Children experience many changes in their early years. At preschool, their developments may include moving from playtime to cleanup, from circle time to table activity, or from playing outdoors to coming back into the classroom. In particular, the transition to kindergarten is one of the biggest development in their early lives. It is a significant shift in children's lives and their families so as educators we need to establish the best practices that help their early learning settings. As a director at the Child Development Center since 2009, I have been a witness my preschoolers to graduate and transfer to kindergarten. Every year, on their graduation day, with mixed emotions, I wish them the best in their future. However, I still wonder if my little boys and girls have been well prepared for adapting to the new learning environment or not.
According to the data of school age students at my school, there are 75% of students who achieve learning development well, but it also has 15% of students who do not achieve good results in their learning progress and 10% of them fall behind in school. Through investigation to find the cause, I understand for those unprepared students into kindergarten, parents greatly influenced their learning outcome. Thus, how to provide all students a smooth and efficient transition from the preschool program to kindergarten that helps them to succeed in their education is one of the biggest concerns of my position as a school administrator.
As Brown (2005) said, transition is an important component of school readiness. When all programs work together to facilitate children’s transitions and include families as partners in the process, children experience less stress and are more likely to show progress more quickly in the new setting. Therefore, partnerships between parents, early childhood educators, and elementary schools to develop a research-based transition team will support school readiness and ensure the effective transition to kindergarten for preschoolers. Similar to what Malsch, Green & Kothari (2010), said in their study “Understanding Parents’ Perspectives on the Transition to Kindergarten: What Early Childhood Settings and Schools Can Do for At-Risk Families”, entering kindergarten is a significant milestone in the lives of children and families. Children and their families encounter lots of challenges and changes such as new relationships, roles, cultures, opportunities, and responsibilities. They also added, when the transition to kindergarten is successful, children engage and feel positive about school, parents are partners in their children’s learning, and schools provide experiences that value individual children and promote their success. Moreover, children with social-emotional challenges need teachers and parents to prepare them to be successful in school because children with emotional or behavioral challenges are more likely to have difficulties transitioning to school. This can set them on a negative developmental trajectory if their transitions are difficult (Malsch et al, 2010). Moreover, children with social-emotional challenges need teachers and parents to prepare them to be successful in school because children with emotional or behavioral challenges are more likely to have difficulties transitioning to school. That can set them on an adverse developmental trajectory if their transitions are difficult. Malsch et al., (2010) recommended the best practices into the family, preschool, kindergarten, and community contexts. Drawing from the parent perspectives, as well as from the information collected from preschool and kindergarten teachers, they proposed a conceptual model linking essential elements of transition practice to parent involvement in children’s transition to kindergarten. Transition supports provided by key early childhood educators and kindergarten teachers also help ensure a successful transition; especially the supports are collaborated from teachers and families. The collaboration between preschool teachers, parents, and kindergarten teachers play a vital part in the transition from a preschool program to kindergarten. Results of the study of Malsch et al., (2010) suggest that preschool teachers play a key role in facilitating parent involvement in the transition process. They also said preschool teachers helped support parents and children emotionally, reducing their stress and anxiety, building parents skills and confidence to be advocates for themselves and their children during the transition process. In particular, Malsch et al. (2010) concerned that transition supports provided by schools primarily involved providing information to parents, although a number of parents felt that the information was late in arriving, and not sufficiently helpful. Equally, the collaboration from kinder teacher is very important. In addition, Malsch et al., (2010) suggested that kindergarten teachers often come to preschool parent meetings to talk about what kindergarten would be like and what parents should expect to include the consistent translation of information support for non-English- speaking families.
Additionally, the overall aim of the article “Preschool children’s transition to formal schooling: The importance of collaboration between teachers, parents and children” Skouteris, Watson & Lum (2012) was to focus specifically on the effectiveness of transition programs targeting collaboration between primary teachers and preschool teachers, parents and children. They contend that preschool teachers, parents, and kindergarten teachers need to collaborate, adjusting their teaching and supporting practices to aid each child. They also determined how such teacher collaboration is achieved to result in the best outcomes for both the students and families, and even teachers as well.
In short, having a comprehensive collaboration between schools and families allows schools to build on their strengths. Collaboration has an impact not only on students and teachers, but also on the school as a whole. They will be able to discover the information and insights required to make universal student success a reality. Moreover, collaboration with others can contribute to the professional knowledge base and improve the teaching and learning process by helping teachers discover how to alter their instruction and curriculum across varied contexts. Therefore, I make a plan for working with preschool teachers, kinder teachers at primary school, and parents throughout the process to prepare a smooth and effective transition for my young students from a preschool program to kindergarten.
References:
Brown, G. (2005). Terrific Transitions: Ensuring Continuity of Services for Children and Their Families. SERVE Center at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Retrieved from http://www.serve.org/TT/tt1f.pdf
Malsch, A., Green, B., & and Kothari, B. (2010). Understanding parents’ perspectives on the transition to kindergarten. Retrieved from pathwaysrtc.pdx.edu/pdf/pbBestPractices3.pdf
Skouteris, H., Watson, B. & Lum, J. (2012). Preschool children’s transition to formal schooling:The importance of collaboration between teachers, parents and children. Retrieved from search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=062050350304682;res..
