A Community Effort to Support the Transition from Pre-K to Kindergarten

BPI is pleased to share a new report on the Altgeld-Riverdale neighborhood’s PreKindergarten to Kindergarten Transitions Project (PKTP), a program that promotes an intentional approach to early educational transitions through the implementation of classroom and community transition practices.

Transition from Pre-K to Kindergarten

PKTP brings together teachers and families from across all six schools and early childhood centers serving pre-K and kindergarten students in the Altgeld-Riverdale area, and is staffed by BPI. Researchers at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research studied the first full-year implementation of PKTP in 2016-2017.

Key Findings:

  • Teachers reported that the PKTP’s community-wide focus was unique and central to their engagement with each other and the collaborative relationships fundamental to creating alignment between pre-K and kindergarten.
  • PKTP’s three components of common classroom practices, field trips, and family fun nights were mutually reinforcing over time and facilitated both classroom and community transition work.
  • Teachers and parents reported a greater sense of community as a result of their PKTP participation. Teachers reported feeling more connected to each other across grade levels and schools because of their participation in PKTP. Teachers and parents also reported feeling more connected with one another through the family learning activities.
  • The participation of an external facilitator (BPI) proved key for ongoing collaboration and successful implementation of PKTP.

These findings will be used by BPI as we consider future iterations and changes to PKTP. More broadly, studying this model provided researchers an opportunity to add to a new and growing knowledge base about practice efforts to improve children’s transitions to and through kindergarten.

We invite you to learn more about the project and the research study by reading the Full Report and Executive Summary.

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