Dear Parents

R1 Parent Information Evening

Last Friday evening R1 parents joined us in person and online for our R1 Parent Information evening.

Mr. Welch and I led a talk on the P1 Admissions process and what is taught in R2 to help alleviate anxiety in R1 parents as they prepare for their child to go through to R2.

One of the key aspects of the learning at Kindergarten (both R1 and R2) is developing language.

There are 2 main areas:

Social Language – when your child talks socially with friends or adults (including teachers). Your child decides the topic of conversation or joins conversations of others. Conversations with peers are important as children learn to listen, communicate and compromise based on what others the same age as themselves say. Conversations with adults are different as the adult can adapt their language and answers to what a child is saying or asking. The adult can also guide the direction of the conversation.  

Academic Language – this includes the classroom theme-based discussions in circle time, the ability to talk about what they are learning and demonstrating that they are picking up new vocabulary. Also included is Mathematical language such as words describing shapes, size, position (above, below, next too, behind etc.) and more and less. 

Both types of language are important for school and learning. If you speak more than one language at home, please ensure there is time for conversations about school theme or learning. Talk about everyday things with your child, describing things e.g. if you find an insect, you can describe it’s size, “Wow, that beetle is big, but it is not as big as the cockroach we saw. “ “I have found one more beetle, that’s a total of 3 we have found” These are simple conversations but have a high amount of mathematical language.

Reading stories is always important. Understanding what happens at the beginning, middle and end of the story helps your child’s comprehension which is an important skill needed when they later learn to read or write their own stories (In Elementary). Reading is not just word recognition but about understanding the meaning, maybe talking about what characters in the story are feeling and predicting what happens next.

The other part of our focus is helping your child develop their Executive Function skills. Young children (both R1s and R2s) can develop Executive Function Skills with guidance from adults.

Inhibitory control – is your child able to complete a task and not get distracted or behave inappropriately e.g. being silly.

Emotional Control - can your child regulate their emotions. Allowing your child to get upset and then helping them learn to calm down, helps your child learn to regulate their emotions. Naming the emotions is useful too, tantrums are often caused because a young child does not have the words to express how they feel. Crying is easier.

Working Memory – can your child remember the instructions you or their teacher just told them. For R1s, start with a one-step instruction, for R2s they should be able to process 2 to 3 step instructions by the end of R2. But start where your child it at – set an expectation that they follow your instruction (one-step first, then increase the complexity of the instruction if they can easily do one-step).  Children should also be able to held information in their mind, so ask you child to remember something for you.

Cognitive Flexibility – children should be able to shift flexibly from one situation, activity, or aspect of a problem to another. So sometimes change the routine to get them, used to something different, allow them to lose a game because we cannot win every time!

Other Executive Function skills are starting to develop slightly later, so we encourage these to develop but don’t expect the children to as good at planning or organizing things. These will further develop as they are in R2 or move up to Elementary School.

Planning and Organization – allow your child to think about what to take on an outing, so they can plan. If they ask to do something e.g. go to the playground. Ask “So what do we need to do?” “What do we need to take?” Let you child plan, prompting and adjusting their suggestions.