3 Year old Preschool Readiness Checklist
Emotional Development
- Recognizes other people’s emotions
- Takes turns and is able to share toys
Attention & Independence
- Listens to simple instructions
- Sits still during story time
- Can separate himself from you for a few hours
- Enjoys doing things herself sometimes, such as getting dressed on her own
Language, Art, and Math
- Recognizes some shapes and colors
- Recites the alphabet and recognize some letters
- Expresses thoughts and needs verbally
- Recites his full name
- Counts to five
- Draws with crayons or pencil
4 Year old Preschool Readiness checklist
Social skills
- Initiates and maintains independent play (for example, plays alone in the sandbox, or role-plays independently)
- Enjoys doing things on their own sometimes, such as reading, crafts or getting dressed
- Can separate from you for several hours, such as an afternoon at a friend’s house or a sleepover at Grandma’s
- Appears interested in going to a “big-kid” school, learning new things, and/or meeting new friends
- Enjoys participating in group activities
- Can express emotions, needs and requests
- Responds well to consistent routines, such as quiet time or naptime following lunch
- Anticipates what comes next during the day (for example, knows that naptime follows lunch)
Motor skills
- Increases proficiency in gross motor skills, strength and balance, such as jumping in place, standing on one foot, running and kicking
- Develops gross motor coordination, such as to navigate around obstacles
- Rides tricycles
- Runs to kick a stationary ball
- Improves hand-eye coordination when playing with building blocks and simple puzzles
- Begins to improve pencil control by using fingers rather than the whole fist to grasp pencil and stylus
- Begins to show left/right-handedness
Reasoning & concept development
- Matches like objects, mainly identical objects, or matches objects by shape and color
- Develops object permanence and understands that objects continue to exist even when out of sight
- Shows interests in tinkering with objects by taking things apart and putting them back together
- Explores with elements of nature, such as sand and water
- Remembers short sequences of events of 2 to 3 steps
Language skills
- Uses language to communicate with others for a variety of purposes (for example, describing something, making requests, greeting someone, etc.)
- Speaks clearly to be understood by others
- Uses accepted language and communication styles (for example, using polite manners, using appropriate volume and tone)
- Tells simple stories
- Uses accepted nouns, verbs and adjectives in familiar contexts
- Understands words for common categories (for example, toys, food, clothes)
- Uses sentences with two phrases or concepts
Reading
- Holds a book properly and turns pages
- Understands that words convey the message in a story
- Recognizes the first letter of their own name
- Knows some letter names
- Knows the main characters in familiar stories
- Enjoys reading books with others
Writing
- Holds a writing tool with a fist or finger grasp
- Draws with a variety of tools (crayons, pens, pencils)
- Scribble-writes in a linear fashion
- Makes marks and refer to them as “my name”
Math
- Identifies some shapes such as circle, square and triangle
- Understands and explores empty containers and full containers
- Recognizes and matches small quantities to the number words 1, 2 and 3
- Shows interest in numbers and recites some number words
- Can count along with help, although might make mistakes
- Distinguishes between "some" and "all," and parts of a whole
- Uses some size words, such as "many"
- Uses words such as "same as" to make comparisons
- Shows interests in patterns and sequences
- Classifies or sorts objects into simple groups (such as by colors and size)
- Understands the order of the day, and begins to use some time words such as "morning" and "night"
Science
- Asks questions about objects, events and animals observed in their environment
- Considers and offers explanations of how things might work
- Shows interest in different animals and the sounds they make
- Uses descriptive terms such as "fast" and "slow," "hot" and "cold"
Creative arts & music
- Begins to use a variety of art tools such as crayon, construction paper and colored pencils
- Knows a few color words
- Drawings have basic resemblance to objects and people
- Articulates what he/she is drawing
- Likes to imitate sounds and rhythm; might have a favorite song
- Uses realistic toys in pretend play or to imitate household routines
- Engages in dramatic play with others to act out simple play scripts, such as playing house
Social studies
- Recognizes common features of the home and neighborhood, such as trees, houses and streets
- Shows interests in familiar people such as siblings, family members and friends
- Shows interests in common jobs and professions such as firefighter, doctor and nurse