Family House Health Education

For more than a year, our private nonprofit partner Thrive by Five Washington worked with KING 5 News to produce weekly segments about early learning topics here in our state. Today was the last in the series and featured our exciting kindergarten readiness pilot project.

Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) began this year in 120 classrooms around the state. It involves people important in helping kids achieve school readiness: parents, kindergarten teachers, child care providers and other early learning professionals. They meet together throughout the year and share information about a child’s strengths and needs.

As the kindergarten teacher in the KING 5 clip explains, it’s important to learn about the family, such as what language is spoken in the home and if books are available.



These discussions are about more than just if a child knows her letters and numbers, but how she learns, plays with others and uses her body. This assessment process becomes a baseline to help show what kids know when they enter kindergarten and how to support them through their education.

DEL, Thrive and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction worked together to design this pilot to support school readiness in both schools and communities. For more information about WaKIDS, including which schools are participating, visit www.del.wa.gov/wakids