Dear Parents

Today your child’s End of Year Progress Report was emailed to you. Please read through it carefully and see how your child is progressing against the expectations for the end of the school year.

In Kindergarten, the Progress Report lists the expectations for each of the following development areas – Social and Emotional, Language, Mathematics, Bible, Motor Skills and Chinese Language.

You will see there are sub-categories and expectations for each area. These are based on the Connecticut Early Learning and Development Standards used by ICS Kindergarten. The children are expected to have met these criteria for each one of the development areas by the end of the school year. The Progress Report will show your child’s development as observed by your child’s teacher in school:

ME - Meeting developmental expectations

AE  - Approaching developmental expectations

NE - Not exhibiting developmental expectations

However, each child develops at a different rate across the developmental areas. There will be differences for children born in September or October against children born later in the school year. To attain the “Meeting Expectations” or “ME” a child should be consistently meeting those expectations in school. If your child has any “AE” or “Approaching developmental expectations”, please consider what your teacher has written in the comment or talked to you during Parent Teacher Conferences. For the children who are older, we would expect all expectations to be met. For the younger children it is important to look at where they are still “Approaching Expectations” and the number of areas where your child is not yet meeting the expectations for their grade level. Please help your child over the summer to be ready for the next grade.

If your child is not focusing well at school or at home - practice doing activities at home where they need to concentrate for a short and increasingly longer periods of time.

If they do not listen to instructions - please set an expectation that they follow the instructions for every adult (include Grandparents and domestic helpers in this as well as parents).

Maintain your child’s language skills even though they may receive "ME" and especially for “AE”, please ensure you speak English at home. Usually Receptive Language (understanding and listening) will develop before Expressive (speaking and using grammar correctly). 

Children’s mother tongue is important, however for children to learn in English at school, they need to hear and speak English outside of school to ensure sufficient fluency.  Please allow your child to continue to hear and speak English during the Summer holidays, otherwise your child may not be ready to restart school in August. Children have a huge ability to absorb language and have more than one first language. 

Practicing speaking English with brothers or sisters, or friends when playing together can help to boost your child’s confidence in speaking in English, but conversations with adults are also needed to boost vocabulary and grammar as adults can guide a conversation, ask relevant questions and explain to boost understanding. Keep reading to your child, borrow books from the library and read together, try talking about the books together after reading.

If your child’s counting skills or number recognition skills are not at the level expected - count items at home or when you go out together, recognize numbers (or letters for R2s) when you go out.

If your child’s body strength or coordination is weak – physical activities during the summer will help to strengthen core body muscles, stop using a stroller and allow your child to walk. As with any exercise, the more you exercise, the stronger your muscles become.

If Fine Motor skills are weak – develop shoulder, then arm/elbow then wrist/finger strength so that your child’s arm strength is good. Just grasping a pencil without the remainder of the arm being strong may strain your child’s hands. Weaker hand muscles can lead to a dislike of drawing or writing.  Playing with toys that your child needs to grasp (pulling apart lego, squeezing play dough, grasping things) will help develop hand strength.