The Role of Parents in Children’s School Readiness

The aim of this research was to examine parental practices aimed at supporting children’s school readiness in social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains. A case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The study group of the research included 25 participants. The participants were determined with the maximum variation sampling type of purposive sampling method. A semi-structured interview form consisting of two parts was used as the data collection tool in the research. The findings obtained in the study were analysed with the content analysis method. The research findings revealed that for supporting children’s school readiness in social terms, parents performed practices related to friend relationships, social activities, educational activities, family interaction and giving responsibility, while for emotional support, they engaged in oral communication, emotional support, spending time and doing activities. It was revealed that for supporting children’s school readiness in cognitive terms, number activities, book reading, games and oral activities were performed; for language support, conversation, book reading, games and feedback were practised; while for support in terms of self-care, practices aimed at fostering habits, giving responsibility and being a role model were carried out.


Introduction
Early learning experiences provide opportunities that affect children's development and contribute to developing their competences. While everything children learn from birth onwards forms the basis for the things they will learn later, this basic competence can be evaluated as a sign of readiness. Readiness is defined as the balance between the child's chronological age and its growth, development and maturation (Graue, 1993). Readiness expresses the acquisition of the skills and abilities required to carry out a certain learning activity (Pianta, Cox & Snow, 2007). School readiness, a term which is used to define children's individual abilities when they start school (Snow, 2006), is a construct that facilitates learning and adaptation to school. School readiness is a multidimensional concept that includes children's physical health and academic, social, emotional and linguistic competences (Kagan 1992;Miller & Kehl, 2019;Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta, 2000). School readiness encompasses a range of skills required for children to succeed in the physical, social, emotional, linguistic and cognitive domains (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Readiness for school begins with the gradual development of the skills of sitting quietly, focusing on tasks, following instructions and expressing oneself (Blair, 2002). School readiness represents the competences acquired by the child in its areas of development. In other words, school readiness is the whole of the behaviours required to carry out learning activities.
Every child can show different characteristics in terms of its development. Together with greater acceptance of the developmental approach (Cairns & Cairns 2006), studies related to school readiness have focused on the child's developmental characteristics. In the National Education Goals development of competences in the social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and physical domains, and with support provided by the environment from birth onwards.
The child grows and maintains its development as a member of the family and society.
Children's knowledge and skills can be associated with the capacity for support from their environment and the individuals with whom they interact in this environment for their development and learning. These contexts are taken into account while children's state of readiness for school is being assessed (Miclea & Mihalca, 2007). Socio-cultural, ecological, psychoanalytical and sociocognitive theories evaluate the child in terms of the context he/she belongs to. These theories emphasise the effects of the characteristics of the parental and family environment on the child's cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional development. Bronfenbrenner's (1986) ecological theory stresses the effect of factors inside and outside the family in shaping children's development. The family system that the child belongs to supports the child's success at school and shapes its school experiences (Pianta & Walsh, 1996). Children who are given better quality support by their parents for their early education and care acquire higher cognitive and social skills (Pianta, Barnett, Burchinal & Thornburg, 2009). Physical, cognitive, linguistic and socio-cultural skills are predictors of later school achievement (Claessens & Engel 2013;Davies, Janus, Duku & Gaskin, 2016;Duncan et al, 2007;Kull & Coley, 2015). The majority of research related to the home learning environment examines behaviours for encouraging readiness enabled by parents at home (Bradley, 1994;Christian, Morrison & Bryant, 1998). Families' daily routines in the home environment, such as bedtime activities, reading books, and eating together have an impact on the child's academic achievement and social development (Ferretti & Bub, 2017). The quality of parent-child communication and the support given to the child also contribute to the child's success at school (Rimm-Kaufman, Pianta, Cox & Bradley, 2003). Especially, a sensitive care approach, a large amount of learning material, opportunities for cognitive stimulation, and predictable routines provided by parents develop children's learning motivation, self-regulation skills, language and literacy skills, and socio-emotional skills (Mashburn & Pianta, 2006). Parents contribute to children's acquisition of cognitive, social, behavioural and emotional skills and to their school readiness that will facilitate their learning and school adaptation when they start school. Children need the support of their families for their healthy development and good quality education.
As children's first teacher, parents can play a role in supporting the child's readiness for school. Issues concerning family participation (Puccioni, 2018), family education (Mathis & Bierman, 2015) and family characteristics (Burchinal et. al., 2018;Son & Peterson, 2017) that affect children's readiness for school are frequently discussed in studies. These reveal that family education programmes have positive effects in supporting children's academic performance (Valcan, Davis Bierman, Motamedi, Heinrichs & Gill, 2018). Although there are studies based on parental practices for school readiness (Jose et. al.,2020;Puccioni, 2015), it can be said that there is a need for further research to reveal positive practices that encourage children's school readiness. In this study, developmental support practices provided for children by their parents and aimed at school readiness are examined. Based on the ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1986), which evaluates school readiness as the child's achieving the expected level in all areas of development with the support of the family and environment, and as the child's acquisition of the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes in this regard, children's school readiness skills that are supported by their parents are focused on. In the study, the role of parents in the development of children's social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care skills related to school readiness is examined from the perspective of parents. It is thought that the results obtained in this study will serve as a guide for home-centred school readiness implementations.
The aim of this research is to examine the role of parents in children's school readiness. In line with this aim, the sub-aims of the research were determined as examining: (1) Parents' social support practices for children's school readiness, (2) Parents' emotional support practices for children's school readiness, (3) Parents' cognitive support practices for children's school readiness, (4) Parents' language support practices for children's school readiness, and (5) Parents' self-care support practices for children's school readiness.

