Communication and literacy development of young children is shaped by the nature of social and cultural relationships in everyday situations. Few studies, however, have explored early story experiences encountered by infants and toddlers in naturalistic settings. We argue that personal stories about everyday lived experiences are a vital context…

This paper reports on findings from a doctoral study that explored the efficacy of a home-based literacy intervention in advancing preschool children's foundational literacy skills. Two key cognitive skills critical for early literacy success were examined in particular, those being phonological awareness, and elements of oral language, including…

A sociocultural approach to emergent literacy and growing concerns over the de-emphasis on literacy of the New Zealand early childhood education curriculum "Te Whariki" call for locally situated emergent literacy programmes co-constructed by teachers, parents and children. While teachers' approach to emergent literacy takes centre stage…

This study aimed to examine which genres parents are reading to children and for themselves. Furthermore, it aimed to examine mothers' and fathers' shared reading strategies for different book genres in relation to children's language and literacy development. Parents shared a narrative and an expository book with their preschool-aged children.…

There is currently intense national and international interest in which particular methods of teaching reading are the most effective for early literacy acquisition. The great bulk of research work that is cited in these debates, however, focuses almost exclusively on the evaluation and comparison of particular programmes underpinned either by…