Kindergarten Testing Success

Children entering Kindergarten need social and emotional skills to succeed in addition to learning their ABCs, colors, and numbers. Read more about the social and emotional skills needed for school success.
 
Children need similar skills to be successful on the Kindergarten entrance exams, or the ERBs as they are often called. These exams test common cognitive and academic skills that are thought to be prerequisite skills for succeeding in school such as a child’s knowledge of certain vocabulary, their ability to explain themselves and their reasoning with words, their ability to think abstractly, their visual-spatial skills, their memory skills, and their processing speed skills. These exams also assess their early math, reading, and writing skills.
 
However, for your child to be successful on these exams, they also need the same social and emotional skills that they need to succeed in Kindergarten. For example, if your child cannot sit still for the more than a few minutes at a time, if they cannot wait for instructions to begin a task or have difficulty understanding or remembering instructions, or if they become easily frustrated and give up or become angry and upset, they might have difficulty on the exam. The academic skills directly assessed on these exams are easy to remember, but these other skills that are necessary for success both on the exams and in school are often overlooked by parents and professionals alike.
 
Most parents know about good preschool programs or private tutors to help their child with the necessary academic skills. But many parents do not know about the tools available to help their child with these skills of listening, memory, sitting still, or social skills. You can talk with a professional who is knowledgeable about child development and experienced in working with children of several different developmental stages to learn more about the skills needed, where your child should be, and where they might be. There are several resources available, depending on your child’s needs, including one-on-one social skills training, group social skills training, and cognitive training to address the skills of patience, persistence, listening, and sitting still. Read more about social skills and cognitive training resources available.