With Grade R soon to become compulsory, this ruling will benefit many children as it will prepare them for the academic work and social aspects they will experience in primary school. So how can preschool benefit your child?
A preschool or nursery school can prepare children for Grade R or One, and lays a strong concrete foundation by teaching; patterning, sequences, basic counting and developing fine motor skills, like holding a pencil.
Dani Tannous, a primary school specialist, shares how education in the foundation phase provides fundamental preparation for primary school readiness.
“In school there is the academic aspect, such as phonics, blending letters, spelling, the mathematical concepts of addition and subtraction, skip counting, patterning and so on. If a child has never been exposed to the basics of those academic skills, their learning could be severely hindered. Hence the importance of either preparing your child adequately at home or sending them to preschool from an early age.
“In my opinion, a child should attend preschool as early as possible and not wait until Grade R. The benefits that a preschool adds to the foundation of the child’s education are immeasurable.” According to Dani, there is an extensive list of skills children need to have mastered before Grade One. These include:
Physical and Motor Development
- Gross motor
- Fine motor
- Perceptual
- Self care
Language Development
- Sequencing
- Communicate effectively
- Story comprehension
- Phonics, letter blending, sight words, letter and name recognition, basic writing skills
Cognitive Development
- Independent decision making
- Follows instructions correctly
- Interest in learning
- Problem solving
- Understands basic mathematical concepts
Emotional and Social Development
- Conflict resolution
- Expresses feelings appropriately
- Able to share
- Concentrate on a task for a considerable amount of time
- Works well in a group
Emotional maturity
- Going to the bathroom independently
- Showing responsibility
- Packing away and looking after their belongings
Exercises that you can do with your child at home to prepare them for ‘big school’
- Teach them how to write their name. Let them practice their name in different ways, for example, let your child write it in flour, let them write it in chalk on a pavement and on paper with crayons and with pencils.
- Make sure your child has the right pencil grip and can sit properly at a desk. Show them how to sit up straight.
- Teach them to count to 100. Put up a poster that shows numbers 1 until 100 so that he/she starts to recognise them.
- Read to them every day as this helps to grow vocabulary and also teaches cause and effect through the storylines.
- As much as it can get messy, allow your child to play with paint. Show them how to make a repetitive pattern on paper as this will help them with maths cognition in primary school.
- Teach them the good habit of picking up after themselves. This can be as simple as picking up their clothes from the floor, taking their plate to the sink after a meal and packing away their toys.
