Early childhood settings value play as the way young children learn and educators encourage children's re-enactment of cultural practices in the imaginative play spaces provided. From a cultural-historical perspective, children expect these imaginative play spaces to contain objects from their social contexts, but what happens when technologies…

This report presents the results of a two-year randomized control trial evaluation of the SPARK foundational literacy program. SPARK is an early grade literacy program developed by Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee that pairs one-on-one tutoring with parent engagement. In 2010, SPARK was awarded an Investing in Innovation (i3) U.S.…

Assessment and instruction of reading tend to dominate current discussions of early literacy. Shifting the focus to writing, this article addresses the assessment of writing for students in kindergarten through second grade. Using curriculum-based measurement of written expression for beginning writers, teachers can measure growth of smaller…

The authors investigated whether age at kindergarten entry was associated with early literacy achievement gaps and if these gaps persisted over time. Using the kindergarten age eligibility cutoff date, they created 2 groups of students who represented the oldest and youngest children in a cohort of students in high-poverty, low-performing schools.…

This descriptive study provides a snapshot of the correlations between a child's learning experiences a year before entering kindergarten and the reading/literacy skills a child has entering kindergarten. Early literacy assessment scores were used to evaluate the effectiveness of four categories of learning experiences prior to entering…

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of early literacy beliefs held by early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers in Japan by developing a novel scale. We believed that overviewing ECEC teachers' beliefs about early literacy from ecological perspectives would contribute to understanding the underlying factors influencing the…

This column discusses resources and science topics related to students in grades preK to 2. Articles and lesson ideas for science learning often suggest that teachers have children "document" their observations, but these resources may not offer guidance on "why" teachers should help children document their work,…

The transition from preschool to elementary school is an important period for all families but can be particularly difficult for children from low-income families (Pianta, Rimm-Kaufman, & Cox, 1999). Transition involves not only the children's "readiness," especially in terms of literacy, but also how families, preschools, and schools interact and…

This study explores a teacher's understandings of the role of play and her use of play in literacy learning serving children from diverse language backgrounds. The participants in this study were a public pre-kindergarten teacher and her class. Data were collected from interviews, informal conversations, observations, and self-reflexive notes. The…

This study investigated young children's preferences for books to read aloud. Participants included 142 children enrolled in 4 public kindergartens in the Sanliurfa province of Turkey, their parents (142 parents), and teachers. Forty-nine 4-year-olds and 93 5-year-olds and their 9 teachers participated in the study. Parents filled out surveys;…

Kindergarten teachers are being asked to deliver differentiated small-group literacy instruction. The problem is managing the independent work being done by the rest of the class during the literacy period. Research on early childhood development and literacy indicates that the classroom environment plays an important role in supporting student…

The identification of children at-risk for reading problems can be costly and time-consuming. Previous research has indicated that teachers are relatively accurate in assessing children's overall reading ability. This study investigated the accuracy of kindergarten and first grade teacher rating scales in predicting children's reading…

Early childhood teachers promote literacy learning through intentional instructional practices and the establishment of classroom environments that encourage and support the work, interest, and curiosity of young learners. They provide opportunities for children to engage with their teacher and peers and consider this an important component of…

This study explores the ways that acts of writing occur and become recognized as "writing" in a kindergarten classroom. Symbolic representations often aligning with the dominance of conventions come to be seen and named as writing as soon as children enter school, therefore influencing how one is seen and named in the classroom space as…

West Virginia is a nationally recognized leader for its strong commitment to high-quality early learning education programming. West Virginia is one of a very small handful of states in the nation with free, full-day, five-day kindergarten for all children AND voluntary universal pre-k to all four-year-old children (and three-year-old children…