Readiness: It’s More Than Just Age and Teeth

Many parents wonder when a child is ready to move to the work of grade one. A standard goal post for Waldorf schools is that the child has celebrated seven springs/Easters in their lifetime and has started to lose their baby teeth. That means that a child who was born between January and Easter will start grade one the September following their sixth birthday. Essentially what is important is that the children are seven for the majority of their grade one year.

I always encourage parents to look at more than just the birthdate and teeth. There is so much more happening in the body that can let you know if your child is ready for the gentle introduction to the more abstract concepts of academics. This is about so much more than age and teeth! Especially since children’s teeth are falling out earlier now than they were in Steiner’s time, and might not be the best indicator anymore.

The child just crossing the threshold to the second seven-year cycle is still very much a sense being, taking everything in through the senses, but a change has occurred in the etheric body/sheath, also referred to as the time body or the memory body. If development has been able to progress without interruption, the etheric has now been freed of its task of building up the physical body and is available now for developing capacities needed for academics. This is not something that happens overnight, and certainly isn’t something that happens at the changing of age from six to seven. It is a gradual release over time. And so when we look at readiness in children, what we need to do is look at the whole image of the child. We look at their head, heart, and hands just as we do when we foster their unfolding as humans through the curriculum.

Looking at their cognitive abilities, one question I ask parents regarding readiness for grade one is whether have they noticed their child has shown the ability to recall memories spontaneously, without the need for outside prompting. For example, when children under seven are asked what they did at Grandma and Grandpa’s house this afternoon, many will shrug or possibly tell you the last thing they did that they might still be engaged with. But that same child, who experiences life through their senses, will immediately recall many of the details of baking with Grandma while in the kitchen with you the next day, or of the gardening adventure they had with Grandpa as they help you harvest some vegetables that afternoon. All their memories are connected to and retrieved by their sense memory.

On the other hand, a child whose etheric sheath has been released and is ready to support capacities beyond building the physical body will begin to connect with their past experiences without the need for sense memory triggers. You might be driving in the car and all of a sudden your child recalls baking a wonderful plate of cookies with Grandma and would like to do that when they get home. Or they tell the story of the puppet show they saw at the Fall Festival a few months back while you take a walk through a park. Instead of needing reminding or a connection to an outer action, they recall and share their past experiences without any prompting or connection to the current activity. This is a sign that the etheric has been freed from its work on the physical body and is now available to work on building the cognitive capacities for memory. The ability to remember things that aren’t tied directly to our senses is necessary when learning abstract concepts, and first grade is a gentle introduction to abstract concepts. When children are ready you will see signs that the forces needed for building memory are ready and available.

Social signs that a child might be ready for grade one are seen in their play. Play is the work of early childhood, and the play patterns of children entering their second phase of life will be different than those of the earlier years. A child who may be ready for grade one will have a shift in their play and will demonstrate an ability and interest in planning their play. A child in their early years spends their day re-enacting what life has given them to imitate. But as the child matures, they slowly open their capacity and interest in planning their play. There is a drive to fulfill in their play a recreation of an inner picture. They have a plan or story they want to create and look for props around them to make it happen. Play will become more elaborate, and sometimes it may seem children are planning so much they never get to the playing part! They might also display an interest in combining their inner pictures of play with another child’s, expanding the world they are creating to meet the needs of both. This also opens the window of being able to “take one for the team” and work on compromises, to collaborate at the expense of having to possibly put aside some of their desires. Remember, this type of play might be showing in just whispers at the time of assessing whether your child is ready for grade one or not, but once we begin to keep these images of children in our hearts, we often become aware of their presence or absence.

There are also some clear physical milestones that can be indicators of readiness for grade one. One that is often talked about is if a child can reach over their head with one arm and touch the opposite ear. This seems like a random and impractical skill to have, but it is an indicator of whether the child’s limbs have begun to lengthen as the physical structure of a child in their second phase changes substantially from their first. You’ll now notice all the babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who cannot reach their ear! Physically, children shifting from one phase to the next show a very gradual lengthening, less of a rounding of the features, and a separation in the torso of lungs and abdomen as everything stretches. The little dimples in their hands and elbows might begin to disappear and there is just a general sharpening of their features overall.

From a coordination standpoint, children should be able to do a few physical tasks or “tricks”, as the children often see them. These can include hopping on one foot, skipping down the street instead of walking or running, walking on the edge of something like a balance beam while maintaining balance, and throwing a ball up in the air and catching it with two hands. In the home, you might see your child is now able to wash and dry dishes, fasten some of their zippers and buttons, might show an interest in learning to tie their shoes, and generally shows a little more grace and finesse in their movements than before. They seem just a little bit lighter in their being.

When we look for readiness, looking at the whole child, we are searching for signs that children are ready to meet the needs and demands of grade one. Have they begun to show an interest or capability in copying the writing or drawing of others? When they draw are their drawings more “grounded” and less in the center of the page or scattered? Have they shown an ability to sit and listen and follow simple directions? Have they started to look for a bit more independence in their life, a yearning to do things that show they are capable?

There are SO MANY indicators of readiness for grade one. I’ve only shared a few!! I encourage all parents to move beyond the standard age and tooth assessment and look at their child’s capacities of mind, body, and spirit and ask themselves the question “Is my child ready for the new demands that grade one will bring?” The curriculum of each grade speaks to the child as a reflection of what is happening on a soul level. This means that even though your six-year-old might be able to tick all the readiness boxes, they might not be ready on a soul level for the content introduced in grade one. It is equally important to remember that when we look at readiness, we aren’t looking for a child who presents ALL the tasks and abilities listed above. Many of these skills will be worked on in the grades because growth and development are an unfolding process over time. What we are looking for is the image of a child that is displaying a gradual growth in capacities towards a lessening and eventual release of living life in the physical.

As homeschoolers, we have the unique gift of being able to start our school year whenever we see fit. So if we see that our child isn’t ready for grade one in September, we can watch and see if they might be ready for a winter or spring start instead. We can fully meet the needs of our children and start them on the path of the grades when they are truly ready.

I hope this post will help those of you wondering when to start grade one academics. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out!