and have poor receptive or expressive language skills,” he said.

Mr Zulu said school unready children would not be interested in looking at books or doing sit down activities and be resistant to input from others in order to learn.

He explained that school readiness skills could be improved in schools by encouraging the child to develop relationships with age mates and arrange suitable play dates for social interaction practice where adults actively facilitate the play practice.

He added that the child should be exposed to books to prepare them for literacy so they learn to sit through the entirety of a book, adding that parental expectations will increase expectations of the child around self-care tasks such as dressing, eating and getting ready to leave the house.

Mr Zulu said that a ready school accepted all children and provided a seamless transition to a high-quality learning environment by engaging the whole community and welcomed all children with opportunities to enhance and build confidence in their skills, knowledge and abilities.

He encouraged parents to start preparing children for school at the age of four by talking about expectations at school, appropriate behaviour and regularly engaging in activities.

He urged them to work with the children’s preschool teachers to identify any signs of deficit or slow development so that the areas could be targeted before the children start school.

“Prepare the child for school outings by going to places such as the library, the shopping centre and help the child to understand appropriate behaviour in these environments,” he said.

Visits to the school playground, toilet block and classroom door on the weekends or during school holidays before school starts may also be helpful to familiarise the child with the new setting, Mr Zulu explained. ENDS