Facilitating the Transition to First Grade: The Nature of Transition and Research on Factors Affecting It

Abstract

In this article we describe the nature of the first-grade transition and summarize several studies that have investigated how children's schooling proceeds over this period. Drawing on Beginning School Study data that include children's marks and test scores plus information about their parents and schools, we carried out a longitudinal study of a large random sample (N = 790) of children who began first grade in Baltimore in 1982. We studied effects on the transition for children attending full-day rather than half-day kindergarten, of living in different kinds of family arrangements, and of several other circumstances. We found that children with more kindergarten, those whose families included coresident grandmothers, and those who did not change schools between kindergarten and first grade did better over the transition, other things being equal. We close with a list of implications for practice based on what is known about the first-grade transition and offer suggestions for future research.