To ascertain if a child is ready for school, paediatricians explore various aspects of a child’s life and functioning, says Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia's Faculty of Medicine senior consultant developmental paediatrician and general paediatrician Assoc Prof Dr Norazlin Kamal Nor.

"This includes eliciting the child’s developmental and learning level and socioemotional abilities from their parents’ report, observation and assessment of the child’s abilities using specific tools, and interacting personally with the child to determine the child’s ability to socialise and communicate," she adds.

"Specific assessments may be used to determine the child’s academic ability in terms of verbal communication and comprehension, literacy, numeracy, eye-hand coordination, as well as the ability to focus. As part of the assessment, the child’s behaviour, especially sitting behaviour, and a child’s attention as well as a child’s ability to plan and organise, are observed," she says.

A child is generally considered ready for school when they are able to perform the following tasks: follow instructions, communicate clearly, including asking questions and answering queries, interact well and play cooperatively with other children, demonstrate basic self-care skills like using the bathroom independently, show curiosity about learning, developing fine motor skills like holding a pencil and drawing simple shapes.

In addition, they should also be able to manage their emotions, cope with frustrations and transition smoothly between activities.

How to know if your child is ready for school. Photo: The Stargraphic

Love for learning

Dr Norazlin says it is crucial that parents ensure their children are school-ready, as it lays the foundation for their future academic and personal success. "Children should begin school feeling prepared and confident, as this makes it more likely for them to maintain a positive, engaged mindset towards education.

"This cultivates a love of learning that will serve them well as they progress through school and into their future careers," she says. Ensuring school readiness also helps children develop into self-directed and motivated learners.

"It enables the child to successfully integrate into school, navigate the journey of schooling and attain the most out of the learning experience. "When a child is not ready for school, he may miss out not only the basic building blocks of early learning and potentially get left behind, but also develop psychological, emotional and behavioural consequences.

"Feeling inadequate and not doing well at school is often accompanied by negative feelings of poor self-esteem, and potential bullying by peers," she says. They may start avoiding going to school or start to lose focus in class because the work given is too challenging for them.

If these issues are not addressed, they may lag further behind and may fail their subjects, drop out of school or not attain the qualifications from school, which can ultimately impact their opportunities in the future.