5 Bridges to Successful Student Transition

From the new P&M Press title

Successful Student Transition
by Ruth Sutton

A student’s learning life has many “transitions”: from home to school, from grade level to grade level, from one stage to the next. None of these is more problematic or impacts more on student learning and school achievement than the transition from elementary school to secondary school. In Successful Student Transition, Ruth Sutton offers many practical suggestions for making student transition successful. She presents “five bridges” as a way for schools to respond to and cross the “gulf” between elementary and secondary schooling. The bridges are:

1. The managerial/bureaucratic bridge, which is mainly concerned with systems and structures in schools.
2. The social bridge, which focuses on efforts to make students feel safe and secure as they move from the elementary-school building to the secondary-school building.
3. The curriculum-content bridge, which deals with the continuity of content and programming between the elementary school and the secondary school.
4. The pedagogy bridge, which is concerned not so much with what students learn as with how they learn it.
5. The “learning-to-learn” bridge, which focuses on developing and maintaining the metacognitive self-awareness of students, encouraging them to become the “vehicles of their own progression.”

In Ruth Sutton’s new book, you will find many effective strategies for guiding students through a successful transition from elementary school to secondary school in your community or your district. To browse or purchase a copy of Successful Student Transition, please visit www.pandmpress.com.