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22 Jun 2016
Report

What Do Transitional Kindergarten Classrooms Look Like in the Third Year of the Program’s Implementation?

California’s Kindergarten Readiness Act of 2010 established transitional kindergarten (TK), the first year of a two-year kindergarten program for students affected by the change in the birthdate cutoff for entry into kindergarten from December 2 to September 1.

This fifth short report in a series highlighting findings from the Study of California’s Transitional Kindergarten Program focuses on what we have learned about the structure, teachers, and instruction in TK classrooms in the 2014–15 school year. The findings are based on a survey of 200 TK teachers and 184 classroom observations in 20 school districts conducted in spring 2015.

Three years into the implementation of transitional kindergarten, we examine the characteristics of TK programs across the state—the structure of TK classrooms, characteristics of teachers, and the content and organization of classroom instruction. The surveys of TK teachers and observations of their classrooms conducted in spring 2015 provide a snapshot of how TK was being implemented in the third year of statewide rollout of the program.

Key Findings

  • The majority of TK classrooms provided a structure that may be conducive to supporting student readiness for kindergarten.
  • The average TK classroom was smaller than kindergarten classrooms, but the ratio of teachers to students was lower than is required for State Preschool.
  • Standalone TK classrooms provide a more balanced curriculum and a more developmentally appropriate experience for TK students than TK/K combination classrooms.
  • Teachers in both standalone TK and TK/K combination classrooms demonstrated moderately high quality interactions in terms of emotional support and classroom organization.
  • Districts could provide TK teachers more guidance on how to promote children’s thinking and problem solving, use feedback to deepen understanding, and help children develop more complex language skills.
PDF icon What Do Transitional Kindergarten Classrooms Look Like in the Third Year of the Program’s Implementation? (PDF)

Related Projects

tk image.jpg

Happy young students
Project

Study of California's Transitional Kindergarten Program

California's Transitional Kindergarten (TK) is intended to provide an additional year of early education for younger children, with the goal of promoting their success in school. The Heising-Simons Foundation and The David and Lucile Packard Foundation are partnering with AIR to study the impact of TK on children’s academic and social-emotional skills in kindergarten, and how these impacts are related to program quality characteristics.

Related Work

22 Jun 2016
News Release

Transitional Kindergarten More Developmentally Appropriate When Classrooms Are Not Combined, AIR Study Finds

With transitional kindergarten now fully implemented in California, AIR has published a new report examining program features, including teacher qualifications, classroom structure and instructional content.
28 Jun 2017
Spotlight

How Transitional Kindergarten Helps Younger Children Prepare for School

Created in 2010 by the Kindergarten Readiness Act, transitional kindergarten offers younger children in California additional time to prepare for school. Transitional kindergarten provides an additional year of early education to approximately 120,000 children each year, with the goal of promoting their school readiness. Explore resources that show what we’ve learned about transitional kindergarten so far.
Topic: 
Social and Emotional Learning, Education, Early Childhood and Child Development

Further Reading

  • Transitional Kindergarten More Developmentally Appropriate When Classrooms Are Not Combined, AIR Study Finds
  • How Transitional Kindergarten Helps Younger Children Prepare for School
  • Transitional Kindergarten in California: Comparing Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten Classrooms
  • Transitional Kindergarten in California: A Review of the First Year
  • AIR Study Finds California’s Transitional Kindergarten Gives All Students an Advantage for Kindergarten
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Karen Manship

Karen Manship

Principal Researcher
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Jennifer Anthony

Senior Researcher

Topic

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Child Welfare
Early Childhood and Child Development

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