Understanding Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment

Your child is going into kindergarten! Congrats to them and you in this exciting time! I’m sure you’re knee-deep in school supply shopping, making sure they have money in their lunch account, figuring out bus schedules or drop off procedures, and hitting “refresh” on the school’s classroom assignment page. And then you find out about the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment…what is that??? It’s ok, deep breaths.

Ohio’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment is a tool used by your child’s teacher at the beginning of the kindergarten school year when observing their skills and preparedness for learning in a kindergarten classroom. It’s nothing your child has to study for or worry about passing or failing. It provides a snapshot to the teacher so they can know how to best support your child during the school year. It will also be shared with you so you can know what their findings were.

There are four areas that are observed for the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment: the child’s social skills, their proficiency with language and literacy, their mathematics skills, and their physical well-being and motor development. Through the observation in those areas, it will be determined if the child is “Demonstrating Readiness," "Approaching Readiness," or "Emerging Readiness" and how you and the teacher can work together to help your child attain or maintain those levels of readiness. It’s really that simple!

If you want to learn more about what it entails, check out the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce page that goes into more depth and provides resources for families around the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment.