A Educational Policy Perspective On Transition From Early Childhood Phase To Primary Education In The USA

With the development of preschool education, the difficulty is how to realize the smooth transition for children from kindergarten to be the focus in national education system starting from primary school. The success of the transition will have significant influence for children’s physical and mental health. However, there are many aspects affecting the development of the transition. The national policy is one of them. This paper is to study some educational policies about the transition in United States and analyze their social background and tendency in order to provide some references for solving the transition problems in China.This paper will introduce American education policies about the transition from kindergarten to primary school in two phases. The first phase is:60-80s of the20th century. The status of the preschool education in United States has fundamental change during this period. It became to be the most concerned cause of education. The transition paid close attention to cognitive ability and intelligence. In addition, it also respected the diversity and tried to make the children with different life background can pass the transition successfully. The second phase is:from the late1980s till now. Since the late of1980s, United States goes from industrial age to information society. The competition between countries is more inclined to science and technology, comprehensive strength. With additional national social crisis and racial conflicts, United States began to solve the problems occurred in the preschool education. The transition from kindergarten to primary school not only emphasis on the transition of children’s cognitive development, at the same time pays attention to children’s overall continuous development, will promote children’s social and emotional development as the focus of the transition period. Multi-dimensional and multi-level cohesion pattern is more scientific and reasonable than before.Although America’s policy of transition also shows shortcomings, however it still has important implications to our country. First of all, the results of scientific and reasonable preschool education research are the theory of improving smooth transition work. Secondly, the government financial support is the basis to improve the children’s transition process with fairness and integrity. Thirdly, the participation of families, the communities, and the full communication with the school are an effective way to promote smooth transition. Finally, paying attention to quality improvement, emotion, and social knowledge undertaking are the developing trends of the transition.