School Readiness

School Readiness

School readiness is about the role and responsibility all of us have in creating the conditions and experiences in which children will thrive and develop to their full potential. How will we know if we are making progress toward helping all children arrive at kindergarten ready? One way is to identify the essential components.

Components considered essential for school readiness are:

• All children have access to high quality and developmentally appropriate preschool programs that help prepare children for school.
• Parents throughout the United States will be their children’s first teachers and will devote time each day to helping their children learn. Parents will have access to the training and support they need to fill this important role.
• Children will receive the nutrition, physical activity and health care needed to arrive at school with healthy minds and bodies, and to maintain the mental alertness necessary for learning. The number of low-birth weight babies will be significantly reduced through enhanced prenatal health systems.

Ohio has an initiative called Ohio School Readiness Initiative that is investigating Ohio’s progress for school readiness. The Ohio departments of Education, Health, Mental Health and Job and Family Services has jointly committed to collecting data and will track, measure and report Ohio’s progress. For more information on this initiative, please go to http://www.ode.state.oh.us/ece.