Every child entering kindergarten — including yours — has unique skills and abilities. The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is designed to help you build a relationship with your child’s kindergarten teacher and share information about your child.

• Frequently Asked Questions

What families can expect from WaKIDS:

Collaboration With the Teacher

• You will be invited to meet with your kindergarten teacher before school starts or at the beginning of the school year. This meeting may be at the school or at another community location that you and the teacher agree upon.
• During this family connection meeting, you will share information about your child and get to know one another. You will be asked to fill out a booklet called “Introducing Me! / ¡Yo me presento!” (other versions of "Introducing Me!": Korean, Punjabi, Russian, Tagalog, more languages to come), which allows you to share information about your child’s likes, dislikes, family culture and more. This booklet will be available in additional languages by fall 2012.


NOTE: If you would like to print out this booklet using the duplex (front/back) feature on your printer, please make sure that you manually choose the "Landscape" orientation option, or the back side of each page will be printed upside down.

Teacher Observation
As the school year begins, your child will be observed by the teacher. This will help the teacher find out what your child already knows how to do. The teacher will be observing for:

• Physical development, well-being, health and motor skills: for example, can your child run smoothly, fold paper with some help, and use a fork and spoon?
• Social and emotional development: for example, does your child give social support to others and follow rules in different settings?
• Cognition and general knowledge: for example, can your child identify characteristics for comparison, such as size and color, and understand the concept of “same” and “different”?
• Language, communication and literacy: for example, can your child point to the title of a book when asked, and does your child know that print conveys meaning?
• Mathematics: for example, can your child count to 10 and beyond?

This information will be used to inform teacher instruction. It will not be used to make decisions about whether a child can enter kindergarten or to which classroom the child is assigned.

As a parent or guardian, you have the right to opt out of WaKIDS if you feel it is not a good fit for your family. Talk to your kindergarten teacher about the school’s procedure for notifying the school if you do not wish your child to participate in WaKIDS.