| Understanding the characteristics that comprise the child that is ready for school has been the major focus of most research on school readiness. No consensus exists regarding what it means "to be ready for school". There is agreement, however, among a variety of professional disciplines that (1) the concept of school readiness is far too restrictive in its implications to meet the educational needs of young children, and (2) the readiness concept needs to be replaced by a more complex and process-oriented view of continuing readiness to learn.; This study approached readiness from a broad social and cultural perspective, and it considered contextual factors such as family, school, community, and it examined the complex processes that influence a child to be ready for school. The central focus of this inquiry was on the parents' initial perception and subsequent changes of the readiness concept as their children experienced the primary grades.; Data were obtained from (1) twelve families selected from two small rural Maine towns in Hancock County, and (2) ten school and community volunteers using qualitative research methodology. Results were interpreted using Spradley's (1979) Developmental Research Sequence (DRS) and suggest that all parents in the study initially considered readiness for school to mean to be ready socially. The participating families did not change their initial concept of what it means to be ready for school as their children moved through the primary grades, but they maintained a strong belief in the efficacy of social readiness. The parents, however, relied extensively on their past readiness experiences to modify or change readiness practices with subsequent children when the needs of an individual child warranted such changes. |
