School Readiness and How to Do It

What's In This Kit?
This training kit helps early childhood professionals understand the importance of school readiness and its impact on programs for young children. In addition to becoming familiar with aspects and components of children’s readiness, suggestions for making use of readiness goals to provide guidance are given. Practical and easy-to-implement ideas help adults ensure that children experience activities to develop readiness skills. This training program contains the following components:

• Expected training outcomes and learning objectives
• Training research, models, benchmarks
• Preparation and implementation steps
• Handouts
• The article “School Readiness and How to Do It” by Sidney W. Gilford
• References and resources
• Training Certificate for Learner �" Certificate of Attendance and Participation

Who's the Target Audience?
The target audiences for this training kit are beginning, intermediate, and advanced Learners who are working with young children (2 through 5 years).

Teacher Skill Level

beginning intermediate advanced

Children's Age Level

infants toddlers preschoolers school-agers birth to 8

Kit Timeline:
This training activity is designed for independent reading and reflection (30 minutes) followed in about 2 weeks with group instruction (120 minutes) and action plan applied activity (60 minutes); then about 1 week later a second group session (30 minutes) and a third session (30 minutes) for a total of 4.5 hours. Preparation time for this kit is estimated at 2.0 hours. Implementation and actual training time is 4.5 hours, which includes 3.0 hours of face-to-face training and 1.5 hours of independent study and an applied activity. Note that the first group session material can be presented in 2 one-hour sessions. An optional bonus activity of independent study and face-to-face training can add as much as 30 minutes to the training time.

Training Outcomes:

• describe the history of concerns about readiness.
• identify how teachers can make use of readiness concepts to inform their work.
• explain why goals are important in ensuring quality in children’s experiences.
• provide examples of activities and the readiness goals they address.

• National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) Early Childhood Program Standards and Accreditation Criteria & Guidance for Assessment (2014). More information on NAEYC’s standards can be found at www.naeyc.org.
• 2.A. �" Curriculum: Essential Characteristics
• 2.A.01 The program has a written statement of philosophy and uses 1 or more written curricula or curriculum frameworks consistent with its philosophy that address central aspects of child development.
• 2.A.02 A clearly stated curriculum or curriculum framework provides a coherent focus for planning children’s experiences. It allows for adaptations and modifications to ensure access to the curriculum for all children.
• 2.A.03 The curriculum guides teachers’ development and intentional implementation of learning opportunities consistent with the program’s goals and objectives.
• 2.A.05 Curriculum goals and objectives guide teachers’ ongoing assessment of children’s progress.
• 2.A.06 The curriculum guides teachers to integrate assessment information with curriculum goals to support individualized learning.




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