Research Method
This research, which was conducted with the aim of examining the parental role in the child's readiness for school, was conducted with a case study design, one of the qualitative research methods.
Qualitative research studies examine specific events from various aspects, make sense of the data obtained, interpret the data, and attempt to make the data understandable (Neuman, 2014). The case study is a research method by which one or more than one event, environment or social group are examined in detail and in depth within their own real-life framework (Flyvbjerg, 2006). Using a case study, the support provided by parents to their children for school readiness was examined in the social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains within a real-life framework.

Study Group
25 participants with children in the 5-6 age group were included in the study. The participants were determined with the maximum variation sampling method, one of the purposive sampling methods. Purposive sampling aims to provide an in-depth understanding by selecting information-rich cases (Patton, 2014). In maximum variation sampling, instead of generalising, an attempt is made to discover whether there is a common phenomenon among cases showing variation (Marczyk, DeMatteo & Festinger, 2005). Variation was enabled by selecting participants for the study from among families of different age groups and with different socio-economic levels, having different numbers of children of different ages, and with at least one child attending a preschool education institution. The aim was to reveal similarities in parents' practices towards school readiness by discussing various cases related to the parents. The research variables were determined as parents' age, education level, employment status, number of children and socioeconomic level. 23 mothers (92%) and 2 fathers (8%) were included in the study. According to the age variable, 9 participants (36%) were aged 21-30, 15 (60%) were aged 31-40, and 1 (4%) was aged over 40. In terms of education level,, 7 participants (28%) had primary school education, 8 (32%) had secondary school education, and 10 (40%) had high school education. While 8 participants (32%) were working, 17 participants (68%) were unemployed. With regard to the variable of number of children, 3 participants (12%) had 1 child, 13 (52%) had 2 children, 5 (20%) had 3 children, 3 (12%) had 4 children, and 1 participant (4%) had 5 children. 23 of the participants (92%) included in the research had a medium socioeconomic level, while 2 participants (8%) had a high socioeconomic level.

Data Collection Tool and Data Collection
The research data were collected with the interview method. The interviews were conducted by using a telecommunication tool. In the data collection process, the researcher should be able to collect data with effective questions, and should see every new case encountered as a meaningful opportunity (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2011). For this purpose, an interview form consisting of semi-structured questions was prepared by the researcher. An interview form serves as a guide for obtaining data in line with the aims of the research, determining the guidelines of the interview and directing the researcher in the interview (Merriam, 2009). The semi-structured interview form included questions aimed at determining parents' demographic characteristics and questions related to parents' support for children's school readiness in social, emotional, cognitive, language and self-care domains. While preparing the interview form, the opinions of three domain experts were sought, and a pilot study was carried out with two parents outside the study group. Following these implementations, the interview form was given its final shape. Prior to the interviews, the participants were informed about the aim of the research and an attempt was made to create an environment of trust. The interview data were recorded with the note-taking technique.

Data Analysis
The research data were analysed with the content analysis method. Content analysis is a data analysis technique that aims to access different themes and concepts by analysing the data in depth (Marshall & Rossman, 2006). During the analysis process, the steps of organising and encoding the data, finding the themes, organising the codes and themes, describing the findings, and interpreting the findings were followed (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). The data obtained from the interviews were organised by reading them several times and the interview notes were anonymised. Coding was made in line with the sub-aims of the research. During the coding, all views considered to respond to the same research question were combined under the same code. The codes obtained from the data were organised and grouped in themes. The data obtained from the interviews with the parents were collected under five themes. The themes and codes are presented together with quotations from the participants' views.

