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BUTTERFLIES IN the stomach and a brand new outfit. Family gathered round. A few tears -- usually the tears of a parent. And an awareness that life will never be quite the same again. It is the first day of school -- the first day of "big school."
One of the few universals of childhood in our society is the transition to school. As each child crosses the threshold of the school, that child embarks on a remarkable course of learning accompanied inevitably by successes, failures, friends made and lost, and interests turned on and turned off. Make no mistake, school is the real world, and what happens there matters -- now and forever.
After the family, the school is likely to be the most profound influence on the course of a child's life. Moreover, the relationship between the family and the school makes a big difference in how well a child adjusts to school and how much a child benefits from school. In fact, the family/school relationship really begins before the child enters the classroom and is expressed in the ways the family talks about and prepares the child for school.
In this article, we first discuss the concept of school readiness and the process of making the transition to school. We then review the early signs of successful school transitions and identify some fundamentals of young children's learning environments. We address these three issues because we know that they are crucial to preparing children to benefit from their first formal schooling experiences. Optimal early learning environments serve both to promote children's development and to foster positive attitudes toward learning itself. For children with only minimal preparation prior to entering school -- a situation that, according to kindergarten teachers, applies to an increasing number of children in our society -- specific prevention and compensatory strategies are likely to be needed.(1)
RETHINKING SCHOOL READINESS
For years educators and parents have shared the belief that children need to be prepared or "readied" for school. This widespread belief reflects the idea that the school and home environments are discontinuous. That is, expectations about children's behavior at home and at school differ because of the distinctive roles these entities play and because values, goals, practical concerns, group dynamics,...