Facts In Action

Although universal school-readiness has been embraced as a national education goal, the concept of "school-readiness" remains highly controversial. It has been criticized because the most commonly-used measures of a child's preparedness for school tend to ignore individual differences, inequities in children's experiences and opportunities, the responsibility of schools to teach all children appropriately, the tendency for some instructors to concentrate on only teaching skills that are going to be measured, and the emphasis on academic progress to the detriment of social skills. Without accepted criteria for what young children should know and be able to do when they are 4 or 5 years old, parents and preschool teachers must rely on their own beliefs regarding readiness as they prepare children for school.

A recent study compared the beliefs of preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and parents in a high-need urban school district to learn their views of what children should know and be able to do when they enter kindergarten. Parents and teachers agreed that children must be healthy and socially competent, and be able to comply with teacher authority, although parents placed a higher priority on the latter. Parents rated "classroom-readiness" skills (such as communicating in English and basic knowledge and skills) as more important than teachers did. Also, preschool teachers believed that knowledge was more important than kindergarten teachers did.

One explanation for parents' elevated beliefs in the importance of classroom readiness may be that in economically depressed areas parents have realistic concerns that their children might not succeed in poorly funded local schools. Therefore, they place an emphasis on the acquisition of concrete skills as opposed to interest and curiosity in learning. The research suggests that differences between preschool and kindergarten teachers' visions of school-readiness may stem from the widespread lack of communication between preschools and kindergartens about what is being taught, a perception by preschool teachers that kindergartens are becoming more academic, pressures from parents, preschool teachers' lack of confidence in local schools, or from kindergarten teachers' expectations that they will be teaching academic skills.

The researchers recommend that kindergarten educators and preschool teachers communicate and formulate a plan of what children should know and be able to do at school entry. This could be achieved through joint professional development, funding for local transitional coordinators to oversee regular communication about the transition from preschool to kindergarten, and meetings between elementary school principals and preschool directors to engage in dialogue about school-readiness. Throughout this process, the study recommends that parents' priorities and beliefs regarding school-readiness are not dismissed.

Source:
"Parents' and Teachers' Beliefs About Children's School-readiness in a High-Need Community," C. Piotrkowski, M. Botsko, Eunice Matthews, Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Volume 15, Number 4, 2000.

Facts in Action, August 2001