Ready or not, across the country, a new crop of kindergarteners has entered the K-12 school system.

Their teachers will spend these early weeks determining where the 5- and 6-year-olds are developmentally, what academic, social and emotional skills they bring, and what support they need to set them up for a successful school year.

That job has become more difficult in recent years, according to numerous surveys, research studies and EdSurge interviews, as the last few classes of kindergarteners have shown up lacking some of the basic skills and competencies that educators and school leaders had previously come to expect. These include following instructions, sharing, listening and participating during lessons, using writing utensils and craft materials, and toilet training.

Many people, both within the field of education and among the general public, are quick to blame the pandemic for these challenges. Although today’s kindergarteners were infants when the pandemic started, fewer of them participated in early learning experiences, such as preschool, and most had limited social interactions during a critical developmental period. Yet the explanation is likely far more complicated; several people, in interviews, pointed to the ubiquity of smartphones and screen time as at least part of the shift.

As a new school year begins, EdSurge asked education leaders and child development experts about the skills that are most important for a child to have when they start school.

There are five core developmental domains, says Van-Kim Bui Lin, a senior research scientist focused on early childhood development at Child Trends, a national nonprofit research center focused on child well-being.

One is physical development, including gross motor skills, which allow kids to run, hop and skip, as well as fine motor skills, which help children hold a pencil or use scissors.

Another is cognitive development, such as reasoning and problem-solving. Then there’s language development, which includes the ability to comprehend and communicate verbally, and eventually read and write. Another is social-emotional development; this includes active listening, interacting with adults and peers, sharing and holding attention.

Finally, there is a child’s approach to learning, including what motivates them and how they learn best.

“A child needs that whole set of development to really be successful,” Lin explains.

Social-Emotional Skills Set Kids Up for Success

The most critical skills for starting kindergarten, many people say, are social-emotional. This is the area of development where many teachers report seeing the steepest decline.

Many students in the Phoenix-Talent School District in southern Oregon, which experienced a devastating wildfire in the fall of 2020, compounding the effects of the pandemic, have been showing up to kindergarten without the skills needed to follow directions, share toys and materials with their classmates, and stick to a schedule.

It’s the “routines and procedures,” says Tiffanie Lambert, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for Phoenix-Talent, “that has been the biggest impediment we’ve seen since the pandemic and fire.”

Lambert has also noticed that children of all ages — not just kindergarteners, but especially kindergarteners — have shorter attention spans. “And we don’t expect a kindergartener to come in and sit through an hour lesson,” she adds.

Social-emotional skills, such as self-control and listening, allow children to show up to kindergarten ready to engage and learn. These skills are the bedrock.

Is a child able to sit and listen during story time? That’s a good barometer, says Susan Petersen, director of education at Lodi Unified School District in northern California. “That would be ideal,” she notes.

Can a child interact with other children appropriately, taking turns and including others? “Those basic social skills would be nice as well,” Petersen adds.

Emotion regulation and perseverance are also big, adds Lin of Child Trends. If a child is struggling to use scissors, do they have the ability to overcome their frustration and keep at it? Can they tolerate it when another child uses the toy they were playing with?

If a child can work well with others, share, recognize their emotions and control their impulses, “the rest will come,” says Rachel Robertson, chief academic officer at Bright Horizons, which runs more than 600 early care and education centers in the U.S.

Fine Motor Skills Are Slipping

Fine motor skills, which relate to moving small muscles in the hands and wrists that allow individuals to engage in many functional skills like cutting, using a glue stick, opening a lunch box and turning pages in a book, are important but seem to be lacking among kindergarteners.

Pencil grasp — the way a person holds a pencil or other writing tool — has been an issue, even among students older than kindergarten, says Lambert of the Phoenix-Talent School District.

“It’s been my mission, looking at every kid’s pencil grip,” she says.

If kids don’t have that motor skill down, Lambert adds, their hands get fatigued, their letter formation is off, and it’s hard for them to complete work.

Lisa Eckert, director of early learning at the Pequea Valley School District in southeastern Pennsylvania, has had parents share that their child is entering kindergarten knowing all of their letters and numbers. Yet, because they learned it on a device, like an iPad, “they can’t pick up a pencil and write anything. Or they don’t know how to use scissors and cut a piece of paper,” Eckert shares.

Academic Skills Are Nice to Have, but Not Necessary

ABCs and 1-2-3s may seem like a baseline for kindergarten readiness. Yet educator after educator notes that they’re really just nice-to-haves.

“It’d be amazing if they could come in writing their name, recognizing letters and sounds of the alphabet,” says Lambert. “We don’t always expect that. But being able to come in, interact, understand their emotions, regulate, participate in a class and group — that helps us.”

Letters and numbers, reading and writing, those are the skills that kindergarten is designed to teach a child. It’s much more preferable that a child have some basic social-emotional skills than be able to read on the first day of kindergarten.

“I’m not interested in getting them ready for one year of school,” explains Robertson of Bright Horizons. “I’m interested in getting them a foundation for life.”

Toilet Training Is on the Decline

In the Education Week State of Teaching survey, which asked preK-3 teachers about how certain tasks and skills had changed from five years ago, 44 percent said that “potty training/using the bathroom without assistance” was “much more challenging” or “more challenging” today.

School district leaders confirmed this experience. Increasingly, they’re seeing students start kindergarten without the ability to use the bathroom on their own.

Kindergarten teachers simply don’t have the time to help each child in the bathroom, Lin of Child Trends notes.

“It makes a big difference in the day,” adds Eckert of Pequea Valley School District. “If [teachers] are focusing on helping kids in the bathroom, they're losing an hour in the day.”

Don’t Underestimate Showing Up

As U.S. public schools face alarmingly high rates of chronic absenteeism — defined as a student missing 10 percent or more days in a school year — it’s worth noting that showing up is essential for a child’s success in kindergarten.

“Students don’t learn if they’re not at school,” Lambert says. “Families think, ‘It’s just kindergarten. It’s OK if they miss a day.’ But kindergarten is so important. … Even missing a day is critical.”