School Readiness

Getting ready to read at big school: a free guide for families with preschoolers

David Kinnane · 5 November 2020 ·

Too many preschoolers start school without the speech and pre-reading skills needed to thrive in Kindergarten. But which skills matter the most?

In this free guide, we seek to answer this question by summarising the evidence in Plain English.

We cover:

typical speech development, consonant acquisition milestones, and error patterns;
the links between unclear speech and later reading difficulties;
foundational pre-reading skills (like phonological awareness and print awareness);
how to teach the alphabet to your child;
how to teach children to read;
the benefits of shared reading and audiobooks; and
school readiness communication skills.

This family guide focuses on helping preschoolers to get ready to read at big school.

Well-developed language skills – listening and talking skills – are also vital for school readiness. You can read more about how to help your preschooler’s oral language development in our free developmental language guide for families. It contains lots of practical strategies and tips about the importance of play, language stimulation techniques.

We hope you find these resources helpful.

Download it below.

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Our talented team of certified practising speech pathologists provide unhurried, personalised and evidence-based speech pathology care to children and adults in the Inner West of Sydney and beyond, both in our clinic and via telehealth.

Welcome to the School Readiness Language Workshop

David Kinnane · 18 August 2019 ·

Hi, and welcome to the School Readiness Language Workshop.

Enrol in the School Readiness Language Workshop

I’m so glad you decided to join me.

If you’re looking to help your child get ready for school – if you think your preschooler might benefit from improving their listening and expressive language skills – you’re in the right place.

I’m David Kinnane, known by many as @speechbloke. I’m a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist based in Sydney, Australia; the founder of Banter Speech & Language, an independent speech pathology clinic; and the father of two boys.

Why school readiness matters

A child’s school readiness is:

predictive of academic outcomes (e.g. Snow, 2006); and
a strong indicator of ongoing and future success (e.g. Prior et al., 1993).

Cognitive and language abilities are more predictive of school readiness than social skills, behavioural problems, or even being read to at home. One of the most influential factors to predict school readiness is the child’s oral language competencies (listening and talking) (Prior et al., 2011).

Who are most at risk?

Some children are at a heightened risk of not being ready for school, including:

boys;
children with poor English skills (in English-speaking schools);
children with behavioural and emotional problems; and
children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

What does the course involve?

This practical course contains 20 modules – two a month, with more than 90 of our most frequently sought after therapy resources – arranged in a developmental sequence. Tried and tested in our busy speech pathology clinic, and used by speech pathologists and teachers from all around the world, these resources form a self-paced structured program suitable for parents to work through with their preschoolers – especially for those who need a bit of extra support.

This course is designed primarily for preschoolers aged 36 months or older who are already speaking in 3-5 (or more) word phrases. If your preschooler is not talking at all, or using only single words or occasional 2-word phrases, we recommend first consulting with a local certified practising speech pathologist who can help using early language stimulation and child-led strategies. You can read more about this type of therapy here.

My job here is to help you to support your child’s language development before school starts.

This course is designed to give you the tools you need to support your child’s language skills. At your pace, and from the comfort of your own home or workplace.

Please have a look around this website for lots of free, evidence-based tips on language communication, including information on school readiness and the importance of oral language skills.

Now, if you need support or want to share your success story, please reach out to us.

Again, welcome to The School Readiness Language Workshop. Where we support you to help your child get ready for listening and talking at ‘big school’.

Enrol in the School Readiness Language Workshop

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Is your child ready for school? What Kindergarten teachers say

David Kinnane · 5 October 2015 · Leave a Comment

Around this time of the year, many parents of 4-5 year olds are pulling their (sometimes scant) hair out trying to decide whether their children should start school next year. Experts of all stripes claim to be able to tell whether a child is ready. But here’s an idea: why not ask those actually dealing with young kids in their first year at school? In other words:

the Kindergarten teachers!

Tanya Serry and her colleagues did just that. They sent surveys to 250 Kindergarten* teachers in Melbourne, Australia, asking them to identify factors contributing to a successful transition to school.

153 teachers responded. So what did they say?

A. Brain and self-care readiness

Kindergarten teachers wanted children on day one of school to:

be toilet trained;
be able to dress themselves (except tying shoelaces);
care for personal belongings;
eat snacks and lunch independently;
pay attention and concentrate (though there was no consensus on for how long);
count from 1 to 10;
know the alphabet;
know their names and how to write their names; and
share and take turns.

B. Social readiness

No real surprises here. Kindergarten teachers surveyed wanted children to:

be able to share and take turns with other kids;
play with others;
engage with both children and adults;
be able to separate from Mum and Dad confidently; and
have some resilience.

C. Speech and language readiness

Kindergarten teachers preferred children to be able to:

communicate in words;
speak clearly;
express their needs; and
listen to and follow instructions.

D. Physical readiness

Kindergarten teachers were most concerned about fine motor skills, particularly being able to use scissors and a pencil.

E. Learning readiness

Kindergarten teachers wanted children to be capable of:

engaging in learning;
persistence;
work;
having a go; and
making choices.

F. Age readiness?

Interestingly, a majority of the kindergarten teachers who responded to the survey suggested that children need to be older than 5 years to start school.

G. Other things that help

Many teachers thought that previous pre-school experiences, formal orientation programs, good school staff and positive parent attitudes also contributed to a successful first year.

Clinical bottom line

The study had some limitations – for example, only 61.2% of Kindergarten teachers who received the survey responded. But the key themes are broadly consistent with previous research and make sense.

Starting “big school” is a big deal and parents are right to feel some trepidation about making the call. We’ve known for decades that a child’s first year at school can affect their later school success (e.g. Luster & McAdoo, 1996).

“School readiness” includes anything that affects a child’s readiness to learn. It isn’t just one set of skills. The Kindergarten teachers who filled in this survey thought kids are more likely to succeed in their first year if they have sufficient emotional, self-care, social, language and motor skills, and maturity, and can fit into school routines.

Principal source: Serry, T., Imms, C., Froude, E., Joffe, B., Heine, C., Merrigan, C. (2014). Preparatory teachers’ perceptions of school readiness: a survey of Victorian teachers. The Australian Educational Researcher. 41: 109-124.

* Explanatory note: In Victoria, the first year of primary school is called “Prep”. In New South Wales, we call this first year “Kindergarten”. Confusingly, Victoria refers to what we in New South Wales call “Pre-school” as “Kindergarten”. As a Victorian by birth, managing a clinic based in New South Wales, I have taken it upon myself to “translate” the Victorian references into terms my Sydney clients and their families will understand. For international and interstate readers, I lament our Nation’s inability to use the same terms to mean the same things and apologise on its behalf.

Related articles:

Image: http://bit.ly/1OeiExp

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Is your child ready for school? Focusing on what matters most

David Kinnane · 5 January 2015 · Leave a Comment

School readiness is a controversial concept. In Australia, Commonwealth and State governments expect children to be ready for school at around 5 years of age – regardless of their developmental history or family background.

What is school readiness?

Most research has focused on two categories of abilities educators expect kids to possess when they start school:

Intellectual and language abilities, e.g. concentration, attention, understanding spoken language and talking, and pre-literacy skills like a knowledge of sounds and letters (later-developing phonological awareness skills); and
Social skills, e.g. abilities to interact effectively with peers and teachers, to behave in class, and to persist in tasks.

Other studies have looked at factors like gender, poverty, family dynamics and parent education levels, which we know can affect a child’s school readiness (e.g. Thomas, 2006).

Why does school readiness matter?

Two main reasons:

Children’s capacities at school entry are predictive of academic outcomes (e.g. Snow, 2006).
Early success at school is a strong indicator of ongoing and future success (e.g. Prior et al, 1993).

Children most at risk of not being ready for school

Boys: studies show boys tend to mature later, and are often behind girls in the first few years, although they generally catch up later.
Children from socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
Children with a language impairment.
Children with below average cognitive abilities.
Children with behavioural and emotional problems.

Of course, many children fit into more than one of these categories. Children with a language impairment are at a significant risk of not being ready for school. This is because language skills support a child’s readiness to learn.

So what are the most important predictors of school readiness?

In a recent large study (cited below), Margot Prior and colleagues found that the most influential variables to predict school readiness were:

child language competencies (listening and talking); and
pre-literacy capacities, specifically letter knowledge and phoneme awareness (knowledge of sounds).

