California's investment in Universal Transitional Kindergarten (UTK) reflects a commitment to providing access to UTK for all 4-year-olds in public schools by the 2025-2026 academic year. However, the implementation of transitional kindergarten (TK) presents challenges for districts in aligning this new grade coherently with existing grade levels…

Research Findings: The present study examined the transition practices reported by 59 pre-kindergarten (pre-k) and 186 kindergarten teachers in the rural Southeastern United States, and asked if transition practices related to skills at the beginning and end of kindergarten for 387 children. Analyses indicated kindergarten teachers offered more…

The Understanding Children's Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) Project was a multi-year project funded by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. The purpose of this project was to better understand how to improve children's…

The present study aimed to identify commonalities and points of divergence in the ways that parents, teachers, and administrators characterize children's transition from public pre-K into kindergarten within a large, diverse school district. A wide range of transition practices were in use across the district, including practices designed to…

This paper presents an account of a cross-sectorial study investigating whether shared understandings of practices might enhance continuity during transitions to school. Applying an ontological lens to cross-sectorial leading practices, the paper sheds light on the contextualised realities of transitions to school as a site specific lived…

In Chicago's Altgeld-Riverdale neighborhood, the Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten Transitions Project (PKTP) promotes an intentional approach to early educational transitions through the implementation of classroom and community transition practices. PKTP brings together teachers and families from across all schools and early childhood centers…

In Chicago's Altgeld-Riverdale neighborhood, the Pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten Transitions Project (PKTP) promotes an intentional approach to early educational transitions through the implementation of classroom and community transition practices. PKTP brings together teachers and families from across all schools and early childhood centers…

Early childhood educators are concerned about a "shovedown" of elementary school expectations, standards, and curriculum on to young children due to policy-makers' moves towards utilising preschool programmes to address disparities in academic achievement. This study employs interviews and classroom observations to contrast the…

This study focuses on parents' and teachers' perceptions of practices aimed at easing the transition to formal schooling (e.g., familiarization with the school, discussions about the school entrants). A total of 230 preschool teachers, 131 elementary school teachers, and 2,662 mothers and fathers filled in a questionnaire containing items on how…

Transitions from one classroom to the next as children reach a certain age or achieve certain milestones seem inevitable; however, this taken-for-granted practice in early childhood centers has not been looked at closely in research. This article considers what happens when we look more in depth at these day-to-day experiences of teachers and…

Empirical evidence that horizontal alignment of policies and practices from preschool through the early elementary grades sustains the effects of quality preschool and contributes to children's learning is scarce, as discussed above, but there are nevertheless good reasons to expect benefits to such alignment. Moreover, many districts and schools…

Early childhood transition services for children play a vital role in their successful entry to school; however, little is known regarding factors that may impact the use of various important transition practices. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a community demographic characteristic (specifically, rurality) on…

The transition of young children with autism from early intervention to school needs to be carefully managed in order to maintain intervention gains, protect against the risk of child-and-family anxiety, and enable a successful start to formal education. While many North American studies have mapped high-intensity practices for transitioning…

This descriptive study explored teachers' outreach to families in preschool, kindergarten, and first grade, and its relations to children's early growth in language, literacy, and mathematics. Teachers (n = 62) completed surveys reporting the frequency of outreach practices to families, and children's (n = 210) early academic skills…

This study examined whether the transition practices implemented in preschool-elementary school pairs contribute to children's academic development during the first year of elementary school. Participants were 398 children who moved from 36 preschools to 22 elementary schools in two Finnish towns. Children were tested in respect to their reading,…