Abstract
This paper contributes to a growing literature that suggests that in order to understand the transition to school, one should employ an ecological approach. Such an approach involves simultaneous consideration of individual and contextual factors, studied over time. Much of the current literature on the transition focuses on the transition from the perspective of school, but we were interested in relations between what occurs prior to school and performance in school. We used Bronfenbrenner’s Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) ecological model to focus primarily on the relations between school-relevant activities of preschool-aged children and teachers’ subsequent perception of the children’s competence once they had entered school. At Time 1 we observed 20 3-year-olds’ engagement in everyday activities (Process) and their initiation of those activities (Person) over a 20-hour period covering the equivalent of an entire waking day. Children were drawn from two social classes (Context). The preschool observations were followed by 2 consecutive years of teacher reports of academic competence following entry into elementary school (Times 2 and 3). Middle-class preschoolers engaged in more school-relevant activities than did working-class children, and preschoolers who initiated and engaged in more conversations were subsequently perceived by their teachers as being more competent.
Highlights
Entering school is one of the most critical transitions children in the industrialized world undergo, and a good deal of recent attention has focused on trying to ensure a successful entry (Pianta & Cox, 1999; Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000)
For this study only families of EuropeanAmerican descent were recruited
Because children may engage in different activities in different settings and at different times of the day, it is not possible to describe typical activities without following them into those different settings and observing them at different times
Summary
Entering school is one of the most critical transitions children in the industrialized world undergo, and a good deal of recent attention has focused on trying to ensure a successful entry (Pianta & Cox, 1999; Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, & Cox, 2000). There are clearly differences in teachers’ perceptions of children’s “readiness,” that concept is defined (Meisels, 1999) Those who enter school well prepared by the standards of their teachers begin at an advantage over their less well prepared peers, an advantage that frequently becomes progressively greater as time goes on (Douglas, 1964, Entwisle & Alexander, 1999, Kerckhoff, 1993, Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000, Vernon-Feagans, 1996). Within a short time after entry to kindergarten, many teachers have formed their perceptions of the children and their backgrounds (Meisels, 1999) They often have met the children’s parents or guardians (Zill, 1999) and, given the typical homogeneity of elementary schools’ catchment areas, they know a good deal about the families’ socioeconomic status and ethnic background. They have formed an initial impression of the children’s ease of making the transition, and may have already assessed some of the skills, abilities, and competencies that the children have in a variety of domains
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