Wakids
Position Paper Up until a week ago I thought that the states ideas of “kindergarten readiness” were just political lip service, but last week my opinion changed. I was in the car listening to an interview on NPR (sadly I do not remember the woman’s name) about a new program called Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills, or WaKIDS. This year is the pilot season for this program. The interview was also on the up and coming mandate the child care workers, and preschool teacher have a Bachelor’s degree. This mandate will go into effect in 2013 in Washington State.
The mission statement for WaKIDS is “The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is a kindergarten process that: * Welcomes families into the Washington K-12 system as partners in their child’s education. * Gives kindergarten teachers information about the development of children in their classroom to help them teach every child—data about social/emotional, cognitive, language/literacy and physical development. * Align practices of early learning professionals and kindergarten teachers to support smooth transitions for children. * Offers a statewide snapshot of where children in Washington are in their development at the start of kindergarten, to help inform state-level decisions about policy and investments This program is designed to provide a smooth transition from pre-school to kindergarten and maintain positive development in each child. WaKIDS focuses on four main areas in child development they are physical, social/emotional, cognitive and language. The program aims to maintain a collaberation between child care provides, preschool, early education and policy makers in an effort to provide the best arena for children to develop. These collaborations are in person meetings when a child is transitioning from one “grade” to another. For example, preschool teachers will meet with kindergarten teacher and discuss each child
The mission statement for WaKIDS is “The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is a kindergarten process that: * Welcomes families into the Washington K-12 system as partners in their child’s education. * Gives kindergarten teachers information about the development of children in their classroom to help them teach every child—data about social/emotional, cognitive, language/literacy and physical development. * Align practices of early learning professionals and kindergarten teachers to support smooth transitions for children. * Offers a statewide snapshot of where children in Washington are in their development at the start of kindergarten, to help inform state-level decisions about policy and investments This program is designed to provide a smooth transition from pre-school to kindergarten and maintain positive development in each child. WaKIDS focuses on four main areas in child development they are physical, social/emotional, cognitive and language. The program aims to maintain a collaberation between child care provides, preschool, early education and policy makers in an effort to provide the best arena for children to develop. These collaborations are in person meetings when a child is transitioning from one “grade” to another. For example, preschool teachers will meet with kindergarten teacher and discuss each child