🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🤝 Social Competence — The ability to join a group, initiate friendship, negotiate conflicts, and cooperate toward a shared goal are the social skills that determine whether kindergarten is a joyful or miserable experience.
- ✏️ Fine Motor & Writing Readiness — The fine motor skills developed through drawing, cutting, and manipulating small objects directly build the hand strength and pencil control that kindergarten writing demands.
- 🔢 Early Mathematical Thinking — Hands-on counting, sorting, pattern work, and early number sense build the mathematical foundation that kindergarten math curriculum builds on and that research consistently links to long-term math achievement.
- 💬 Language & Communication — A child who can express needs clearly, tell a sequential story, ask for help appropriately, and answer questions in complete sentences has the language toolkit that classroom participation requires.
More schools are offering full-day kindergarten. For generations, kindergarten has been a half-day program set up for transition into more rigorous academic years to come. Today a majority of children spend a significant portion of the day away from home and parents. Most parents welcome the introduction of full-day programs to local schools. Full-day kindergarten provides benefits to students, parents and teachers.
A great article summarizes the research available about full-day kindergarten. The article, Full-Day Kindergarten: Exploring an Option for Extended Learning has much to say about the benefits of full-day kindergarten.
Benefits of Full-Day Kindergarten for Kindergarten Student
Students benefit in many ways from spending more hours in the kindergarten classroom. Children in full-day kindergarten classrooms are able to have a more flexible and individualized learning environment. These kindergarteners have more opportunity to hear, learn and use language. They spend more time in small groups verses large groups. Students in the full-day environment spend more time one on one with the teacher than a student in a half-day classroom.
Benefits of Full-Day Kindergarten for Parents
Parents of kindergarten students are often enthusiastic about full-day kindergarten because of the benefits they receive. Working parents pay less child care expenses. Scheduling transportation to and from school or child care will require less planning if older school aged children are on the same schedule as their younger siblings. The added time kindergarten students spend in the classroom provides parents additional opportunities to become involved in a child's classroom. Benefits associated with attending full-day kindergarten allows parents to provide a better quality of education than parents might otherwise be able to afford.
Benefits of Full-Day Kindergarten for Teachers
Even kindergarten teachers benefit from full-day programs. Adding time to the school day allows teachers fewer transitions, which gives them more time to teach. Extra one on one time during the day allows teachers to get to know their students better. Additional time and more knowledge of each student will result in more complete assessments of each student by the teacher.
Each parent must decide which type of kindergarten program is best for their child. If full-day kindergarten is available, be sure to consider the added benefits your kindergartener will receive. In many situations, full-day kindergarten is a winning situation for all involved.
