Opinions on whether and how to prepare a child for school are still divided. Cordial grandmothers are ready all night long to teach your child to read, so as not to overpay for the “special courses”, parents grab their heads, trying to determine whether the preparatory programs are really useful and, most importantly, what they themselves, as parents, can do for their child to successfully adapt to school. However, with the proper organization of the process, the preparation for school can be very exciting – and for you, and for the future first-grader.

Some first-grader teachers complain that some “retrained” children and already know everything, and the school at first they just have nothing to do. Others note that the kid easily reproduces English words, but can not tell what he just read in Russian. Others admire almost brilliant children – except that these children lose their pencil cases and the toilet at school and have difficulty communicating with their peers.

So what should be the training at school? What can parents do to make a new stage in a child’s life painless and successful?

What should a child know and be able to do before entering school?
By the way, not every parent knows why to prepare a child for school. “Because it’s customary,” or “because everyone does.” This is where the main problems begin, because a lack of understanding of what gives the preparatory work for the future first-grader, leads to such strange situations, described at the beginning of this article: the child has a lot of useless for him at this stage of knowledge, but does not know how to do something elementary, or is not sufficiently independent, and so on.

Some parents believe that preparation is necessary for the child to successfully pass an unspoken interview at shsat schools. Well, this is not a bad motivation, because it is at an interview (a kind of unofficial testing), the teacher and other professionals (psychologist, speech therapist) can determine whether the child is ready for what he will meet at school: whether he has developed basic basic skills (physical, intellectual), how he freely and confidently communicate, understand the instructions, express his opinion.

That is, preparation for school should help your child to mature intellectually, socially, emotionally and psychologically for a new stage in life. And this, in turn, will help him to learn more successfully and lay the foundation for further growth.

So, what should your child know and be able to do before shsat schools?

He should be able to name:

Full name (own and parents’), home address and phone number, city, country;
the most common plants, animals;
Days of the week, seasons (and their sequences), number of months per year;
Colours, sports and popular occupations;
Names of famous writers, poets;
Basic traffic rules;
Holidays.
He must understand the difference between:

“right” and “left”;
street, city and country;
fruits, berries, vegetables, trees and shrubs;
beasts, birds, fish, insects, wild and domestic animals;
letters and sounds, vowels and consonants (deaf and ringing).

He has to be able to:

Solve simple tasks (including logic), guess riddles;
Restore sequence, highlight common features in objects and see differences;
Describe a picture, retell a story, learn a poem by heart and a small passage of 5-6 sentences;
Count to 10 and perform simple arithmetic operations;
Read small sentences (up to 5 words) and understand what you have read;
Determine the number of sounds and syllables in simple words like “house”, “soup”, “foot”;
Handle scissors, cut along the contour, cut out geometric shapes;
To operate with a pen and a pencil, to draw clear lines without a ruler, to shade, to paint over, without leaving a contour.
Namely at this stage the child should already have a certain level of thinking, memory, attention. In addition, he must learn to build relationships and communicate – with the teacher and other children, to be polite and recognize the authority of adults, be able to perform tasks, in some matters already be independent, learn to organize. All this can be learned both at home and in special preparatory courses.

Preparing for school at home
First of all, starting with a child at home, do not chase for formal results: each child is very individual, and different “you must” or comparisons with familiar to him children you can provoke the formation of his inferiority complex. Nead know a shsat handbook. Your task is to turn the process into a pleasure so that all the activities – tasks, handicrafts and reading – do not cause him rejection. It’s good if the child already understands the value of learning and has motivation, but if not, you can make the interest appear.

What can you do?

To communicate a lot with the child, to answer his questions, to pay attention to him (although it is worth doing not only before school), to read together;
Turn learning into play: even a normal walk can be a fun adventure. Count puddles, houses, birds together, let him name house numbers, read the names of streets and shops. At home, his favorite toys, fairy tale characters, etc. can come to his classes.
Reading or watching the cartoon together, discuss with your child what he learned. Interest in his opinion, ask leading questions to encourage him to speak out and teach elementary analysis. If he or she has read something with another member of the family (grandmother, for example), ask him or her to recount what he or she has read in an unobtrusive way.
Doing handicrafts together: modeling, drawing, making applications, collecting puzzles, making mosaics – all this develops fine motor skills.
Give attention and physical development, active games, you can even organize a sports corner at home.
Teach independence and safety rules at home and on the street.
Be sure to consider the following:

Do not be angry if a child does not understand something and does it wrong, encourage him to ask questions and solve problems, help him, but at the same time do not rush to do something for him;
Development must be harmonious. It is clear that if the child’s reading is easy, but the problems he solves with difficulty, the second case will have to pay more attention and time. However, do not concentrate on one thing. Beautiful speech, attention, memory and physical skills are also important.
Classes should last no longer than 30 minutes, otherwise the baby loses patience and interest. It is better to alternate classes and combine them with coloring, handicrafts, etc.
It is good to develop a certain mode: at one time to get up, eat, walk, study, go to bed. This will help your baby to adapt more easily to school.
Already now learn to let go of your child. Fear for your baby may not go away completely, but your task is to teach him to do without you in the most basic situations.
School preparation courses
There is a mixed opinion in our country about paid training courses for school. There are such courses at schools themselves, there are in non-profit organizations, there are in private studios. Often at such courses, children are simply “dragged” to answer certain questions correctly and easily perform the necessary tasks. However, it is much more important that the child learns to draw conclusions, reason and think creatively.

So when choosing training courses learn:

Does the studio have the right to develop and educational activities;
Which programs are used for training (there must be a system!);
What level specialists work;
Whether there are the manuals, materials or all it is necessary to get independently;
Duration and intensity of occupations (if too much, preparation becomes stress for the child so already before school he can hate any educational process);
How many people are in groups. In fact, the smaller the better, because in small groups it is possible to give enough attention to each child.