Kindergarten
Summer Reading Approach for Kindergarten Students
It is hard to believe that this school year is coming to an end. As we move toward the summer, we want to take a moment to look ahead and welcome you to the Lower School. During the summer months, we encourage students to engage in reading every day. Children should spend time with books—being read to, reading aloud, reading to themselves, or a combination of the three—for at least 15 to 30 minutes daily. As Marilyn Jager Adams reminds us in Beginning To Read: Thinking and Learning about Print: “Yet the most important activity for building the knowledge and skills eventually required for reading is that of reading aloud to children.” Thus, we encourage you to make reading a vital and joyful part of your daily routine with your children all summer long and throughout the school year!
Nursery School to Kindergarten Transition
We want to make the transition from Nursery School to Kindergarten as smooth as possible for everyone. In August, you will receive a mailing containing, among other pieces of information, the school calendar and your child’s class list. Your child’s teachers will write a personal note to each Kindergartner and will greet you and your Kindergartner at our Kindergarten and New Student Open House scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, August 31.
During the first week of school, when Kindergarten children attend half-days only, you will have an opportunity to meet one-on-one with your child’s teachers to tell them about your child. We have found these early-in-the-year conferences to be very beneficial.
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If some of the books on our list are already familiar to your child, choose others by the same author or, as author of The Read-Aloud Handbook Jim Trelease suggests, re-read them! Re-reading familiar books has many important outcomes, including learning language, building knowledge of story structure, improving vocabulary, developing sequencing and memory skills, and heightening comprehension. Don’t forget songs, poems, rhyming games, and nursery rhymes. These spark your child’s awareness of language and sounds and can be enjoyed time and again.