Soon it will be time to congratulate the Class of 2017, the older teenagers who will be completing their high school careers and preparing for college, technical training, work careers, travel and entry into adulthood.
But before we all assemble at the cap and gown ceremonies, listen to speeches and launch the balloons let’s first examine the very beginnings of these school careers — preschool and kindergarten.
All good student careers start with a good beginning, making the earliest years of formal education the most important. And a recent survey of Sonoma County’s kindergartners includes several findings that should concern parents and educators and should elicit action by education leaders and their community partners.
Only 40 percent of the surveyed kindergartners were deemed ready for school and only 25 percent of Spanish-speaking students qualified. First 5 of Sonoma County and the county’s Human Services Department, involving 11 school districts and 2,052 students, conducted the survey.
Household incomes, levels of formal education by parents and the amount of shared reading at home were cited as key readiness differences.
The survey recorded disappointing improvements over previous years, according to a First 5 member.
Getting young children ready for school is defined by a set of very basic academic, social-emotional and self-regulation skills. Success requires not just ready children, but ready families and ready schools.
Readiness criteria tested in the survey included enthusiasm to learn, maintaining attention to specific tasks, cooperative play, verbal skills, impulse control and recognizing one’s own printed name.
We all have a stake in the outcomes of ready-to-go preschoolers and kindergartners. The cognitive and social skills that make for a successful early school career are the same skills that lead to high school graduation — and much farther beyond.
It is well documented that a community’s investment in young lives saves later costs for criminal justice, substance abuse, broken families and mental health needs.
“We must continue to increase and promote access to high quality early learning opportunities, particularly for lower income and Spanish language families,” First 5 Sonoma Executive Director Angie Dillon-Shore said.
Parents and families are the most important partners in this readiness agenda. Babies and children do not come with instructions or operating manuals. And no matter what language is spoken, nurturing children, providing a safe and stimulating environment and valuing language and the printed word are the basic building blocks for school readiness.
There is something that should not be overlooked among all this study’s statistics, findings and key recommendations. And that is the original miracle of learning that can’t be taught by parents, preschool programs, in kindergarten or later.
Human babies come into this world under their own power. Kept safe and well fed, infants teach themselves to crawl, stand and walk. Provided a colorful, interactive and orderly environment, young children will mimic, watch, listen and teach themselves how to talk. The miracle continues as these future high school graduates decipher the alphabet and other symbols and become readers.
We believe the best role for parents and educators to play is one of support and not authoritarian. This current survey suggests our most important roles of support should address affordability and access to quality preschool experiences, as Dillon-Shore emphasized. Any suggestion that we need our preschoolers to cram for ready-to-go tests is absolutely wrong.
Our Spanish-speaking families need more literacy and English proficiency resources. Also, preschool programs must be offered on schedules that better suit working parents who have inflexible or longer work hours.
Now we can return our attention to this June’s high school graduations where all the adults will still be asking the same question we just asked about the kindergartners. Are they ready to go?
