ABSTRACT
In Western societies, children around the age of five live most of their lives in two major settings, home and school. They alternate between these two settings five days a week for about forty weeks every year. Few would dispute that home and school play complementary roles in children’s learning. Since parents and teacher share overlapping areas of interest and responsibility for the same children, with whom they interact in different settings, two things might reasonably be expected. First, a co-operative partnership between parent and teacher in helping children to learn should be both feasible and effective. Secondly, the study of children’s acquisition of academic skills in one setting and the utilization of these skills in the other setting should be a major focus for applied behavioural research. Surprisingly, progress in either of these directions has been somewhat limited. It is interesting just how much the home and the school settings remain isolated one from the other.
