TITLE:
Views of Parents for Difficulties in the Transition from Kindergarten to Primary School. The Role of Counseling and Future Trends in General and Special Education
AUTHORS:
Elli Samara, Vasiliki Ioannidi
KEYWORDS:
General and Special Education, Difficulties, Transition, Kindergarten, Primary School, Counseling
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.5 No.12,
December
21,
2018
ABSTRACT: The importance of collaboration between parents and teachers in the field of education has been recognized internationally with the significance of active parental engagement in school life being highlighted. Especially, a child’s transition from Kindergarten to Primary School can be a life-changing experience not only for the child itself but also for its family. The present research was conducted in May 2018 with the school year having been completed in order to collect research data on parents’ views about the difficulties they consider children face during their transition to Primary School. The research was based on structured interviews which can both be used as a qualitative and quantitative research methodology. In this research the participants were sixteen (16) parents of kindergarten children from five (5) Kindergartens in the municipality of Thessaloniki. The results of this research fill in a small gap, demonstrating that parents consider the transition from Kindergarten to Primary school important and are aware of the challenges their children could face during this period of development. School counseling could provide both help and encouragement to those parents properly preparing to support their children through this major life change and to assure themselves that they will cope with any future difficulties effectively.