Christine Patton and Justina Wang. (2012). Ready for Success: Creating Collaborative and Thoughtful Transitions into Kindergarten. Harvard Family Research Project www.hfrp.org
The article significantly reflects on the aspect of transition from preschool settings into the kindergarten that marks a vital event in the lives of the majority of learners and their corresponding families. The transition associates with the changes and challenges of the parents and children with reflection on the perspective of family-school collaboration. According to the article, for the children beginning kindergarten necessitates the aspect of adjusting to the changes from the emotional and social support received from the early educators and caregivers. This is to the expectations and rigor of the specified school setting. This forms the significant framework of the family-school collaboration with the transition also involving new peer-related negotiations as the corresponding students work towards the maintenance of the existing friendships and the new form of relationships (Patton & Wang, 2012).
The transition involved also necessitates the new peer-related consultations as the majority of the students work to ensure that they maintain the existing form of relationships and friendships. It also requires the adaptation of the new environment with the different framework layout with the new behavioral rules and boundaries. For the families, the expected transition is regularly accompanied by the decrease in the form of communication with the respective teachers and the increment in a desire to enable the understanding of the academic expectations. The article also reflects on the early social performance with the academic achievement as the predictors of the later success in school. This ensures that the children get off to a proper start with the perspective of the kindergarten, which is critical (Patton & Wang, 2012).
The article suggests that some of the problems that associate with the importance of family-school collaboration are addressed through the exposure of the corresponding children to practices and with a focus on the school development readiness skills. Much of the school transition practices involving preschoolers visit of the kindergarten classrooms with teachers also involved have a modest and positive effect on the achievement academically during the kindergarten year. The social competencies rating from the teachers link to the faster development of skill during the kindergarten perspective with transition practices increasing in number. The outcomes magnified are for every student within the learning framework from every family (U.S. Department of Education: Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, 2011).
The implementation of this information in classroom/school would involve the promotion of the significance perspective of family and school partnerships during the period of transition through accountability. This will also involve the making of joint school training and the professional development of the opportunities available towards the increment of transition practices knowledge (Desimone et al, 2010).
References
Christine Patton and Justina Wang. (2012). Ready for Success: Creating Collaborative and Thoughtful Transitions into Kindergarten. Harvard Family Research Project www.hfrp.org
Desimone, L., Payne, B., Fedoravicius, N., Henrich, C. C., & Finn-Stevenson, M. (2010). Comprehensive school reform: An implementation study of preschool programs in elementary schools. The Elementary School Journal, 104(5), 369–389.
U.S. Department of Education: Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. (2011). Digest of education statistics: 2010 (NCES 2011-015). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011015.pdf
