Lessons from Three Decades of Transition Research

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of activities to ease children's transitions to school. In an effort to inform current and future work, in this article we review the major federally initiated transition demonstration efforts of the past 3 decades (Follow Through and Head Start Planned Variation; Project Development Continuity; the Head Start Transition Project, the National Transition Study; and the National Head Start/Public School Early Childhood Transition Demonstration Project). Although the findings from these studies have been far from conclusive and have not strongly affected policy and practice, they do offer lessons for those concerned about implementing transitions. After investigating what has been learned from past research, we recommend a multipronged approach to promote continuity in children's early development and learning.