Introduction

Most individuals are of the view that childcare centers are merely established to help extremely busy parents babysit their children. However, the work of childcare providers encompasses nurturing children’s physical, emotional, intellectual, and social wellbeing for proper development. 

Essentially, a child must get prepared for the demands of kindergarten studies. The essence is to equip the child with the necessary skills he will need to perform excellently during kindergarten period. Hence, a good childcare center engages children in activities that will uphold their skill acquisition. 

In this article, we will discuss the importance of preparing your child for kindergarten and the role of childcare centers in the preparation. 

Table of Contents

• Why it is Important to Prepare Your Child for Kindergarten
• How a Childcare Center will Prepare Your Child for kindergarten
• Conclusion

Why It Is Important To Prepare Your Child for Kindergarten 

Every activity that a child is trained with determines how he develops in his environment. However, the skills that a child acquires from a childcare center contributes to the child’s wellbeing to the extent of giving him an edge during kindergarten studies. Thus, the following are the importance of preparing your child for kindergarten. 

Adaptability

The physical setting of the childcare center is almost similar to kindergarten. Moreover, the childcare providers engage the children in activities that will help them to get used to being around other people who are not their parents when they are in their learning centers. 

Some children feel sad and nervous when they are registered into a formal school because they are used to having their parents around. Nonetheless, this is not so for children who start with childcare centers because they develop the act of independence and they only look unto their providers during their daycare periods. 

Furthermore, they gain the opportunity to have friends through playing and engaging in other social activities. Hence, such children will have the tendency to become friendlier with people. In a nutshell, the way they have socialized during the daycare will help them to adapt to the kindergarten environment. They become aware of the environment, the activities and the function of the people they find in it. 

Excellence

Children who attend child care centers are thought to concentrate, reason properly, identify and understand alphabets and numbers. The child will gain the ability to perform excellently as a result of the knowledge he has attained from the childcare center. 

Also, he will gain better cognitive performance that will contribute to his kindergarten excellence and develop the ability to communicate effectively, either verbally or non-verbally. Other areas where the child’s excellence will manifest include;

Academically:

Research shows that school teachers commend the way good childcare centers prepare children for formal school. They teach the children basic mathematics, ABCs, and how to read storybooks. Such engagement contributes to a child’s kindergarten academic excellence. 

Socially:

Children get used to interacting with groups of people that make them retain a friendly quality. They gain social intelligence when they spend time playing with their age groups and adults. 

Thus, they become familiar with usual school guidelines that involve paying attention while the teacher speaks, sharing things, respecting each other, etc.

At Perfect Angels Learning Center, our caregivers typically help children with these guidelines. Also, our providers ensure that children are socially engaged to help develop their emotional intelligence.

Discipline

The child will gain the act of listening to instruction as they have learnt from their providers. They will be attentive in classes and develop an interest in academic exercises like reading storybooks, solving mathematics. Discipline also helps a child to be free from behavioral problems.

Furthermore, they learn how to carry out activities in a structured method. They are thought how to do things by following organized routines promptly. 

How a childcare center will prepare your child for kindergarten 

As stated earlier, attending childcare centers can help your children to become familiar with the necessary academic skills that they may need for kindergarten academic excellence. Basically, a child emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing can affect his intellectual performance positively.

Nevertheless, his well-being is also determined by the development of his skills. 

Therefore, the following expatiates the skills necessary for a child’s performance and how they are cultivated. Such skills can help a child to transition smoothly into kindergarten. 

Cognitive Skills

Cognition is a skill that deals with reasoning and understanding through one’s mind. In other words, the way the human brain processes its reasoning ability. For instance, a child can process an imaginative thought through his mind by;

• . Picturing a character from a storybook
• . Drawing or painting an image 
• . Playing puzzle games 
• . Arranging objects correctly

According to research, the brain of a child matures during his 8th month of existence. In essence, as a child develops, his level of comprehension also develops. 

Cognition also connotes identification/realization and then comprehension. For instance, the ability for a child to identify alphabets and comprehend what they represent, say ‘A for Apple’, is a form of cognitive development. 

At Perfect Angels Learning Centers, our providers engage our children in these practical activities, and among others to improve their level of reasoning and understanding. 

For infants, their cognitive level develops as they examine things around them. For instance, they use their mouth to understand the shape and feel of objects. Our childcare providers at Perfect Angels Learning Center have their skillful ways of assisting these babies to develop their cognitive abilities by;

• – Allowing them to play with safe toys
• – Interacting with them by singing, reading, and talking
• – Allowing them to spell words.
• – Teaching the children how to count and recognize numbers. For instance, basic addition and subtraction. 
• – Allowing them to play games and puzzles because arranging and rearranging helps them to think. 

These exercises assist babies to develop physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Language skills

Language skills deal with a child’s linguistic development. In other words, it deals with how the children comprehend and communicate language as they develop. Research shows that children develop linguistic knowledge from their infancy to the age of 5 very swiftly.   

