School Readiness - Winter Progress Report

Kendall and I had our parent/teacher conference last evening with Jake’s teacher Ms. Melissa. It’s always great to hear how well he’s improving. Melissa went over Jake’s progress now verses his progress in the beginning of the year.

Below are the 3 areas of development they base Jake's progress on. I've also listed a few examples of each area of development they have noticed with Jacob this winter.

1. Social/Emotional

• Sense of Self - He says goodbye and joins activities, accepts changes in schedules and changes, is comfortable with a variety of school staff, verbalizes feelings, explains and manages feelings, he asserts self with or without adult support.

• Demonstrates Responsibility for Self and Others - Independently chooses one activity out of many, completes multiple tasks without adult assistance, uses self-help skills independently, uses and cares for classroom materials, follows classroom procedures with prompting and follows classroom rules with reminders.

• Demonstrates Prosocial Behavior - Successfully enters a group and plays cooperatively, recognizes the needs/feelings of others, helps others when in need, shares independently and encourages others to share, accepts & negotiates compromise and usually plays on his own but isn’t afraid to join a group of friends to play. He doesn’t seek out anyone in particular.

• Demonstrates Learning and Problem Solving - Makes repeated attempts to accomplish a task, creates solutions to problems, stays involved in simple activities to completion, continues to work on difficult tasks, applies own experiences to classroom activities, shows interest in discovering and learning new things, and works for 10 min. without being easily distracted with and without assistance.

2. Language Development and Early Literacy

• Classroom Language Skills - Follows two or three step sequences of actions. Asks and answers questions and appropriately expresses self and participates in extended conversations.

• Name Recognition - Recognizes first name in written form, identifies letters in name by read and points.

• Reading and Writing - Actively participates in story time and chooses to read on own, uses emerging reading skills and comprehends stories, and writes symbols, letters or words & understands the purpose of writing.

• Early Literacy Recommendations - Read at least 15 min. per day. We read EVERY night before bed. It’s part of our ritual.

3. Cognitive Development

• Numbers – Counted from 1 to 39. Counted objects to 10. Reads and points to the numerals 0 -10. Counted backwards from 10 to 0

• Colors – Names all 10 basic colors and can point them all out.

• Shapes – Names all basic shapes and can point them all out.

• Fine Motor Skills - Still uses both hands, uses the quadriod pencil grip and is getting the hang of the scissor. With the scissors, he can cut a straight line, curvy line and hasn’t quite mastered the zig zag line. Something to continue to work on!

So happy to receive such a wonderful report! He's learning and most of all loves going to school. We decided that one more year of preschool would be beneficial to Jake’s future. He is one of the youngest in his class and by this time next year, he will be totally ready for Kindergarten. We are so proud of our boy!!