Abstract:

Holistic education covering child‘s physical, emotional, cognitive, cultural, mental, moral, social and spiritual development is emphasized at pre-school age. Besides, it is necessary to ensure the focus not only on the integrated but also qualitative individualised pre-school education, to use effective means of quality system such as assessment of child‘s achievements and progress, providing information to all persons participating in child‘s life on the results of education, also integral holistic development of child‘s competences at pre-school institution and his or her family. There has been an active discussion on the assessment of pre-school children’s education achievements in Lithuania for several years in order to ensure the quality of children’s education.

Problem of Research:
Scientific researches show that the assessment of child‘s progress is important and useful, however, there is a lack of information about how parents get involved to the measurements of child‘s progress. That brings us the problem questions: do parents see the meaning of assessment of child‘s progress at pre-school education institution? Are they periodically informed on the achievements of their child? The research aim is to reveal the parental attitude towards the assessment of child‘s achievements at pre-school education institution by emphasizing the usefulness of this process to parents and its use for additional education of children at home; by indicating the factors allowing to encourage the efficiency of assessment process of child‘s achievements.

Methodology:
Research method is inquiry. Cluster sampling was used to form its sample. The essence of cluster sampling is to select the groups – the parents (270 respondents) of pre-school children is a separate group as the assessment of achievements was applied on their children (in 7 kindergartens) and the parents were asked on the meaning and usefulness of such process. The research instrument is the questionnaire. The method of qualitative data analysis was the content analysis. The study is allowing data for wider researches in the future covering the context of the whole country.

The research results:
The measurement of children achievements and progress is a significant step helping to ensure a more specific and effective education at pre-school education establishments. Parents whose pre-school age children were observed, assessed according to the quality procedures by recording their achievements and progress, see the benefit of this process. The assessments of children‘s achievements, in the opinion of the majority of parents, reveal the achieved results by children or the gaps that parents try to eliminate at home by focusing on development of specific abilities of the child. Information on the child‘s progress is delivered when talking to the pre-school teachers, by receiving letters. Parents consider useful when they receive various information about child‘s development in cognitive processes, therefore, parents undertake the obligation to continue child‘s education at home. According to parents, the achievements of their children can be higher if there is a close collaboration between parents and pedagogues, if all parents undertake responsibility for their children‘s education at home, if children are encouraged more often and have possibilities to practice, and experience as many positive emotions as possible.

Keywords:

Pre-school children, achievements, assessment, parents.