Preschool Literacy Research Articles

A Collaborative Professional Development Initiative Supporting Early Literacy Coaches

Many believe that the key to translating research into successful practice lies in providing teachers with continuous professional development and ongoing coaching support. In this article, we provide an overview of the relevant coaching literature and describe 4 critical features of an evidence-based preschool literacy coaching model: the coach as a content expert, the coach as a promoter of reflective instruction, the coach as a professional development facilitator, and the coach as a builder of a schoolwide learning community. We also provide anecdotes about how these roles were realized in an early childhood educator professional development project and suggestions for coaches supporting literacy instruction in similar classrooms.

Promoting early reading: research, resources, and best practices

McKenna, Walpole, Conradi, Overview of Early Reading First. McGinty, Justice, Language Facilitation in the Preschool Classroom: Rationale, Goals, and Strategies. Ford, Language and Literacy Development for English Language Learners in Preschool. McGee, Dail, Phonemic Awareness Instruction in Preschool: Research Implications and Lessons Learned from Early Reading First. Zucker, Landry, Improving the Quality of Preschool Read-Alouds: Professional Development and Coaching That Targets Book-Reading Practices. Enz, Assessing Children's Needs. Morrow, Preparing Centers and a Literacy-Rich Environment for Small-Group Instruction in Early Reading First Preschools. Kimmel, Griffith, Evaluation: Practical Applications for Closing Achievement Gaps. Buell, Gamel-McCormick, Unger, Why Families Should Matter for Early Reading First. Reutzel, Jones, Assessing and Creating Effective Preschool Literacy Classroom Environments. Hutchinson, Chin, Rhodes, Reed-Victor, Case Study of a Successful Urban Implementation. McKenna, Brown, Eady, Lee, Case Study of a Successful Rural Early Reading First Implementation. Vukelich, Buell, Han, Early Reading First Graduates Go to Kindergarten: Are Achievement Gains Enduring?

Environment for Meaningful Development of Reading Literacy in Pre-School

Environment for Meaningful Development of Reading Literacy in Pre-School At a time when the scope and influence of information technologies are rapidly increasing, the development of reading literacy becomes a challenge for teachers. Pre-school teachers have a special role in the development of reading literacy, because children display interest in the written text and the information it holds already in pre-school. It is thus important that the child's first encounter with text be pleasant and exciting, personally significant and applicable for reaching one's goals and satisfying one's needs in everyday life. Hence, the development of reading literacy in pre-school ought to be meaningful, which cannot be ensured in a traditional, teacher-focused learning environment. That is why the paper summarises the best practical experience in a meaningful development of reading literacy. The conclusion is reached that a meaningful development of reading literacy occurs in an environment specially designed by teachers with constructivism as its theoretical basis.

Research Directions: Directions for Studying Early Literacy as Social Practice

In this essay, the author addresses the current status of emergent literacy research. First, she sets the stage by briefly exploring the important questions and continuing contributions of the emergent literacy perspective. Next, she examines some inherent theoretical tensions especially how emergent literacy’s research questions have bounded and constrained what is currently know about preschool literacy. Finally, she turns her attention toward new questions and new opportunities for understanding that flow from re-theorizing early literacy learning as social practice. Using data from her own studies of preschoolers’ early writing interactions, the author illustrates some exciting possibilities for expanding our understandings of early literacy learning.

Where Is NELP Leading Preschool Literacy Instruction?

This article discusses the potential positive and problematic influences of the National Early Literacy Panel ( NELP; 2008 ) report on prekindergarten and kindergarten classroom instructional practice. The authors support the instructional importance of the majority of the foundational skills identified in the NELP report as having “clear and consistently strong relationships with later conventional literacy skills” but also detail a number of concerns about NELP-influenced instructional recommendations drawn to date, arguing that the NELP report is both insufficiently clear and overly narrow with respect to what preschool teachers should be focusing on instructionally in early literacy.

Increased Implementation of Emergent Literacy Screening in Pre-Kindergarten

The recent emphasis on universal prekinder- garten programs, coupled with ongoing concern about children's' early literacy development in the first years of school, carry significant implications for how preschool educators program for literacy and assess literacy growth. We discuss the evolving role of literacy development in expanded preschool, examine key features of literacy assessments with particular attention to the content that might be assessed in preschool, and provide as an example one preschool literacy assessment tool that is in widespread use in the United States. We discuss the policy and practice implications of the growing emphasis on literacy assess- ment in preschoolers.

Explicit print referencing enhances early literacy in preschoolers

To what extent does preschool teachers’ use of a print referencing style during storybook reading increase the print knowledge of at-risk children when compared to teachers’ typical reading style? ...

