Prefirst Placement: Parent Attitude Survey

Abstract

Signs of low-achievement in kindergarten students lead to difficult decisions for parents. Often parents request that their children be pushed ahead into first grade, hoping that the child will catch up. However, studies have shown that it is rare for the child to ever be able to catch up with the rest of the class. Making children repeat kindergarten is also problematic, as children are not learning any new material, and their self-confidence may be shaken seeing their peers advance ahead of them. An alternative option is to place these children into a prefirst grade class. Prefirst grade classes have a large success rate in improving a child’s chances of succeeding in later grades, and positively impacting self-confidence. However, in spite of the success, parents often view prefirst classes as negative. In this master thesis, the author surveyed 114 parents of children enrolled in prefirst grade within the Rochester NY school district. The survey was composed of 17 questions pertaining to parent’s initial feelings of placing their children in prefirst classes, and their feelings after their children completed the class. The results show that while almost half of parents were unhappy about the initial placement, 75% of parents were happy about the placement by the end. Generally, parents found the prefirst grade to be beneficial to their child’s listening, learning, and self-esteem.