Influences of Family Involvement in Kindergarten Transition Activities on Children’s Early School Adjustment

Transition to kindergarten can be a pivotal experience for children because of its potential long-term impact on school performance. As the importance of relationships among contextual factors surrounding a child has been recognized, many schools have made efforts to establish strong ties with families in order to make kindergarten transition experiences as seamless as possible. Our current understanding of the role of family involvement in kindergarten transitions and the specific outcomes, however, is still somewhat limited. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study investigated the impact of family involvement in kindergarten transition activities on children’s transition to kindergarten and their early school adjustment. Although quantitative results revealed that family involvement is not a significant predictor of children’s early school adjustment, qualitative evidence suggests that families believe their involvement in kindergarten transition has a positive influence. In addition, qualitative results provide information concerning barriers, which interfered with family involvement in the transition process. Based on these findings suggestions for schools and families of young children are provided.     

Children’s Daily Routines During Kindergarten Transition

Routines are an important feature of family life and functioning in families with young children. Common daily routines such as dinnertime, bedtime, and waking activities are powerful organizers of family behavior and may be instrumental to children and families during times of transition, such as elementary school entry. Daily routines were examined in 132 families with children entering kindergarten. Although the majority of families reported regular daily routines for their children, parents anticipated that their child’s daily routines would substantially shift upon kindergarten entry, including changes in children’s sleep habits. Significant changes in child and family routines have been implicated in adjustment difficulties during kindergarten transition. Results of this investigation are discussed in terms of aligning family daily routines with kindergarten expectations. Furthermore, educational professionals in early childhood education and elementary school can partner with families to promote seamless kindergarten transitions for all children.     

The Concordance between Teachers’ and Parents’ Perceptions of School Transition Practices: A Solid Base for the Future

This study focuses on parents’ and teachers’ perceptions of practices aimed at easing the transition to formal schooling (e.g., familiarization with the school, discussions about the school entrants). A total of 230 preschool teachers, 131 elementary school teachers, and 2,662 mothers and fathers filled in a questionnaire containing items on how important they considered different preschool-school transition practices. The participants considered the various transition practices to be at least somewhat important. On average, familiarization with the school was considered to be most important, whereas teacher co-operation and joint writing of curricula were considered to be least important. The perceptions of the participant groups differed from each other significantly in almost all practices. We suggest that the information on school entrants should be transferred within joint meetings between transition partners and other professionals whenever possible.     

A Quantitative Study of Head Start Children’s Strengths,Families’ Perspectives,and Teachers’ Ratings in the Transition to Kindergarten

This study examined the association between preschool children’s social-interpersonal skills and their transition to school in the beginning months of kindergarten. One hundred and thirty-three preschool children participated in this study. During the spring of the pre-kindergarten year, children’s social-interpersonal skills were assessed as well as rated by teachers. In the follow-up year, parents/guardians and teachers reported on children’s adjustment to kindergarten. The results of this study found no association between parents’/guardians’ and teachers’ reports of children’s adjustment and readiness in kindergarten. Children’s social-interpersonal skills were negatively associated with teachers’ reports of children’s kindergarten readiness difficulties. The findings of this study indicate that children’s early social skills, developed prior to entering kindergarten, are important for children’s readiness for school.     

A Survey of Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Reading Experiences in Kindergarten

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify, examine, and compare attitudes of kindergarten and primary teachers toward beginning reading instruction in kindergarten. A questionnaire was devised, and teachers were asked to indicate the importance, to kindergarten children, of certain reading skills, concepts, and activities; to designate which kindergarten children should engage in reading activities; and to specify the parent's role. Forty-two of 61 questionnaires were returned. Chi-square values were calculated to compare attitudes of primary and kindergarten teachers. Comments were examined and compiled. The writer concluded that most teachers were interested in and valued reading instruction in kindergarten, but that primary teachers would tend to approach such instruction more formally than kindergarten teachers.     

Kindergarten Teachers as Models for Children’s Speech

A comparative analysis of kindergarten teachers’ speech with each other and with their students in the classroom demonstrated significant differences on several measures of speech complexity. It was found that adult speech to children used shorter sentences, more simple sentences, and fragments, and fewer compound, complex, compound-complex, and elaborated sentences than adult-to-adult (A-A) speech. On vocabulary measures adult-to-child (A-C) speech showed a lower type-token ratio score and larger percentage of usage of words found in the first thousand most frequent words in the Thorndike-Lorge list. The implications of these results both for language and cognitive development are discussed.     