Validity and Reliability
To ensure validity and reliability in the research, the criteria of variation, expert examination, participant validation, and rich and in-depth description were taken as the basis (Merriam, 2009). In this study, inter-rater variability, which expresses the use of multiple analysts to check the findings, was used (Patton, 2014). The data were coded separately by two researchers, and the codes created by each researcher were checked by the other researcher. For inter-rater reliability, the formula [Number of agreements / (Number of agreements + Number of disagreements) X 100] developed by Miles and Huberman (1994) was used. Accordingly, it was determined that the expert opinions provided a reliability coefficient of 88%. Expert examination was carried out by obtaining feedback from two experts during the creation of the codes and themes. For participant validation, at the end of the interviews, validation of the obtained data was provided by the participants. For rich description, the data are presented in detail and the participants' views are supported with direct quotations.

Results
In this section of the study, the findings related to parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness are presented under five themes. Findings for social, emotional, cognitive, language and self-care themes are explained in detail with figures and direct quotations from the participants' views.

Social Support Practices
Parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness from the social perspective are included in Figure 1 below. 'I always talk to him and chat with him; I do not display a very heavy-handed attitude.'(P.18) 'I chat, I try to take him with me to the places where I go.'(P.20) Giving responsibility: 'I make sure he takes responsibility.'(P.6)

Emotional Support Practices
Parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness from the emotional aspect are presented in Figure 2 below. 'I try to spend more time with him.'(P.5) 'We make a point of spending time together.'(P.14) Doing activities: 'I let him watch cartoons that are appropriate for his age and encourage him to care for animals.'(P.9) 'We read books. We try to solve problems with affection and attention.'(P.6)

Cognitive Support Practices
Parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness from the cognitive perspective are shown in Figure 3 below. 'We play word games. I say a word. He makes a sentence containing that word. Then he says a word to me and I make a sentence.'(P.5) 'We repeat things in order to reinforce his memory.'(P.11)

Language Support Practices
Parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness in terms of language are included in Figure 4 below. As can be seen in Figure 5, parents supported children's school readiness with respect to selfcare with 3 different practices. Self-care support practices for children were expressed as fostering habits by 16 participants (42%), giving responsibility by 13 participants (34%), and being a role model by 9 participants (24 ). Participants' views on the subject of self-care practices for supporting children's school readiness are presented below.
Fostering habits: 'I encourage him to perform tasks concerning himself on his own, such as feeding himself and washing his hands by himself.'(P.8) 'We give him the opportunity to perform his own skills and acquire habits suited to his age.'(P.16) Giving responsibility: 'I support him by giving him duties and telling him that he has to perform them himself.'(P.1) 'I make sure he helps with chores at home, and I ensure that he brushes his teeth himself, folds his clothes himself, and helps to set the table.'(P.4) 'We try to make sure that he does his own jobs himself.'(P.14) Being a role model: 'I wash my hands together with him. I brush my teeth beside him and make sure that he sees how I do it.'(P.9) 'I do things the right way beside him and explain them while doing them.'(P.13) Self-care Being a role model Fostering habits

Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations
The aim of this study was to examine parents' practices aimed at supporting children's school readiness in the social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains. School readiness, which is defined as the state of being ready to perform any activity in social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains, aims for the child to acquire skills and behaviours that will enable him/her to experience a sense of achievement. The immediate, home environment that consists of family members plays a critical role in supporting the child's development and school readiness.
When the findings of the study were examined in relation to parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness from the social aspect, it was determined that these practices concerned friend relationships, social activities, educational activities, family interaction and giving responsibility. It is seen that parents attempted to ensure that their children established friendships for school readiness. Considering the effect of friendships on social development, it can be said that peer interaction will support school readiness. Similar studies show that peer interaction has a positive effect on school readiness (Burgess & Ernst, 2020;Polat & Akyol, 2016;Sabol, Bohlmann & Downer, 2018). It was revealed that parents tried to ensure the socialisation of their children by means of social activities. Through social activities, children can acquire cooperation, sharing and empathy skills. It is thought that parents can support their children's socialisation by shaping their social skills.
It is revealed in studies that social skills are correlated with school readiness (Walker & MacPhee, 2011) and that social competence facilitates adaptation to school (Hunter, Bierman & Hall, 2018).
Parents also supported their children for school readiness from the social perspective with educational activities. It can be stated that educational games, applications and videos were used to foster social skills. Through these activities, children's acquisition of skills such as saying thank you, apologising, and admitting they are wrong can be enabled. Similar studies demonstrate that family routines are an important means for preparing children for the transition to school (Ferretti & Bub, 2017), and that parents' participation in their children's early learning experiences encourage them to be prepared for school (Hajal, Paley, Delja, Gorospe & Mogil, 2019;Marti, Merz, Repka, Landers, Noble & Duch, 2018). It was determined that parents gave importance to interaction within the family and that they interacted with their children in order to support them socially. Chatting with the child, not exhibiting a heavy-handed attitude and respecting the child's decisions as an individual in the family can enable the child to feel valuable and be independent. Autonomous and self-confident children become more competent in terms of school readiness. Research studies reveal that developmental support provided by home life and families (Crosnoe, 2007;Leventhal, Selner-O'Hagan, Brooks-Gunn, Bingenheimer & Earls, 2004;Son & Peterson, 2017), and family relationships and characteristics (Farver, Xu, Eppe & Lonigan, 2006;Gullo, 2018) are effective for children's school readiness. The research findings are such as to support the findings obtained in this study. It was determined that one parent aimed to support their child's school readiness in a social sense by giving him responsibility. It can be thought that children's awareness of their responsibilities and ability to do things by themselves will pave the way for school readiness.
When the findings of the research were examined with regard to parents' practices to support children's school readiness from the emotional perspective, it was determined that these practices were related to oral communication, emotional support, spending time and doing activities. It was revealed that parents tried to support their children's school readiness in emotional terms by communicating with them orally. One can say that with oral communication, parents aimed to ensure that children were aware of and expressed their emotions. Talking about children's emotions and enabling them to express their emotions will help them to give meaning to their emotions. It is seen that recognising and expressing the emotions affects the formation of school readiness in an emotional sense (Garner & Toney, 2020;Harrington, Trevino, Lopez & Giuliani, 2020). It is seen that another practice carried out for school readiness was offering children emotional support. It was observed that both positive and negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, sadness and happiness were accepted by parents and that they supported their children with regard to coping with these emotions. It is expected that for school readiness, children should feel emotionally at ease and be able to recognise their emotions and express them correctly. In research studies, it is revealed that emotional state has an impact on children's school readiness (Soltis, Davidson, Moreland, Felton & Dumas, 2015;Treat, Sheffield-Morris, Williamson & Hays-Grudo, 2020). It was also determined that for school readiness, parents attempted to ensure that their children felt good emotionally by spending more time together with them. It can be said that the emotional bond formed between the child and its family affects children's social and emotional competences. Studies show that relationships within the family and emotional competence make a significant contribution to school readiness (Beceren & Özdemir, 2019;Sheridan, Knoche, Edwards, Bovaird & Kupzyk, 2010), and that secure attachment enables children to be prepared for school (Bernier, Beauchamp & Cimon-Paquet, 2020). It was found that parents tried to support their children emotionally with activities like caring for animals and book reading. It can be stated that through different activities, parents wanted to ensure that their children expressed their emotions. The child's environment provides emotional support for the child through game opportunities and relationships (Kirk & Jay, 2018). One can say that supporting children emotionally via different activities has an effect on their school readiness.
