The early years of a child's life represent a crucial period of biological, psychological, social and emotional changes. The first five years of life represent a critical window of opportunity in the healthy development of young children, what children learn and feel during this time will be foundational to the rest of their life. For these reasons, the researcher examined the Influence of pre-primary school experience on pupils Social Skills Acquisition in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State.

The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The study population comprised of all the primary schools children in Ilorin west Local Government Area of Kwara State. There are 4,443 pupils in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State in the 59 primary schools in the Local Government Area. All primary one pupils were used in the 10 selected schools. A purposive sampling technique was used to select all the primary one pupils because primary one is the first class after pre-primary school experience and it is at this level that the pupil should be able to use and display the various social skills acquired during their pre-primary school days. Three research instruments were used in the study. Observation Schedule for Social Skills (OSSS) was used to measure the stated social skills and Interview Schedule for Pre-primary School Experience (ISPSE) was used for gathering data from pupils while Research Assistant Assessment Gadget (RAAG) was used to train and select research assistants. The instruments were both face and content validated by the researcher's supervisors and lecturers in the department of Early Childhood Education, Kwara State University as well as lecturers in the College of Education, Kwara State University. Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to test for the reliability of the instruments and a reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained for OSSS; 0.81 was obtained for ISPSE. The collected data were subjected to both inferential and descriptive statistics. All the formulated hypotheses were tested using t-test statistical analysis at 0.05 level of significance.

The result revealed a significant difference in the interaction skill acquisition of primary school pupils with pre-primary school experience and those without pre-primary school experience in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State(t = 3.40, df = 148, p < 0.05).Also, there was significant difference in the cooperation skill acquisition of primary school pupils with pre-primary school experience and those without pre-primary school experience in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara State(t = 2.460, df = 148, p < 0.05). It was further concluded that, there is significant differences in social skills acquisition of pupils' with pre-primary school experiences and those without such experiences.

It was therefore recommended that, parents should be encouraged to take their children to Pre-primary school before their entry into primary school to enable them acquire social skills. Keywords: Interaction Skill, Cooperation Skill, Empathy Skill, Responsibility Skill. Word count : 471.