A Review of the Research: Common Core State Standards for Improving Rural Children’s School Readiness

Although a plethora of research focuses on economically at-risk preschool children in general across the United States, little can be found that investigates methods for improving rural children’s academic outcomes. This review of research is intended to provide a contextual understanding of the background and current conditions that exist for rural preschool children and their families in America, and to recommend strategies for improving adverse cognition and learning conditions, including a lack of early literacy skills, and low high school completion rates that frequently are found in this population, utilizing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as a framework. Attention will be given to demographics, academic performance and scientifically-based practices proven to impact both teaching and learning for rural preschool children, particularly those from minority households, incorporating the newly developed CCSS. A comparison will be made between rural white and African American children’s learning and cognition, highlighting significant disparities for African American students, despite the fact that they make up less than 10 % of all rural preschool children. For the scope of this study, rural communities will be defined as those with varying qualities situated outside of metropolitan areas. Results from this study reveal the conditions for rural preschool children, especially those from African American families with low-income levels. Findings indicate that providing training for teachers, administrators and families linked to rural schools; and infusing CCSS into the rural preschool curricula significantly improves school readiness, and decreases dropout rates.     

Pakistani Teachers’ Perceptions of Kindergarten Children’s Learning: An Exploration of Understanding and Practice

This paper considers perceptions of children’s learning and classroom practice to support learning in the Pakistani early years educational context. In Pakistan, there is a growing focus on quality provision of early childhood education and building early childhood education teacher capacity. Over the course of one academic year, data were collected from kindergarten teachers in a Pakistani urban school through interviews and classroom observations as part of a larger study. Findings presented in this paper are based on the interview data of two teachers in the sample, a novice and an experienced teacher. Data analysis examined their perceptions of kindergarten children’s learning and of their practice to support kindergarten children’s learning, taking into consideration the gender perspective. The results showed tensions in the teachers’ perceptions which contrasted between a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach. Perceptions of their practice reflected a formal, teacher-directed approach rather than a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach to teaching. Several factors, including deep-rooted perceptions as well as curriculum structure, time, number of staff and resources, contributed to this.     

Language Learning Beliefs:A Survey of Chinese High School Students

1. Introduction To our knowledge, students come to the class with their own mini-theories about language learning. Those mini-theories are called language learning be- liefs (LLBs) by Horwitz (1987) and viewed as a com- ponent of metacognitive knowledge in cognitive psy- chology (e.g., Flavell, 1979). Studies show that LLBs exert either positive or negative effects on learning process. Therefore, it is quite necessary to take a com- prehensive investigation into the beliefs held by lan- gu…     

A Longitudinal Study of Children’s Developing Knowledge and Reasoning in Science

The growth in science understanding and reasoning of 12 children is being traced through their primary school years. The paper reports findings concerning children’s growing understandings of evaporation, and their changing responses to exploration activities, that show the complexity and coherence of learning pathways. Children’s responses to identical explorations of flight, separated by two years, are used to explore the interactions between conceptual knowledge and scientific reasoning, and the manner in which they change over this time. The paper discusses the particular insights afforded by a longitudinal study design, and some attendant methodological issues.     

A Measure for Pupils’ Inconsistency of Response to a Self-Report Instrument of Attitudes toward School

A scale was developed to measure pupils’ inconsistency in replying to a self-report questionnaire regarding attitudes toward school (Israeli Quality of School Life Scale–IQSL). The effect of inconsistency on the scale’s validity was examined empirically at both class and individual levels. A student was scored for an inconsistent answer whenever a response to a pair of items was contradictory. Eight such pairs were identified on the IQSL by independent judges. Subjects were over 6,000 pupils from 245 classes in approximately 70 randomly selected elementary, junior, and senior high schools in Israel. Results indicated that inconsistency could lower the internal consistency of the IQSL subscales. Direction of inconsistency differences between pupils in advantaged and disadvantaged schools and at various grade levels led to the conclusion that inconsistent behavior in answering the self-report measure is more a result of unwillingness to cooperate than an inability to cooperate.