Infants can pay attention to human voices and faces, specifically when they are being spoken to. They respond through signs and actions. For instance, when babies are being spoken to, they respond either by smiling or staying still. Similarly, when they are in need, they cry. 

Their ears, eyes, and mouth are very important for the way they see, feel, and hear. Childcare providers take proper note of the way a child receives and responds to communication, to understand their linguistic capability.  

For instance, from infancy to the 12th month, children are fond of the following;

• – Imitating the mouth movement of adults 
• – Making vowel sounds in their second and third month.
• – Cooing
• – Pronouncing few disyllabic words at their fourth month
• – Understanding their provider’s language at the fifth month.
• – Babbling at the sixth month (which forms different syllables)
• – Copying the sounds of their providers at their seventh month.
• – Realizing the significance of certain words at their eighth month. For instance, when they hear a word like ‘milk’, they know it is time to eat. 
• – Pronouncing words like ‘dada’ and ‘mama’ beginning from their ninth month. 
• – Nodding to signify yes or no
• – Pointing to what they want at their tenth to the eleventh month.

The development of a child’s language is determined by what he listens to in his environment. As children develop, they learn how to produce language in the spoken form. Our childcare providers at Perfect Angels Learning Center assists children with the use of vocabulary by helping them to assemble words into sentences to speak properly. 

Social Skills 

Social skills are one of the most essential skills in the lives of children because it helps to stabilize their adulthood. A childcare center vastly helps a child to develop necessary socializing skills that will help him to be well developed. The following explains how a good childcare center helps a child to become socially skilled by;

• – Encouraging and teaching the children to share and take turns 
• – Encouraging them to communicate and interact properly
• – Teaching them how to solve problems and conflicts
• – Encouraging them to show compassion and cooperation towards one and other 
• – Teaching them how to follow and obey instructions
• – Teaching them how to follow schedules and routines. 

Motor Skills 

Every child must be able to execute motor skills for better growth and development. According to research, the inability of a child to practice motor skills can be a result of the brain, spinal cord, muscles, or joints. 

Motor skills refer to the ability to move muscles as a result of learning and practicing. They help a child to develop quality physical fitness. Majorly, they are of two types, which are gross motor skills and fine motor skills.

– The Fine Motor Skills:

In this instance, the smaller muscles are used to execute slighter tasks. For example, writing, blinking of the eyes, playing musical instruments like the piano. These tasks are usually done by making use of the hand, the finger, the feet and toes, and the wrists.  

– Gross Motor Skills:

They majorly occur during the early childhood stages of children. The larger muscles are used to execute bigger tasks. For instance, when a baby crawls and when he walks. Gross motor skills have two categories, which are object control skills and oculomotor skills. 

Object control skills:

This is the ability of a child to control objects by using part of his body, like his hand or his leg. The child practices the act of throwing, catching, and kicking objects. 

Oculomotor skills:

Oculomotor skills are very crucial to a child’s daily growth and development. It incorporates the way a child performs activities by making use of his eyes and hand. Such activities include reading, writing, jumping, swimming, and among others. There are several types of oculomotor skills and they include;

Receptive:

The ability of the child to receive objects by catching, dribbling, and among others. This particular skill demands more monitoring and coordination on the child by the providers because the child has to learn to position his body to receive objects. 

Propulsive:

The ability of the child to send objects by throwing, kicking, striking, and among others. This particular skill is much easier for a child because he will be in control of the object. 

Fixation:

This occurs when a child uses his eyes to stare and focus at an object steadily without moving it for a while.  

Saccades:

This occurs when a child uses his eyes to focus on one objects and another. For example, when the child is reading storybooks, the way he uses his eyes to read the sentences on each line must be well monitored. Thus, our childcare providers at Perfect Angels Learning Center ensures that the child doesn’t skip words while reading. 

Pursuit:

This occurs when a child stares at a moving object or target and is still able to focus as his eyes moves. It helps a child to get and comprehend valued information about his environment. For instance, when the child tracks a moving opponent or object in a playing field. 

Convergence and divergence:

This happens when a child can move his eyes inward and outward to concentrate on an object which moves to and fro. For instance, when the child plays football, or basketball, or sports that involves an object that goes far and near. 

At Perfect Angels Learning Center, our childcare providers help children’s practice their motor skills by;

• – Letting them get dressed by themselves: Like zipping up and fixing their clothes to fit their body properly. Nevertheless, they will still be monitored in case of any guidance. 
• – Letting them take their meals. For instance, trying to use the spoon by themselves to strengthen their muscles. 
• – Letting them to write and draw. For instance, helping them to write ABC or 123.
• – Encouraging them to tie their shoes. 
• – Letting them cut objects with scissors. The child can be told to cut out a shape that has been drawn on a piece of paper. 

Conclusion

By registering your child in a good childcare center, you are also preparing him for his formal school activities. Fundamentally, he will transit smoothly into kindergarten after acquiring necessary skills that are essential for his learning ability. 

Help your child acquire these skills by registering him at Perfect Angels Learning Center today.