How can I help my child be ready for school?

Is your child ready for school? They may be the right age to start, but if their brain and body are not well integrated they will have difficulty learning, concentrating and sitting still.

Playing with a purpose

Many parents are concerned if their child is ready for school. As parents we often make the mistake of thinking we need to get our kids reading and recognizing letters and numbers before they start school and if they can do this, then they are all set.

What kids actually need to succeed in school, is for their proprioception, balance, fine and gross motor skills to be well developed. And how do we do this? Through play.

Playing is the most powerful way a child learns. Recent research shows that it can take up to 400 repetitions to make new synapses (communication pathways) in the brain. But if it is done through play it takes only 10 - 20 repetitions.

Playing is doing more for your child's brain than sitting them down and making them repeat their times tables and practice writing their alphabet. It will really help with school readiness.

So how can we utilize play to optimize our child's learning? Playing with a purpose.

Here are some ways to use play to encourage your child's development and help get your child ready for primary school.

#1 - Improve balance and co-ordination before school age

Balance and coordinating our fine and gross motor movements, are the foundational building blocks in which all other learning builds on. This underpins all learning.

Even sitting still comes from the ability to have good static balance.

Here are some ideas that you can do with your young child to help them develop balance and co-ordination before starting school.

Balancing on One Leg.

Make a game of this! See how many creative ways you can incorporate balancing on one leg into your day. Time them to track their improvement.

Walk to bed in a different way each night. One night walk on tippy toes to their bedroom to get ready for bed, then backwards, hopping - try hopping with 2 feet first, then hop on 1 leg. Pretend you are walking on a balance beam to bed and they walk heel to toe.

Using Playground Equipment

Get your child to climb the ladders and ropes and hang on the monkey bars. This gives very good proprioreceptive information from the joints to the brain which is crucial and develops strength.

Create an obstacle course in your living room.

Get your child to crawl under chairs, through a play tunnel and over the couch. Create the course so that your child climbs, crawls, and manoeuvres themselves around, under and over the obstacles. This helps to create an awareness of where their body is in space and helps to develop balance and proprioceptive awareness.

Get active!

Encourage them to ride Tricycles, Balance Bikes, Bicycles or Scooters.

#2 - Developing eye tracking will help get your child ready for school

The ability for the eyes to team together and be able to identify and track an object smoothly are crucial in activities such as reading, writing, and catching a ball.

Bean bag toss 2 hands 1 bag

Hold the bag in 2 hands. Focus the eyes on the bag and nose should be pointed at it. Toss the bag straight up – just above head height. Track the flight of the bag up and down with the eyes. Catch the bean bag with both hands. Repeat a few times. Practice until this can be done without dropping the bean bag.

Figure 8’s

Place a sticker on your child's thumbnail. Get them to hold the hand out directly in front of them (straight arm). Focus on the sticker. Move the arm in a figure 8 motion (crossing from one side of the body to the other). Follow the sticker with the eyes during the motion.

Balloon Games

There are a variety of games that can be played using balloons. One idea is to use a cardboard tube as a bat and try and bat the balloon up into the air as many times as possible. For more advanced options, the child can have a designated area (such as within a hoop), that they need to try and keep the balloon in.

#3 - Holding a pencil correctly before your child reaches school age

Below are a few ideas you can do to strengthen the muscles in the hands and develop the ability to control a pencil.

Finger Strengthening

Give your child a clothes peg. Place it between the thumb and index finger of the right hand. Press down 5 times. Now follow the same procedure but use the middle finger and thumb, followed by the ring finger and thumb and lastly the small finger and thumb. Do the same with the left hand.

Tweezer Move Have a bowl of cotton balls, beads, lollies or any other suitable small objects and give your child a pair of tweezers. Get your child to pick up one object at a time with the tweezers and place it into another bowl.

You can start with larger objects and as your child improves their skills reduce the size of the object that they are picking up. You can also get them to practice with both hands.

Don’t Forget to Make your child's development FUN!!

Above all, keep it fun. Incorporating these ideas for even a few minutes each day will help your child develop the skills they need to be ready to learn when it's time to start school.

P.s. when ever you're ready here are 3 ways we can help your child get ready for school life...

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3. Book an appointment. At BodyLink we offer INPP assessments for children up to 12 years old for learning, coordination and behavioural difficulties. Book now.