Get Involved!

Transition to Grade 1: Parent's and teachers' instructional and emotional support and children's adjustment and achievement.

Project duration

1.1.2016 - 31.12.2019

Core fields of research

Learning, teaching and interaction

Research areas

Motivation, learning and environment for learning

Learning and interaction

Learning, learning difficulties and factors affecting learning

Department

Department of Psychology

Co-operation

Mykolas Romeris University, University of Jyväskylä

Faculty

Faculty of Education and Psychology

Project description

"Get involved!" is a longitudinal study that is carried out by two cooperating universities: Mykolas Romeris University (Lithuania) and University of Jyväskylä (Finland). The aim of this study is to investigate the role of parents and teachers in the development of children’s academic achievement, motivation, and behavior across the transition from preschool to primary school.

The study will contribute to the field by providing information on the role of parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and affect in children’s outcomes which is crucial in promoting learning among students in school.

This project seeks to test a comprehensive model of child development in the early phase of a child’s school career (transition from preschool to Grade 1), taking into account both parental influences and teacher influences, as well as children’s evocative influence on their interpersonal environment.

The image captured kids running in a classroom

Keywords: parents, teachers, instructional support, affect, achievement, motivation, problem behaviour.

Methods and data

Data of about 300 children, their parents and teachers were collected three times: one in preschool and two in Grade 1. Parents of the children were asked to answer questionnaires concerning their own involvement in academic-related activities, affect, and cognition concerning their children. Teachers were asked to rate children’s behaviour, as well as their own activities, affect, and cognition concerning their students. The children’s measures, which concerned achievement, motivation, and behaviour were administered individually by school psychologists.

The image shows a flowchart with three downward arrows indicating time periods: Spring 2017 linked to Preschool, Autumn 2017, and Spring 2018 linked to Grade 1, illustrating the progression over an academic year. — Data collection timeline

The image is a diagram with four quadrants against a peach background, each labeled with a different category: Parents, Children, Teacher: individual child, and Teacher: group level. Each quadrant lists factors related to educational development such as improvement of reading and math skills, child’s temperament, vocabulary, and teaching style. The layout suggests a focus on different perspectives in the educational process. — Evaluation criteria for different stakeholders

Project goals

To examine the longitudinal relations between parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and emotions, and children’s outcomes in school (e.g., achievement, motivation, behaviour) across the transition from preschool to the primary school.
To identify cases in which parents’ and teachers’ instructional support and affect have the most favourable outcomes for children’s achievement, motivation and behaviour, and to determine the mechanisms by which those positive outcomes emerge.

A female student working on the tablet in the classroom

Children exhibiting conflictual relationships with their parents and teachers at the beginning of Grade 1 performed worse on spelling and subtraction tasks and demonstrated lower task-persistent behaviour at the end of Grade 1 than those with average (good) relationships with parents and teachers.

G. Silinskas & E. Kikas (2022)

Publications

Silinskas, G., Gedutiene, R., Torppa, M., & Raiziene, S. (2024). Simple view of reading across the transition from kindergarten to grade 1 in a transparent orthography. Scientific Studies of Reading, 28(1), 60–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2023.2220848

Jaruseviciute, V., Kiuru, N., & Silinskas, G. (2022). Teacher– and parent–child relationships and children’s adjustment behaviors in grade 1: The role of temperament. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(8), 1363–1375. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0001023

Silinskas, G., & Kikas, E. (2022). Patterns of children’s relationships with parents and teachers in grade 1: Links to task persistence and performance. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 836472. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.836472

Silinskas, G., Aunola, K., Lerkkanen, M.-K., & Raiziene, S. (2021). Parental teaching of reading and spelling across the transition from kindergarten to grade 1. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 610870. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.610870

Silinskas, G., Di Lonardo, S., Douglas, H., Xu, C., LeFevre, J.-A., Garckija, R., Gabrialaviciute, I., & Raiziene, S. (2020). Responsive home numeracy as children progress from kindergarten through grade 1. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 53, 484–495. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2020.06.003

Davolyte, J., Raiziene, S., & Silinskas, G. (2020). Priešmokyklinės klasės pedagogų saviveiksmingumas: kaip tai prognozuoja priešmokyklinio amžiaus vaikų atkaklumą ir elgesio savireguliaciją? [Teachers’ self-efficacy: How does it predict children’s task persistence and behavioral self-regulation?]. Psichologija, 62, 8–24. https://doi.org/10.15388/Psichol.2020.17

Raiziene, S., Garckija, R., Gabrialaviciute, I., Jaruseviciute, V., & Silinskas, G. (2019). Besiformuojantis raštingumas, matematikos ir savireguliacijos gebėjimai priešmokykliniame amžiuje: lyčių skirtumai [Gender differences in early literacy, mathematical, and self-regulation skills in pre-school]. Social Work, 17, 174–190. http://dx.doi.org/10.13165/SD-19-17-2-04

Jaruševičiūtė, V. (2019). Teacher–student relationship, task persistence, early academic skills and motivation at preschool (Master thesis, Department of Education, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland). Retrieved from https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/66899

Rahja, J., & Ruohonen, M. (2022). Partnership between parents and teachers and how it relates to children’s early literacy skills (Bachelor theses, Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland).

A 15 min PowerPoint presentation and discussion at the 21th European Conference on Developmental Psychology (ECDP) (University of Turku, Turku, Finland, 31.8.2023): “Parents’ trust towards teachers and teachers’ trust towards parents: Links to children’s task persistence and performance”.

A 15 min PowerPoint presentation and discussion at the 44th annual conference of the International School Psychology Association (ISPA) (University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 6.7.2023): “Mutual trust between parents and teachers: How it relates to children’s learning during transition to grade 1?”.

A 15 min PowerPoint presentation at the Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) 2023 Biennial meeting (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 24.3.2023): “Parental involvement and children’s math skills during transition to grade 1” in a paper symposium “Parental math involvement and children’s math skills: International perspective”.

Public lecture at the Lithuanian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (Vilnius, Lithuania, 12.6.2019): “How parents and teachers can facilitate children’s learning in Grade 1 [Projekto „Įsitrauk!” rezultatų pristatymas: kaip mokytojai ir tėvai gali padėti vaikui sėkmingai mokytis pirmoje klasėje]”.

A 15 min PowerPoint presentation and discussion at the 18th European Congress of Psychology 2023 (ECP 2023) (The Brighton Centre, Brighton, Great Britain, 4.7.2023): “Task Persistence During Grade 1: The Rile of Parent–Child and Teacher–Child Relationships”.

Project members

Vilija Hiltunen

Postdoctoral Researcher

Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

Professor, Vice Head of Department

External members

Saulė Raižienė

Professor

Mylokas Riomeris University

Get Involved!

Table of contents

Project description

Methods and data

Project goals

Publications

International publications

Publications in Lithuanian

Publication for general audience

University theses

Presentations

Project members

Vilija Hiltunen

Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen

External members

Saulė Raižienė

Renata Garckija

Ingrida Gabrialavičiūtė

Antanas Valantinas

Lars-Erik Malmberg

Monique Senechal

Jo-Anne LeFevre

Eve Kikas