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Preschoolers' academic readiness: What role does the teacher-child relationship play?
Francisco Palermo1, Laura D Hanish, Carol Lynn Martin
1School of Social and Family Dynamics, Program in Family and Human Development, Arizona State University, Box 873701, Tempe, AZ 85287-3701, United States.
Abstract:
We examined the role of the teacher-child relationship quality (close, dependent, and conflictive) on preschoolers' (N = 95) academic readiness for kindergarten, and we tested children's prosocial and aggressive behavior and peer group exclusion as mediators of this relation. A unique feature of this study is the ethnically and socio-economically diverse preschool-aged sample. The association between close teacher-child relationships and academic readiness was partially mediated by prosocial behavior and peer group exclusion. There was also evidence of a transactional association between close teacher-child relationships and children's behavior. Additionally, children's behavior and peer group exclusion mediated the relation between negative teacher-child relationships (dependent and conflictive) and academic readiness. The findings suggest that teacher training, education, and support for establishing close teacher-child relationships may maximize preschoolers' academic readiness by promoting social adaptation.
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