Preparing Children for Primary One:
What You Need to Do
Dr Diana Lee
Faculty of Education
The University of Hong Kong
26 June 2020
Overview
1. Importance of home-school collaboration towards children’s transition to Primary One
2. Challenges faced by children in the transition from kindergarten to Primary One
3. Causes of stress and anxiety of children in the transition
4. Strategies to support children’s transition to Primary One
Importance of home-school collaboration towards children’s transition to Primary One
(Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Yeboah, 2002; Lee, S.H., 2010)
Transition from kindergarten to Primary One is one of the major transitions in a child’s life. Children have to overcome difficulties and challenges in learning, peer relationships, emotions, self-help, etc.
Successful transition to Primary One will help children in their learning and development, and enhance their performance in primary schools.
According to the Ecological Systems Theory by Bronfenbrenner (1979), connectedness and collaboration between family and schools have a direct impact on children’s development and their successful adaptation to a new environment.
School Family
Source:
Cole, Cole, and Lightfoot (2005). The Development of Children, 5thEdition, Worth Publishers.
Matters relating to Transition to Primary One
Learning Environment
Curriculum Design and
Learning Daily
Routines and Self-
Help
Adaptations for Primary One Pupils
Adaptations to be made
1.Learning Environment Larger school premises with multiple floors, classrooms and function rooms; need to adapt to a new learning environment with larger space and diverse facilities; there are many more people than in the kindergarten;
students of a wider age range (from age 6 to12) 2.Curriculum Design and
Learning
Primary school curriculum is of more breadth and depth and with more abstract concepts ; require students to have a longer attention span and more structured thinking to understand and apply the knowledge. More complicated words and vocabulary for reading comprehension, with more homework items and writing tasks
3.Assessment Need to adapt to different modes of assessment and ways to answer questions set by different teachers across different subjects. Parents have different expectations of children when they are in primary schools.
4.Peer Relationships Need to build relationships with new friends and new teachers, and be accepted by peers.
5.Daily Routines and Self-Help
Learn primary school routines, school rules and time-table, adapt to longer lesson time; need to exercise self-care including managing recess time, packing school bag, taking care of personal belongings and personal hygiene, etc.
(Curriculum Development Institute, 2010)
1. Learning Environment
Causes of Stress and Anxiety of Children :
• Larger school size
• Classroom setting
• Less toys and recreation facilities
• Larger classes and high student-teacher ratio
• Avoid going to the toilet as the washrooms are “not clean”
Strategies to Support Children to Adapt to Primary One School Life :
• Visit the primary school before school starts, find out about the learning environment and children’s impression of the school and help children adapt to the new school after the start of the school year.
• Provide self-help training to children
2.Curriculum Design and Learning
Causes of Stress and Anxiety of Children :
• Feeling stressed in class, as
teachers teach at a fast pace and the content is difficult
• Appear to be passive and detached in class, especially in front of
teachers; unwilling to ask questions or answer questions in class
(Wong, 2017)
Strategies to Support Children to Adapt to Primary One School Life :
• Deal with feelings first and then the issues
• Listen to children’s feelings with empathy, understand their problems and emotional changes, and help them understand primary school life and come up with
solutions together to tackle the problems
• Follow up on children’s learning progress, homework and sign the Student Handbook on a daily basis
• Maintain close communication with the teachers to
understand children’s performance in school and at home
Parent-Child Activity: Spend At Least
10 Minutes of Quality Time with Your Child
1. Parents should spend at least 10 minutes a day to chat with their children 2. Find a more relaxing time, such as after dinner, to chat with your child
3. Discuss what your child has done that day and encourage your child to share
his/her feelings, and exchange ideas
3.Assessment
Causes of Stress and Anxiety of Children :
• Children do not want to go to school because of frequent formative and summative assessments on their performance over many different subjects
(Wong, 2017)
Strategies to Support Children to Adapt to Primary One School Life :
• Set up a timetable with children for homework and subject revisions
• Build up children’s self-confidence and self- reliance
• Enhance children’s problem-solving skills (e.g. better time management for timely
completion of homework and revision; using visuals or stories to help them memorize
new words)
Parent-Child Activity : Let Your Child Have a Say in Time Management
1. Assist children to schedule time for both work and play
2. When children first learn to set up a timetable, let them decide the time needed to complete the tasks (Parents need to guide children to gradually understand the concept of time so as to decide if sufficient time is given to complete the tasks)
3. During the discussion with children on time scheduled for work and play, try to understand why
children prioritise the tasks in a particular way and give suggestions to them, such as on the criteria of task prioritisation
4. After transiting to Primary One, encourage your children to prioritise their work on their own, and set up a timetable for work and play together with them
5. Parents should provide verbal reinforcement during the process to enhance children’s sense of achievement
4.Peer Relationships
Causes of Stress and Anxiety of Children :
• Children feel anxious when primary school starts as they have no fellow
classmates from kindergarten who go to the same primary school with them.
