It’s the time of year when parents are thinking of registering their children for kindergarten in September — a much-anticipated moment in the lives of many parents and their young ones.

The importance of early childhood education beginning in kindergarten is widely recognized across Canada. Kindergarten is publicly funded and offered in all provincial jurisdictions and territories. While the vast majority of five-year-olds across the country participate, it is not mandatory.

As parents consider kindergarten transitions, what are some important things to understand about children’s development around kindergarten age?

The child at five is essentially a sensory being immersed in a material world they come to name, know and understand through direct tactile experiences, mediated by talk and interaction with peers and adults. They learn through endless repetition: reading the same books and singing the same songs over and over again.

Frank Wilson, a neurologist widely recognized for his book, The Hand: How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language and Human Culture, elaborates how our hands are the critical conduit to the brain in developing what is known as embodied cognition — neural systems that are central to our cognitive functions. Among young children, nimble fingers and fine motor control are associated with vocabulary knowledge.

A typical five-year-old can be expected to have an oral vocabulary repertoire of 5,000 words, or 2,500 word families (run, runs and running constitute one word family).

Read more: What are motor skills? Evidence-based ways to support children’s fine and gross motor development

Research studies record enormous disparity in the vocabulary size of........

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