Ready Freddy Kindergarten Club

The Ready Freddy Kindergarten Club Curriculum was developed by OCD to enhance kindergarten readiness for both children and parents. The purpose of the program is to get children and parents excited and prepared for the transition to kindergarten. For many children, kindergarten represents their first experience with formal education outside of the home; for others, it means getting to know new teachers, new friends, a new building, and a new set of rules. The transition sets the tone for how well children will do in school, but almost half of children who start kindergarten have difficulty with the transition (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000). Without proper transitions, children can experience high levels of anxiety and exhibit "early and persistent school failure, behavior problems, low levels of parent involvement, and a widening gap in their academic achievement." (Schulting, Malone, and Dodge, 2005)

Involving parents before kindergarten is one of the most promising ways to help children make a smooth transition to kindergarten that will get them off to the right start in school (Pianta, Rimm-Kauffman, & Cox, 1999; Henderson & Berla, 1994).

The K-Club curriculum is divided into six sessions. Each session has a different theme focusing on a topic important to helping children transition to kindergarten. For example, the focus of Session 1, “Get Ready, Freddy”, is about the importance of recognizing that every child is unique with different strengths and needs and parents role in advocating for their children.

Each session has…

  • An Introduction for explaining the focus of the session to parents and children
  • A Parent-Child Activity for encouraging quality parent-child interactions and modeling activities that promote school readiness
  • A Parent Activity for providing parents with the information they need to support children’s transition to kindergarten
  • A Child Activity for exposing children to the kinds of experiences and expectations they’ll encounter in kindergarten
  • A Read Aloud for demonstrating how to promote children’s love for books, content knowledge, and vocabulary by reading stories
  • A Take Home Activity for encouraging parents to continue and practice lessons at home

Parents who have attended K-Clubs say,

  • “It prepared me to see what my child would be facing so that anything she didn’t grasp there I could help her with.”
  • “It stopped me from crying when I put him on the bus. It let me communicate with other people. It also helped me to organize all my paperwork and the papers he worked on in K-Club.”
  • “He learned his numbers (to 100). He’s head of his class. It brought him out of his shyness. Before, he wouldn’t talk to anyone.”
  • “Before I didn’t care what time he went to sleep. Now, I make him put up his homework so it doesn’t get lost, set the alarm so I can get up in time to get him up, set his clothes out the night before.”


For more information, please contact John Kim, Associate Director 412.383.5385  john.kim@pitt.edu