Measuring Early Literacy Skills: A Latent Variable Investigation of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Preschool

Psychometric properties of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Preschool (PALSPreK) instrument were investigated in a sample of 4,518 children. PALS-PreK figures prominently in state and federal early literacy programs as an assessment of emergent literacy skills in preschool-aged children. Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and multigroup CFA were employed to evaluate the underlying factor structure and determine whether the identified structure was invariant across boys and girls. Results suggest that PALSPreK effectively measures the most important precursors to successful literacy acquisition: alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and print concepts, with generally the same degree of accuracy for boys and girls. These results, combined with the instructional transparency of the instrument, support the educational utility of PALS-PreK as a tool for guiding instruction in preschool literacy.

A Randomized Trial Study of a Preschool Literacy Curriculum: The Importance of Implementation

In this 1-year experimental study of 254 students across 27 high-poverty preschool classrooms in an urban setting in the northeast, use of a technology-based prekindergarten literacy curriculum in addition to the district curriculum was compared with the use of the district curriculum alone. Results indicated no main effects for the experimental curriculum. Following the initial analyses, fidelity of implementation in the experimental classrooms was examined and results indicated that children in classrooms rated as having high fidelity of implementation significantly outperformed low-implementing classrooms on two important phonological awareness measures. This trend favoring high-implementing classrooms was also evident on measures of letter-name knowledge, and beginning sounds. These findings suggest that program implementation may be a significant variable when examining the potential effects of literacy curricula on learning outcomes for young at-risk children.

Pre-School literacy in the light of european tradition

Abstract : In the field of kindergarten education there are two predominant, seemingly conflicting views of preschool literacy : reading readiness skills and emergent literacy. In the last decade (...)

Promoting Classroom Learning for Head Start Children: The Importance of Identifying Early Behavior Problems and Fostering Adaptive Learning Behaviors

In partnership with a local Head Start program in the southeastern United States, this study sought to: (a) examine the influence of problem behaviors on preschool language and literacy and mathematics achievement and (b) identify mechanisms that explain why children with behavior problems have difficulty learning in the preschool classroom. Children's behavior problems were found to negatively predict their learning behaviors as well as their language and literacy and mathematics yearly gains. Furthermore, learning behaviors were found to mediate the effect of behavior problems on language and literacy and mathematics. Preschool children with early behavior problems had less adaptive learning behaviors, which in turn led to lower academic outcomes. A variety of implications for early childhood programs are discussed.

Early teaching of Chinese literacy skills and later literacy outcomes

This study followed 88 children in Beijing and Hong Kong for three years to investigate the relationships between the early teaching of literacy skills and later literacy outcomes. The children were administered the Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale at the age of five years, and three years later. Their parents and teachers reported on their involvement in literacy teaching, the home/classroom literacy environment and their beliefs about language learning. Findings showed that the Hong Kong cohort significantly surpassed their Beijing counterparts in literacy attainments at age five and age eight. After controlling for age, site, maternal education and teacher qualification, formal literacy activities in early childhood significantly contributed to literacy attainment at primary school, whereas informal literacy experiences did not. Results suggest that the complicated nature of Chinese orthography may make early instruction particularly valuable in Chinese literacy acquisition. The psycholinguistic, pedagogical and sociocontextual accounts and implications of these findings are discussed.

Developing literacy in preschool

A Literacy-Rich Preschool Classroom. Research about Preschool That Informs Good Practice. Organizing and Managing a Literacy-Rich Preschool Environment. Organizing and Managing Instruction in Preschool. Oral Language Development in Preschool. Knowledge about Print. Comprehending and Enjoying Children's Literature. Writing in the Preschool Classroom. Afterword. Appendices: Fazzi, A. Glossary. Worobey, B. Integrated Language Arts Thematic Unit. Fazzi, Aguroso, C. Children's Literature. Batsiyan, D. Magazines for Preschoolers. Dunston, E. Professional Associations, Related Publications, and Websites Dealing with Early Literacy.

The Brown Bear and the American Eagle of Reading Research: Steven A. Stahl and Michael Pressley Remembered

This essay reviews the contribution to reading research of two scholars who died young, Steven Stahl and Michael Pressley, whose work is reflected in, respectively, Reading Research at Work: Foundations of Effective Practice, edited by Katherine A. Dougherty Stahl and Michael C. McKenna, and Shaping Literacy Achievement: Research We Have, Research We Need, edited by Michael Pressley and colleagues. Both books attempt an overview of research in reading in light of the report of the U.S. National Reading Panel (NRP). The Stahl volume focuses particularly on the NRP themes of teaching phonics, developing fluency and vocabulary, and comprehension. The Pressley volume focuses on themes the NRP did not review, including preschool literacy, home‐school literacies, adolescent literacy, and content area reading. Both books deal in depth with the development of reading comprehension, and each is, in its own way, very successful.

