What are the building blocks necessary to develop preschool readiness?

  • Self regulation: The ability to obtain, maintain and change emotion, behaviour, attention and activity level appropriate for a task or situation.
  • Sensory processing: Accurate processing of sensory stimulation in the environment as well as in one’s own body which effects attention, behaviour and learning.
  • Receptive language (understanding): Comprehension of spoken language (vocabulary, instructions, questions, concepts) for group instructions as well as peer interaction.
  • Expressive language (using language): Formulating sentences that have age appropriate grammar (e.g. using pronouns ‘he/she’ correctly) and word order, using specific vocabulary, and telling a simple story.
  • Articulation: The ability to clearly pronounce individual sounds in words and sentences.
  • Executive Functioning: Higher order reasoning and thinking skills (e.g. working out how to make the desired building, collecting the materials and overcoming challenges in the process).
  • Emotional development/regulation: The ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions and regulate emotions. It also means responding  age appropriately to a frustration and managing to ‘contain’ tantrums or recovering quickly from an upset.
  • Social skills: Determined by the ability to engage in reciprocal interaction with others (either verbally or non-verbally), to compromise with others and to be able to recognise and follow social norms.
  • Planning and sequencing: The sequential multi-step task/activity performance to achieve a well-defined result.