*Updated January 2022*
Preparing your child for kindergarten can be a stressful experience. With new learning standards, children are expected to enter kindergarten with a higher skill set than previous years. You may be asking yourself, “Is my child ready for kindergarten?”
This is a valid question and a kindergarten checklist such as the one provided below, is a sure-fire way to assess your child’s readiness for this big educational step. Our kindergarten ready checklist covers five main areas of child development and learning skills. All skills on the checklist meet common core standards, and these skills are a good starting point for early educational growth.
Set your child up for success and start practicing some basic kindergarten prep skills that will give your child a strong foundation.
Here is a list of skills your child should practice before entering school in the fall. Print the kindergarten checklist.
Listening/Speaking
- Listen to stories without interrupting
- Recognize rhyming sounds
- Pay attention for short periods of time to adult-directed tasks
- Follow 2-step directions
- Speak in complete sentences
- Make comparisons between objects such as big/little
Social/Emotional
- Understand actions have both causes and effects
- Start to follow rules and share
- Separate from parents without being upset
- Speak understandably
- Manage bathroom needs independently
Motor Skills
- Cut with scissors
- Hold pencil correctly
- Trace basic shapes
- Hop, jump, run, bounce a ball
Math
- Count to ten
- Identify numbers 1–5
- Correspondence counting (one-to-one counting)
- Sort similar objects by color, size, and shape
- Identify basic shapes and colors
- Understand more than and less than
Phonological Awareness and Print Knowledge
- Recite the alphabet and identify most of the letters
- Identify rhyming words
- Identify the beginning sound of some words
- Write name
- Retell a story
More Kindergarten Resources
Did you find our kindergarten readiness skills checklist helpful?
Visit Evan-Moor’s kindergarten site for recommended activity books and flashcards. These activity books are ideal for preschool, transitional kindergarten, and kindergarten.
For skill practice in subject-specific books, check out:
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The Smart Start series for early learners includes Read and Write, Phonics and Spelling, Sight Words, Math, STEM, and Beginning Coding activity books
- Social Skills Activities for Today’s Kids helps children learn important rules about friendship and school. The meaningful activities give children a safe space to think about how to handle social situations and provide guidance and suggestions for them to consider.
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Homeschool curriculum bundles for PreK and Kindergarten include 11 colorful activity books and flashcards plus a downloadable Teaching Guide for parents.
How-to Videos
For additional tips on getting your child ready for kindergarten, download the self-care and social skills checklist in “Life Skills Kids Should Know Before Kindergarten.”
Heather Foudy is a certified elementary teacher with over 7 years’ experience as an educator and volunteer in the classroom. She enjoys creating lessons that are meaningful and creative for students. She is currently working for Evan-Moor’s marketing and communications team and enjoys building learning opportunities that are both meaningful and creative for students and teachers alike.