Untangling the effects of shared book reading: Multiple factors and their associations with preschool literacy outcomes

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood. One hundred and thirty children participating in a longitudinal investigation of literacy development were videotaped reading a storybook with a parent. Children were also videotaped in their 33 preschool classrooms during the instructional book-reading portion of the day. Readings were coded for adult and child contextualized and decontextualized language relating to both decoding and meaning-making skills, and relations between this talk and emergent literacy outcomes were analyzed. Results demonstrate that parents and teachers overwhelmingly focus their book-related talk on meaning-related rather than code-related information, and that the relations between outcomes and talk depend in part on children's initial levels of vocabulary skills. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

Word recognition and cognitive profiles of Chinese pre‐school children at risk for dyslexia through language delay or familial history of dyslexia

This study sought to identify cognitive abilities that might distinguish Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children at risk for dyslexia through either language delay or familial history of dyslexia from children who were not at risk and to examine how these abilities were associated with Chinese word recognition. The cognitive skills of interest were syllable awareness, tone detection, rapid automated naming, visual skill, and morphological awareness. We recruited 36 children whose sibling had been previously diagnosed with dyslexia (familial risk group) and 36 children who were initially reported to have difficulties in preschool literacy acquisition by either teachers or parents and subsequently found to demonstrate clinical at-risk factors in aspects of language by paediatricians (language delayed group); the mean age of these groups was approximately 61 months. Thirty-six children with no such risk factors were matched by age, IQ, and parents' education to the at-risk groups. All children were tested on cognitive skills and Chinese word recognition. Compared to the controls, children in the language delayed group scored significantly lower on all measures, whereas children in the familial risk group performed significantly worse only on tone detection, morphological awareness, and Chinese word recognition. In regression analyses, word recognition was best explained by morphological awareness, tone detection and visual skill. Language-related measures are strongly associated with early reading development and impairment in Hong Kong Chinese children. Tests of tone detection and morphological awareness may be important clinical tools for diagnosing risk for reading problems in young Chinese children. In contrast, Chinese language delay may be associated with broader cognitive impairments as found previously in various Indo-European languages (e.g., Bishop & Snowling, 2004).

Relationships Between Social Skills, Behavioral Problems, and School Readiness for Head Start Children

ABSTRACT This study followed 515 4-year-olds from Head Start entry to exit to investigate their social and behavioral skills and the impact of these skills on school readiness outcomes. Results indicated that, on average, social skills improved across the preschool year, while behavior problems remained relatively stable. Social skills and behavior problems were significantly related to multiple child school readiness outcomes in the areas of oral language, early literacy, and early math. In addition, the effects of different preschool literacy curricula on children's social and behavioral skills were examined. A greater percentage of children in the literacy intervention classrooms were categorized as lower risk (better social skills and fewer behavior problems) at the end of the preschool year, compared with children in classrooms without an added literacy curriculum. Implications for promoting cognitive and social development in preschool are discussed.

Using a Weekly Story to Plan Creative Activities and Promote Early Literacy in Preschool

Using a Weekly Story to Plan Creative Activities and Promote Early Literacy in Preschool

Supporting Literacy in Preschool: Using a Teacher-Observation Tool to Guide Professional Development

Teachers involved with professional-development opportunities inevitably differ in their content knowledge, access to resources, and instructional practices. The purpose of this study was to investigate how a standardized assessment observation tool, selected to gather summative information for grant-evaluation purposes about preschool teachers' early literacy instruction environment and practices, could be used to guide the implementation of an early literacy peer-coaching professional-development program involving 23 teachers in 5 preschools. Data were obtained from three sources: baseline and end-of-project data for each teacher on the standardized observation tool, interviews with codirectors and coaches, and documents provided by codirectors and coaches. Results indicate that a standardized observation tool can be used formatively in three ways: (1) to guide decisions about materials purchases; (2) to adjust professional-development workshop sequence and delivery; and (3) to guide coaches as they work one-on-one with teachers. This study was funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education Early Childhood Educator Professional Development Program (S349A020017-02).

The Effectiveness of the Manchester Even Start Program in Improving Literacy Outcomes for Preschool Latino Students

Although widely implemented, the effectiveness of the Even Start program and other programs involving home-visiting and bilingual education in improving preschool literacy outcomes, particularly among Latino students, is uncertain. This study used a non-equivalent groups design to compare preschool literacy outcomes (measured by the PALS-PreK assessment) of 4-year-old Latino preschool students enrolled in the Manchester Even Start program to a comparison group consisting of low-income and ethnically diverse 4-year-old students enrolled in Manchester's Title I preschool program. The primary differences between the Even Start and Title I preschool programs were the presence of a bilingual teacher in the Even Start class and the participation of the Even Start students and their families in home visits, parent and child interactive literacy activities, and adult ESOL classes. Multiple regression analysis, controlling for pretest scores, indicated that 4-year-old students' participation in the Even Start program (N=12) was associated with posttest scores that were 14.51 points higher (p<.05) than those of 4-year-old Title I students (N=25). While the ability to generalize these findings is limited due to the non-randomized study design and the small sample size, the results provide evidence of the short-term effectiveness of the Manchester Even Start program.