Some got into physical fights with their new schoolmates
• Bullying: Some children reported peer bullying to teachers
(Wong, 2017)
Strategies to Support Children to Adapt to Primary One School Life :
• Take your children to different kinds of group activities (e.g. ball games) so they can interact with children of different ages, abilities and temperaments
• Explain to children ways to build up friendship and to interact with others, such as sharing,
expressing your feelings, and forgiving others
• Encourage your children to adopt a positive
approach in problem-solving, and approach
teachers for help when needed
Parent-Child Activity : Let’s PLAY TOGETHER
1. In various occasions and setting of daily lives (e.g. park, Sunday School, family gatherings), parents can show children how to make new friends and play together with different games (e.g. “traffic light” game, “stick together” game ) to help
children learn about playing methods and techniques of games and understand how to get along with others
2. When there is conflict among children, parents should analyse the situation with children in a calm manner, and demonstrate a positive attitude in solving problems so that children can acquire social skills and problem-solving skills through
interpersonal interaction
5. Daily Routine and Self-Help
Causes of Stress and Anxiety of Children :
1. Unable to set aside time for breaks 2. Unable to copy a list of homework in
the Student Handbook
3. Unable to pack his/her school bag or forget to bring the books home,
forget to do homework occasionally 4. Unable to clean up after toileting
(Wong, 2017)
Strategies to Support Children to Adapt to Primary One School Life :
1. Train children to read the timetable correctly and understand lesson time and school
routines
2. Train children to record a list of homework in their Student Handbooks correctly and pack their school bags and other items for school
3. Train children to clean up after toileting
Signs of Difficulties in Writing
Problem with Motor Skills
• Incorrect sitting position
• Incorrect pen-gripping posture
• Feel tired easily when writing
• Unable to hold pens with appropriate strength
• Colouring/writing out of the lines
• Chinese character strokes are either too long or too short
• Very slow in writing
Problem with Visual Cognition
• Characters/words are out of proportion
• Characters/words are upside down
• Difficulty in writing new characters/words
• Missing characters/words or missing/unnecessary strokes
• Wrong characters/words or wrong strokes
• Inappropriate spacing between words
and within a word
Fundamental abilities in writing: Motor Skills and Visual Cognition Motor Skills
a) Stability of the joints of the upper limbs
b) Tripod grip: an efficient grip to hold a pencil using the thumb, index and middle fingers c) Pencil skills: to have the refined fine motor
movements that allow the fingers to control the pencil and move with dexterity
(Chan, 2019)
Visual Cognition
a) Ocular motor control: the control of the
position and movement of the eyes to focus on the visual target. This includes visual tracking such as Pursuits, Saccades, Fixation, and
Vergent Movements. Good development of ocular motor control reinforces important cognitive skills necessary for successful reading and writing
b) Visual discrimination
c) Visual spatial processing
Parent-Child Activity：Eye-hand Coordination Games
1. Pursuits (Head stays still) (e.g. magic cup, patting balloons, Flying Chess, drawing maze) 2. Saccades (Head stays still) (e.g. Visual discrimination games such as asking your child to go
through a magazine page and circle only certain shapes/numbers/alphabets)
3. Improve attention span and visual memory skills + Saccades and Fixation activities (e.g.
identifying differences, making models)
4. Enhance stability of upper limbs (e.g. playing human rickshaw, doing push-ups)
5. Enhance eye-hand coordination + finger dexterity and tripod grip (e.g. playing with clay,
making hand crafts, daily self-care activities)
Development of Self-help Skills
Development of Children aged 4-6 Toileting
Skills
• Able to sit on adult toilet seats
• Clean up with tissue paper after pee (for girls)
• Toileting (Clean up with tissue paper after poop)
Eating Skills
• Eat solid food such as peanuts
• Use chopsticks
• Use knife to spread jam on bread
• Drink from a bottle
• Open food packages Dressing
Skills
• Identify the front and back of a jacket/t- shirt
• Zip up/down a jacket
• Differentiate left and right shoes
• Turn a jacket/t-shirt inside out
• Lace their own shoes
Daily • Use clothes hanger • Pack personal belongings
Factors that Facilitate the Development of Self-help Skills
Environmental Factors
1. Opportunities for practice 2. Sufficient time
3. Appropriate coaching
(Suen, 2019)
Training on Self-help Skills – Methods and
Strategies
1. Analysis of Self-help tasks and activities
Task analysis:
1. Break down the task into small steps 2. Necessary skills and requirements 3. Needed tools
(Suen, 2019)
2.Fine Motor Skills Activities
↑Upper limbs stretching
↑Motor coordination and eye-hand coordination
↑Manual dexterity
(Suen, 2019)
資料來源：
Act Like An Animal, 13 Moves to Help Your Child’s Gross Motor Development
https://pathways.org/help-your-childs-gross- motor-skills-with-these-animal-walks/
3. Behaviour Modification / Shaping
(Suen, 2019)
Source:
Homemade Shoe Tying Activity
https://www.cbc.ca/parents/play/view/homemade-shoe-tying-activity-craft How to Teach Your Child to Tie Shoes in 5 Minutes
https://www.blitzresults.com/en/childrens-shoe-tie/
The Fast + Easy Way to Tie Your Shoes (Great for Kids!)
