What do Kindergarteners Need?

The Kindergarten Teacher Survey project was designed to understand teachers' perceptions of kindergarten readiness, children's behavior and the transition to kindergarten (Curby, 2015). This study builds on a 1996 survey of kindergarten teachers conducted by the National Center for Early Development and Learning. Our study surveyed over 500 teachers from across the country participated in the online survey. To date, we have three major products that summarize responses from this survey.

According to one set of analyses (Curby & Berke, 2016), kindergarten teachers indicated that many of their students were not ready for kindergarten. Furthermore, these teachers prioritized social–emotional skills over academic skills at entrance to kindergarten. Finally, teachers reported on classroom-based problem behaviors. Interestingly, the most commonly reported behavior problem was "Difficulty working independently” with 33 percent of teachers reporting that half or more of their class exhibited that problem. 

A second set of analyses examined the transition practices in kindergarten and the barriers teacher encounter with implementing transition practices (Curby et al., 2017). We found that teachers used most the practices that are easiest to use — such as sending home a newsletter — that are likely to be less effective. The most effective practices — particularly those who are most likely to have a difficult transition — such as visiting the child's home prior to the start of school, were the least–commonly used. In addition, teachers viewed the primary barriers as related to the school.

Finally, we have examined kindergarten teachers' experiences with children with special needs in their classrooms. Results indicated that most Kindergarten teachers (59 percent) had at least one child receiving special education services in their classroom that year. When asked about what the children's diagnoses were, 40.9 percent of classes had at least one child with a speech or language impairment, 22.1 percent had at least one child with a developmental delay, and 18.1 percent had at least one child with autism spectrum disorders. These results suggest that general education teachers regularly have children in their classrooms with disabilities. Teachers' certifications were mostly in early childhood (n = 308) or elementary education (n = 438), but few had special education certification (n = 65). Combined with the fact that teachers also reported that they were prepared, on average, between ‘a little' and ‘some' by their degree/certificate program to teach children with disabilities/special needs, our findings suggest that certificate/degree programs need to do more to prepare teachers to work with children with disabilities.

Curby, T. W. (2015, October). The kindergarten teacher survey. APA Education Leadership Conference. Washington, DC.

Curby, T. W., Berke, E., Alfonso, V., Blake, J., DeMarie, D., DuPaul, G. J., Flores, R., Hess, R. S., Howard, K., Lepore, J. C. C., Subotnik, R. F.  (2017, April). Transition practices into kindergarten and the barriers teachers encounter. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Austin, TX.

Curby, T. W., & Berke, E. (2016, April). Kindergarten teacher perceptions of kindergarten readiness: The importance of social-emotional skills. Paper presented at a roundtable of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.