Interestingly, these cognitive and language abilities were much more predictive of school readiness than social skills, behavioural problems, or even being read to at home. Many school readiness programs and checklists focus on social skills and teaching parents to read to their kids at home.

This study suggests that some of these programs and checklists should be rethought since “early acquisition of letter and sound knowledge, plus language enrichment experiences appear much more likely to make a difference in successful transition to school…although reading to children may add to the language knowledge”.

Bottom line

Improving a child’s language skills before school can have lasting positive effects into pre-school and beyond – especially for children at risk. Parents and pre-school teachers (with help from speech pathologists and other health professionals) should target language teaching and pre-literacy skills like sound and letter knowledge. Systemic instruction in language and literacy skills for pre-schoolers can enhance their success in the first years of school.

Principal source: Prior, M., Bavin, E., & Ong., B. (2011). Predictors of school readiness in five- to -six-year-old children from an Australian longitudinal community sample. Education Psychology, 31(1), 3-16.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/o4nesx9

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language

Beyond school readiness: 7 signs that your kindergarten, year 1 or year 2 child may have a language delay

David Kinnane · 29 March 2014 · Leave a Comment

There are some fantastic school readiness checklists and speech-language programs out there to help you help your child develop the language skills necessary for his or her first day at big school. But what signs of language delay should you look out for after your child has started school?

Of course – disclaimer alert! – children don’t develop in exactly the same way according to a pre-programmed formula (if only!). But here are 7 fairly straightforward things you can listen out for that signal there might be an issue worth looking into:

Your child doesn’t use correct plurals for common nouns. He/she says dog for dogs, bus for buses, mans for men, childs for children, and sheeps for sheep. Don’t worry about fish/es – a controversial topic at the best of times!

Your child doesn’t have a good handle on the past tense of common irregular verbs, e.g. if he/she says words like “goed” and “holded” and “broked” and “flied” and “falled”. Although this is a common stage of language development called “overgeneralisation” – the subject of a separate article here – most children have “went”, “held” and “broke”, and “flew” and “fell” down by school.

Your child can’t rhyme words, count syllables, identify words that begin with the same sound or link sounds to letters of the alphabet. This may indicate a problem with phonological awareness, which is strongly related to later reading development.

Your child can’t give or follow two-step instructions, e.g. “Put on your shoes after you pack your lunchbox”. This may indicate your child is not processing sentences with complex syntax or applying rules of thumb, like watching what others do or doing things in the order they are said. Of course, it may also indicate your child is ignoring you and testing your patience/limits (something that happens to me with increasing frequency!).

Your child can’t sort common words by opposites or category. For example, knowing black/white, big/small, up/down, over/under, heavy/light are related words; or that chickens, horses, cows, goats, sheep and ducks are all farm animals, while cars, motorbikes, jets, boats and trains are all forms of transport.

Your child can’t sit and listen quietly to others. There are a number of possible explanations for this, including possible attention issues or simply – dare I say it? – old-fashioned naughtiness. But it may also signal that your child has problems understanding what others are saying, causing frustration to both listener and speaker.

Your child can’t re-tell a simple story coherently. As your child goes up the grades at school, he/she will be required to work with what some academic folk call “text types of the narrative genre”, and what almost everyone else calls “stories”. This one is easy to check – simply read your child an age-appropriate bedtime story, then ask him/her to tell it back to you. Does the story make sense? Did your child cover the start, middle, high point and end? Did your child identify the main and supporting characters? Did he/she speak in full, grammatically correct sentences with lots of description and appropriate emotion in his/her voice?

If you spot one or more of these potential issues – DON’T PANIC! It doesn’t necessarily mean your child has a language delay. If there is an issue, there’s a good chance your child’s teacher has spotted it and is working on it with specialist teachers at the school. But if you are worried – particularly if your child ticks more than 3 boxes above, or you have a family history of language problems – don’t hesitate to contact a qualified speech-language pathologist who can assess each of the above language skills (and more) with a comprehensive diagnostic assessment.

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Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishlibrary/11130516894/

Hi there, I’m David Kinnane.

Principal Speech Pathologist, Banter Speech & Language