Literacy is a long-term process that is systematically involved in the lessons of the first triad of primary school, however the process of literacy begins much earlier, which means that the children enter school with different prior knowledge, which the teacher must consider when lesson planning. Since almost all preschool children are enrolled in kindergarten (Statistični urad Republike Slovenije, b. d.-a), the purposeful development of pre-writing and pre-reading skills and abilities begins in that period. Still, the transition from kindergarten to school is stressful for the child, so we need to think about ways to ease this transition. One way is the cooperation of kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers, as this can make the transition continuous. Therefore, I researched the work of kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers in the field of literacy and their cooperation in the transition of children from kindergarten to school in my master’s thesis.
In the theoretical section, I first present the transition from kindergarten to school, focusing on the transition in other countries and in Slovenia, continuing with the importance of cooperation and effective ways of cooperation. I continue with the definition of literacy, emerging literacy, and literacy teaching, then I analyse the Kurikulum za vrtce (1999) and the Slovene language curriculum (Program osnovna šola, 2018) (hereinafter UN).
The empirical section presents the results of a quantitative research approach. I used an online survey and received 180 responses, 84 responses from kindergarten teachers of 5⠒6-year-olds in Slovenian kindergartens and 96 responses from teachers of the first grade of Slovenian primary schools. I investigated the current situation around transition of children from kindergarten to primary school and how kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers want to cooperate in this area in the future.
The results of the survey showed that kindergarten teachers are not familiar with the Slovene language curriculum (Program osnovna šola, 2018) and primary school teachers are not familiar with the Kurikulum za vrtce (1999). Nevertheless, most kindergarten teachers know what pre-reading and pre-writing abilities are and they systematically practice them at least once a week. When children enter the first grade, teachers check their prior knowledge of literacy. During the transition of children from kindergarten to school, only half of the kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers cooperate with each other. They mostly cooperate by visiting the school most children will attend and primary school teachers get information about the special needs of the children. Both kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers argue that cooperation at the transition of children from kindergarten to primary school is important. They find it most useful to cooperate by passing on information about the specificities of the children and by visiting the school most children will attend. There are no differences between respondents in the way of cooperation regarding length of service, statistical region, size of the town they work at and the proximity of the kindergarten to school.
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