Ready for Kindergarten?: Free Yourself from the Readiness Trap so that You and Your Child are Ready for and Will Succeed in Kindergarten

Somewhere along the way, someone or something has made you question whether or not your child is ready for kindergarten. And now your are wondering, ★★ "Is my child ready?" ★★

Or, even possibly, ★ ★"Am I ready to send her/him to kindergarten?" ★ ★And while you've sought out the advice of family members, friends, or even an educator or administrator, you've ended up with very different answers to what is actually a very simple question.

You're stuck in the Readiness Trap!

The trap is that first sense of doubt you have as a parent about whether or not your child is ready for kindergarten. Once that doubt enters your mind, you're caught. You find yourself constantly wondering whether or not your child is ready for school. What was once a question you never thought about, now consumes you. This consumption can overtake almost any decision you make about your child and can cause you to doubt yourself and your child.

If you are anxious about what to do about sending your child to kindergarten when s/he is eligible or are just a parent looking for ideas about how to process as well as manage the notion of making sure your child is ready for kindergarten, you have the right book. This book will help you avoid falling into the Readiness Trap so you can send your child off to kindergarten with confidence.

By reading this book, you will understand what school readiness truly means and the various ways it's defined. This will then help you recognize the ways in which policymakers, educators, and families understand the role that the family, teachers, school personnel, and larger society play in preparing children for school success. You will also find out why school readiness is such a big deal both socially and politically. You will learn what is known empirically about sending children to kindergarten and holding them back for a year, which is often referred to as academic redshirting.

This book will also help prepare you and your child to enter kindergarten successfully. It does so by outlining how kindergarten has changed in recent years, providing you with insight into how your child learns, and offering helpful suggestions on how you can support such learning. You will also be given a plan of action for preparing your child and yourself for entering elementary school, including how to address common issues that might arise during the first year of elementary school.

Throughout the book, you'll be provided with anecdotes about school readiness and the Readiness Trap. You will also be provided with a range of questionnaires that will assist you in understanding your worries about sending your child to kindergarten, where these worries came from, who your child is as a learner, what your child's academic and social strengths and growth areas are, and questions to consider to help you and your child prepare for the kindergarten year.

By the end, you will decide whether or not to send your child to kindergarten based on what I share with you in this book and how well YOU know your child. Once you decide to send your child to kindergarten, this book will give you the resources needed to do so with confidence.