Here are some of the best questions for a kindergarten teacher survey about kindergarten readiness, plus tips for building your own. With Specific, you can instantly generate a tailored survey in seconds—no manual editing needed.
Best open-ended questions for teachers on kindergarten readiness
Open-ended questions let teachers share honest perspectives and detailed stories—the kind of feedback you just can’t get with simple checkboxes. These work best when you want authentic, unfiltered insights or to uncover challenges and opportunities that statistics alone can’t explain. Given nationwide concerns around readiness (just 49% of Florida’s kindergartners were "Ready for Kindergarten" last year, for example [2]), hearing directly from teachers is vital for context.
What signs do you look for to determine if a child is ready for kindergarten?
Can you share a recent example of a child who was especially well-prepared for kindergarten? What made the difference?
What are the most common challenges you observe in students starting kindergarten?
How do families typically prepare their children over the summer, and what seems to help most?
What are the biggest gaps you notice in kindergarteners’ academic skills at entry?
How do you support children who seem less ready when they arrive?
What social or emotional skills do you think are most important for a smooth start to kindergarten?
Have you noticed any trends or changes in readiness since the pandemic? Please explain.
What additional resources or professional development would help you support kindergarten readiness?
If you could change one thing to improve readiness in your classroom, what would it be?
Effective multiple-choice questions for teacher surveys
Single-select multiple-choice questions are great when you want to benchmark, quantify, or nudge the conversation in a focused direction. Sometimes, picking from a few clear options is less intimidating for teachers—and it’s a quick way to spot patterns or launch follow-up questions that dig deeper. For example, if you want to see if academic or social readiness is a bigger hurdle, a single-select can split your data in seconds, ready to prompt the next conversation.
Question: Which domain do you see most students struggling with at kindergarten entry?
Academic skills (letters, numbers, basic concepts)
Social-emotional skills (managing emotions, sharing, following directions)
Self-care skills (toileting, holding a pencil, using classroom supplies)
Other
Question: Based on your experience, how has kindergarten readiness in your school changed since the pandemic?
Improved significantly
Improved somewhat
No change
Declined somewhat
Declined significantly
Question: Which resource would help you most to support incoming kindergarteners?
Curriculum guides
Family workshops
On-site support staff
Professional development for teachers
Other
When to followup with "why?" Asking “why?” as a follow-up is ideal when you want to understand motivations or clarify a surprising choice. For example, if a teacher picks “social-emotional skills” as the biggest challenge, a smart follow-up like, “What’s the most common scenario where students struggle with these skills?” opens the door to deeper context that supports program design.
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Adding “Other” is perfect when your list isn’t exhaustive. It allows teachers to surface gaps you never considered—like a particular behavioral or family dynamic influencing readiness. Follow-ups here can uncover unexpected insights you’d otherwise miss.
Should you include an NPS-type question?
NPS (Net Promoter Score) isn’t just for companies; it’s a powerful tool for measuring teacher sentiment and identifying promoters versus detractors in the education space. By asking, “How likely are you to recommend your school’s kindergarten readiness efforts to a colleague?” (on a 0–10 scale), you get a simple metric that exposes both enthusiastic advocates and areas needing urgent support. You can build an NPS survey for teacher readiness in seconds here. Given that just 52.5% of Washington State’s kindergarteners met readiness benchmarks in 2023 [1], understanding teacher sentiment is more crucial than ever.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions are the engine of any truly conversational survey—they transform vague answers into clear, actionable feedback. If you want your survey to do more than scratch the surface, automated follow-ups are essential. With platforms like Specific, smart AI asks the right follow-ups based on the first answer, just like an expert interviewer would. That way, you get the full context behind a teacher’s experience, frustration, or success. Want a deeper dive? Check out our page on automatic AI follow-up questions and why they matter.
Teacher: “Some kids just aren’t ready socially.”
AI follow-up: “Can you describe a situation where social readiness was a challenge at the start of the year?”
Without the follow-up, you’d never get the story behind those words—which could guide your next round of readiness support.
How many followups to ask? Two or three follow-ups are usually plenty to get to the crux of most answers. But the key is flexibility—if the answer is already clear, you can skip ahead. With Specific, you control this setting so teachers never feel interrogated.
This makes it a conversational survey: The experience feels like dialogue, not a test. Teachers relax and open up, leading to more honest, nuanced responses—and that drives actionable results.
AI analysis, text insight, theme detection: Even with lots of open-ended replies and follow-ups, it’s easy to analyze all the data using AI. AI-powered response analysis lets you surface trends, see key themes, and even chat with the results until you have the insights you need.
These powerful follow-ups are a new approach to teacher surveys. Try generating one yourself and see how much more you can learn.
Prompting GPT: How to write the right question prompts for surveys
If you want to brainstorm better survey questions with GPT (or any AI), give it a clear, focused prompt. Start with:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Kindergarten Teacher survey about Kindergarten Readiness.
You’ll get even stronger results if you share more context—your goal, setting, audience, and unique concerns. For example:
I am creating a survey for kindergarten teachers in public schools to understand what challenges they face around student readiness, especially since pandemic-related disruptions. Suggest 10 open-ended questions to uncover real classroom experiences, gaps, and resource needs.
After that, ask AI to group questions for theme clarity:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
If a particular topic stands out, zoom in with another prompt:
Generate 10 questions for categories “Family Support,” “Academic Skills Gaps,” and “Social-Emotional Readiness.”
The more context you give, the more valuable and actionable your survey questions will become.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey goes way beyond standard forms. Instead of just clicking through radio buttons and writing short answers, teachers type as if they’re chatting—and the survey responds in real time, asking for more detail, clarifying, and adjusting as needed. This style is proven to draw out more thoughtful responses and higher completion rates.
Let’s compare:
Manual Survey Creation | AI-Generated Survey |
|---|---|
Brainstorm every question by hand | Type a prompt; AI drafts structure & questions for you |
No dynamic follow-ups—just set questions | Smart, in-the-moment follow-up questions (AI learns as it goes) |
Manual review and editing (slow) | Instantly refine, reorder, or adapt with AI survey editor |
Responses pile up—slow to analyze | AI summarizes and analyzes feedback automatically |
With tools like Specific, you’re not just saving time—you’re upping the quality of engagement and the depth of insights with every AI survey example. Plus, the AI survey generator means you can update, localize, or even overhaul your survey format by simply chatting to the system.
Why use AI for kindergarten teacher surveys? AI-generated conversational surveys deliver quick, context-rich feedback and analyze results instantly, all in a mobile-friendly format. For teachers, that’s a less stressful experience—and for you, it means actionable data, fast. And with Specific, you get best-in-class UX that keeps surveys feeling like a chat, not a chore.
Want guidance on every step? Our practical guide on how to create surveys for kindergarten teachers is packed with tips to help you get started right.
See this kindergarten readiness survey example now
Ready for deeper insights in minutes? See how fast and easy it is to build a truly conversational survey—ask richer questions, follow up automatically, and unlock real classroom perspectives. Experience smart, chat-based research for yourself and transform your understanding of kindergarten readiness.