https://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/the-fast-easy-shoe-tying-hack.html
Task modification
3. Behaviour Modification / Shaping
• Task analysis and chaining
(Suen, 2019)
Source:
The Little Black Duck Autism Communication Services
CO-OP approach
Goal Plan Do Check
Polatajko, H. & Mandich, A. (2004)
*CO-OP (Cognitive Orientation to daily Occupational Performance) Approach
Parent-Child Activity ：Positive Reinforcement
1. Parents can help children set up goals and provide rewards when children’s plan is formulated and goals achieved
2. Types of rewards include material rewards (such as stickers) or nonmaterial rewards (such as time for parent-child activities)
3. Non- material rewards are preferred and parents should evaluate and adjust the goals with
children regularly
Parent-Child Activity：Packing Checklist
Before going home
❑Put the Student Handbook and homework into the homework bag
❑Put other items into the school bag / hand carry bag
❑Check your drawer
❑Check the back of your seat (cardigan/school jacket)
❑ Check your seat
❑Check the hook (food bag, art bag, water bottle)
Packing at home
❑Check the number of homework items and reply slips against the Student Handbook, put the homework and reply slips into the homework bag.
❑ Put the homework bag into your school bag
❑What day is tomorrow? What are the lessons tomorrow?
❑Put the books, workbooks and homework into your school bag according to the timetable
❑Check your Student Handbook for special lessons tomorrow, such as items for music, P.E. or visual arts class
❑Put your Student Handbook into your school bag
(Heep Hong Society, 2017)
Conclusion
Things to Adapt to Strategies to Help Children Transit to Primary One
1.Learning Environment • School visit before the start of Primary School
• Enhanced self-help training 2.Curriculum Design and
Learning
• Deal with feelings first and then the issues
• At least 10 minutes of quality time with your child 3.Assessment • Let your child have a say in time management
4.Peer Relationships • Let’s PLAY TOGETHER
5. Routine and Self-help Skills • Eye-hand coordination games
• Positive Reinforcement
More information…
Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong
https://web.edu.hku.hk/event/parent-seminars
References
• Curriculum Development Institute (2001)。Leaflet for Parents on Helping Children to Adapt to their New Primary School Life. https://www.edb.gov.hk/attachment/en/curriculum-development/major-level-of-
edu/primary/materials/parents_new.pdf
• Curriculum Development Institute (2010)。Booklet on Enhancing the Smooth Transition from Kindergarten to Primary School. https://www.edb.gov.hk/en/curriculum-development/major-level-of-
edu/primary/materials/transition-from-k-to-p/index.html
• Curriculum Development Institute (2011)。Storybook on Helping Children to Adapt to Their New Primary School Life. https://www.edb.gov.hk/attachment/en/curriculum-development/major-level-of-
edu/primary/materials/storybook2003.pdf
• Lee, S.H. (2010)。Experience Sharing on Learning At Primary One and Transitional Strategies.
https://www.edb.gov.hk/tc/curriculum-development/major-level-of-edu/primary/materials/transition-from-k- to-p/index.html
• Heep Hong Society (2011)。Guide to Enhancing Children’s Self-care Abilities. 。香港：星島出版社。
• Heep Hong Society (2017). Primary One Made Easy. Hong Kong: Heep Hong Society.
• Wong M. A. (2017)。兒童升小學面對的壓力和應對策略。香港：香港教育大學。
References
• Suen, L.H. (August 2019). 兒童自理能力的發展與訓練：醒醒目目上小一。協康會主辦，兒童自理能 力的發展與訓練：醒醒目目上小一講座，香港。
• Chan, M. Y. (June 2019).。眼．動協調與書寫。協康會主辦，眼．動協調與書寫講座，香港。
• Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design.
Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
• Polatajko, H. & Mandich, A. (2004). Enabling occupation in children: The cognitive orientation to daily occupational performance (CO-OP) approach. Ottawa, ON: CAOT Publications.
• Yeboah, D. A. (2002). Enhancing transition from early childhood phase to primary education: evidence from the research literature. Early years: an international journal of research and development, 22(1), 51-68.