When the study findings were examined in terms of parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness from the cognitive aspect, it was determined that that these practices were related to number activities, book reading, games and oral activities. It is seen that parents gave importance to mathematical and literacy activities for school readiness. Many of the parents stated that they conducted mathematical activities for school readiness. It was revealed that number counting, number recognition, addition and subtraction activities were performed with children. It was found that literacy preparation activities were also carried out with oral activities such as finding words and making words. It is considered that these practices will support the child's cognitive development. Similar studies reveal that the memory is a significant predictor of readiness for school (Baptista, Osório, Martins, Verissimo & Martins, 2016;Sahin & Is-Guzel, 2018;Swayze & Dexter, 2018), and that school preparation programmes have an effect on school readiness (Duncan, Schmitt, Burke & McClelland, 2018;Nonoyama-Tarumi & Bredenberg, 2009). It was determined that book reading was regarded as necessary by parents for supporting their children's readiness for school. It can be said that reading books, examining the pictures, and analysing and interpreting books by discussing them are practices that support cognitive skills enabling concentration. In research studies, it was found that concentration is directly correlated with academic performance and readiness for school (Isbell, Calkins, Swingler & Leerkes, 2018), and that the quality of parent-child interaction is a predictor of the child's cognitive functions (MacPhee, Prendergast, Albrecht, Walker & Miller-Heyl, 2018;Valcan, Davis & Pino-Pasternak, 2018). It is seen that parents intended to provide support in a cognitive sense by means of the games they played with their children. Considering the place of games in the child's development, one can say that parents' support for their children's school readiness through games is a positive practice. Similar studies reveal the positive effects on children of supporting academic activities through games (Kjaer, Bach & Dannesboe, 2020;O'Sullivan & Ring, 2018), and that different learning approaches support children's readiness for school (McWayne, Fantuzzo & McDermott, 2004;Vitiello & Greenfield, 2017). Parents' practices for supporting children for cognitive readiness with different activities show similarity with the findings of the present study.
Examination of the research findings with regard to parents' practices for supporting children's school readiness in terms of language reveal that these practices were concerned with conversation, book reading, games and feedback. The use of conversation by many parents to support their children linguistically can be evaluated as an expected result. Chatting with children can be effective for the child to express itself orally and to learn examples of correct language from its parents. Similar studies demonstrate that parent-supported practices have positive benefits for children's language development and school readiness (Mathis & Bierman, 2015;Nix, Bierman, Motamedi, Heinrichs & Gill, 2018). It was determined that parents tried to support their children's school readiness in linguistic terms by reading books to them. Book reading is one of the practices that develop language skills and prepare children for literacy. While book reading improves children's vocabulary, it also develops their correct use of the language and their literacy awareness. Research studies reveal that book-reading practices for supporting literacy development at home are associated with school readiness in the early childhood period (Baker, 2014;Napoli & Purpura, 2018), and that books in the home have a positive effect on early literacy and reading skills (Quirk, Dowdy, Goldstein with picture cards can enable children to learn new words and use the grammatical structure of the language correctly. It was found that parents gave feedback by warning their children in cases where they pronounced words incorrectly and used words that were considered undesirable by their families. In studies, it is revealed that parent-supported language practices develop children's language skills (Leech, Wei, Harring & Rowe, 2018;Samur, 2021;Suskind, et al., 2016), and that family characteristics have an impact on children's early language and literacy skills (Rowe, Denmark, Harden & Stapleton, 2016). Parents' practices for supporting language show similarity with the results of this study.
When the findings related to parents' practices to support children's school readiness in terms of self-care were examined, it was determined that these practices were concerned with fostering habits, giving responsibility and being a role model. It was revealed that parents intended to foster self-care habits in their children and that they gave their children responsibility for this. It is expected that for school readiness, the child will be able to meet its own needs independently and acquire correct habits. It can be stated that children should be given responsibility for the development of their fine and gross muscles and for meeting their care needs themselves. Parents believed that the child's meeting its own care needs independently and acquiring hygiene habits were important for school readiness (Jose et. al., 2020). It was found that parents were role models for their children in acquiring these habits and enabled them to do this by demonstration. Considering that in the preschool period, many behaviours are learnt by observation and imitation, the parents' acting as role models and being a guide is a supportive practice. Similar studies show that the quality of care offered by families in the preschool period is effective in children's readiness for school (Fram, Kim & Sinha, 2012).
Furthermore, it is revealed that encouraging participation in physical activities can stimulate readiness for school (Becker, Grist, Caudle & Watson, 2018), and that motor skills are a powerful support for school readiness (Grissmer, Grimm, Aiyer, Murrah & Steele, 2010;Pagani & Messier, 2012;Sherry & Draper, 2013). These findings are such as to support the findings made in the current study.
When parents' practices aimed at supporting children's school readiness were examined, it was determined that various practices were carried out in social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic and self-care domains. It was determined that for supporting children's school readiness from the social perspective, parents performed practices related to friend relationships, social activities, educational activities, family interaction and giving responsibility, while for support in an emotional sense, they practised oral communication, emotional support, spending time and doing activities. It was revealed that for supporting children's school readiness in the cognitive aspect, number activities, book reading, games and oral activities were performed; for linguistic support, conversation, book reading, games and feedback were practised; while for support related to self-care, practices aimed at fostering habits, giving responsibility and being a role model were carried out. It can be said that support offered by parents to children in the preschool period is effective for children's school readiness. It can be recommended that parent training programmes are organised so that parents, who are children's first teachers and best know their children's development characteristics, can provide conscious support for their school readiness. For social support, the number of family and environment activities for enabling children's socialisation can be increased. In emotional terms, unconditional love and acceptance can be given so that children can be happier. The number of cognitive activities that encourage school achievement can be increased. To enable children to express themselves correctly, parents can be role models for their children with their conversations. To support children in a physical sense and for them to meet their own self-care needs, activities for developing their fine and gross muscles can be organised. Presenting example activities to families aimed at supporting their children's school readiness in the preschool period can produce positive outcomes.