Writer

: Laura Lee Mcintyre, Tanya L. Eckert, Barbara H. Fiese, Florence D.

Digennaro, and Leah K. Wildenger

Year

: August 2007

Articles name

: Transition To Kindergarten: Family Experience and Involvement

Journal title

: Journal Of Early Childhood Education

Volume

: Vol. 35, No. 1

Page number

: 83 - 88

Summary
Family experiences and involvement in transition to kindergarten actually give the big
impact for childrens education. But there are rarely parents realized this fact. There are three
purpose of this research is transition-related activities from the perspective of family
stakeholders, the family concerns their childrens transition into kindergarten and explore the
environment variables that may be related to family involvement in transition. In this research,
there are 132 families/caregivers investigated based on the survey instrument by mailing. The
item survey is based on the child educational history, family concerns regarding transition,
family identified needs during transition, family involvement in transition-related activities and
family socio-demographic information. Based on the result that researcher get, most of parents
would like more information about their childs transition, including the information about
kindergarten academic and behavioral expectation as well as the future kindergarten placement
and teacher. Before the transition to kindergarten, teachers should do preparation on this childs
like schools visit, family meetings, discussing school with parents and develop strong parentprofessional alliances. The top concerns expressed by family about their childs transition to
kindergarten were attending a new school and compliances/following directions at school. Also
not forgotten, the socio-demographic also give the impact for transition to kindergarten that show

the families with fewer financial resources is less involvement in transition activities than the
families with more resources.

Criticism of the journal

The title of this article is about Transition to Kindergarten: Family Experiences and
Involvement is good and simple. However, the researcher should mention what the involvement
that families involved in the title so that people can understands the aim of the research. The
numbers of participants district school actually should be mention in abstract because when the
reader read this article, they will know that not only numbers of families just participant in this
survey. Besides that, the writer should mention what the aim of the research because in this
article there are three purpose of the current study. So that, the reader will confuse which one the
most aim to research. The method that used in this article also not mention in abstract.
Even they get a lot of result from the survey, there still lack of information that not
enough to reader understand. The table of result for the first goal not show in the article so that
the reader cannot see the differentiation result for the transition-related activities from the
perspective of family stakeholders. But the good information is, the researcher show the
percentage table for the result of family concerns the childrens transition to kindergarten and
explore the environment variables that may be related to family involvement in transition
planning and services. The objective in this research was not stated in the journal which it should
to be mention in the journal, so that the writer will know what the main objective they do this
research and the writer will understand what actually the writer want to tell. The other
strengthens in this journal, the writer do a lot of references from other researcher to related result
with the other research about relationship of parents experiences and involvement in transition to
kindergarten. Even this journal is more focus on parent involvement, the writer should discuss
about the involvement of teachers in this transition and what the programs that teachers have
done in school to prove the achievement of childs and change the mind of parents to be more
involved in this transition.