<p>  </p> <p>Although young children from low-income families may (or may not) have fewer quality literacy experiences at home before attending preschool or kindergarten, instruction from an exemplary teacher matters most for emergent comprehension development. This single, intrinsic case study describes how one exemplary teacher’s interactions with her low-income preschoolers promote their emergent comprehension during read-alouds, while on Zoom, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic required interviews with the teacher and observations of read-alouds to be conducted via Zoom. Socio-cultural, social constructivist and semiotic theories framed this study’s design as a case study. Data analysis utilized Cambourne’s Model of Learning (Crouch & Cambourne, 2020) and Dooley & Matthews (2009) Model of Emergent Comprehension. Key findings were that the teacher formed positive relationships with and among her children, getting to know their families and cultural backgrounds. She used this knowledge along with what she observed during read-alouds to engage her students and personalize both academic and social-emotional instruction for them. Her young students’ responses during read-alouds evidenced how they constructed meaning by making connections between school- and home-based interactions.</p>

The purpose of this study is to investigate preschool staff’s perceptions of early literacy in preschool and their practical work to promote children's literacy development. The theoretical framework for this study is the socio-cultural perspective and the four resources model of literacy. Data was collected through a semi-structured web survey sent to preschool staff in a medium-sized municipality in central Sweden. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics method. The results show a tension between emergent literacy and reading readiness perspectives among the staff. All the four resources, namely code breaking, text participation, text use and text analysis, are understood as moderately important by the preschool staff. However, there is more emphasis on decoding abilities, in particular phonological awareness. In the practical work, activities that can support children in their role as critical analyst are the least common. Reading aloud, songs, rhymes and language games are the most common literacy activities in preschool. The study shows the need to put these common literacy events in a larger social and learning context to promote a comprehensive literacy development in children. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förskolepedagogers uppfattningar om tidig litteracitet i förskolan samt deras praktiska arbete för att främja barns lit-teracitetsutveckling. Den teoretiska ståndpunkten för denna undersökning är det sociokulturella perspektivet samt repertoarmodellen (the four resources model). Empirin genererades genom semistrukturerad webbenkät som skicka-des ut till förskolepersonal i en medelstor kommun i Mellansverige. Data ana-lyserades med hjälp av deskriptiv statistik metod. Resultatet visar en spänning mellan det emergent- och läsfärdighetsperspektivet bland personalen. Alla re-pertoarer av förmågor, således kodknäckande, textdeltagande, textbruk och textanalys, förstås som relativt viktiga av förskolepersonalen men det framträ-der mer betoning på avkodningsförmågor, i synnerhet fonologisk medvetenhet. I det praktiska arbetet är praktiker som stödjer barn i sin roll som kritisk ana-lytiker minst förekommande. Högläsning, sånger, rim och ramsor och språk-lekar är de mest förekommande litteracitetsaktiviteterna i förskolan. Studien visar behovet av att ställa dessa vanligt förekommande litteracitetshändelser i ett större socialt sammanhang för att främja en allsidig litteracitetsutveckling hos barnen.Nyckelord:

In this study, we present the different teaching strategies that participating preschool teachers describe that they use to stimulate and develop children's language through fiction. We will present what factors influence the selection of fiction at the preschool. Furthermore, we describe the preschool teachers' perceptions of how they describe their conditions and knowledge of literature work together with the children. We chose to do a qualitative study where we visited different preschools to interview active preschool teachers based on semi-structured interview questions. When compiling the results, we used a phenomenographic methodological approach to obtain preschool teachers' different perceptions of the language-stimulating work. The most significant thing we were able to get in the result is that all preschool teachers in our study described an awareness of the importance of language-stimulating teaching in preschool. It also emerged that preschool teachers included language-stimulating activities through planned teaching or spontaneously arising situations. We were further able to discern in the results how the preschool teachers in our study used different strategies to stimulate children's language. Reading aloud, book conversations, image creation, dramatization and reflection conversations were some strategies that emerged. As a conclusion, through the interviews we were able to get the preschool teachers' perceptions and what conditions and challenges they experience with the language-developing work in preschool. Something that we have found important from the study is that preschool teachers' knowledge and prerequisites have a significant role in children's language development and where children's language is stimulated and challenged in social contexts. / I den här studien presenterar vi vilka olika undervisningsstrategier medverkande förskollärare beskriver att de använder sig av för att stimulera och utveckla barns språk genom skönlitteratur. Vi kommer att presentera vilka faktorer som påverkar urvalet av skönlitteratur på förskolan. Vidare redogör vi förskollärarnas uppfattningar av hur de beskriver sina förutsättningar och kunskaper kring litteraturarbete tillsammans med barnen. Vi valde att göra en kvalitativ studie där vi besökte olika förskolor för att intervjua verksamma förskollärare utifrån semistrukturerade intervjufrågor. Vid sammanställningen av resultatet utgick vi från en fenomenografisk metodansats för att få fram förskollärares olika uppfattningar om det språkstimulerande arbetet. Det mest betydelsefulla vi kunde vi få fram i resultatet var att samtliga förskollärare i vår studie beskrev en medvetenhet kring vikten av språkstimulerande undervisning i förskolan. Det framkom också att förskollärare inkluderade språkstimulerande aktiviteter genom planerad undervisning eller spontant uppkomna situationer. Vi kunde vidare i resultatet urskilja hur förskollärarna i vår studie använde sig av olika strategier för att stimulera barns språk. Högläsning, boksamtal, bildskapande, dramatisering och reflektionssamtal var några strategier som framkom. Som avslutning kunde vi genom intervjuerna få fram förskollärares uppfattningar och vilka förutsättningar och utmaningar de upplever med det språkutvecklande arbetet i förskolan. Något som vi funnit som viktigt utifrån studien är att förskollärares kunskaper och förutsättningar har en betydande roll för barns språkutveckling och där barns språk stimuleras och utmanas i sociala kontexter.

Text in Afrikaans / Learners who struggle to read from the start, will stay behind. But the earlier intervention can start, the greater the chances of success. But what type of intervention is needed? Nowadays researchers overseas use phonemic awareness as a criteria to predict reading success. About 80% of pre-school children will have no trouble grasping the phonological structure of their home language, provided that they are thoroughly immersed in literacy. It is these same 80% who will not have any trouble learning to read. But literacy is a continuous process that starts at birth and there is no magical moment in a child's life that he will all of a sudden be ready to receive literacy instruction. Experience and practice will ensure that the hierarchy of phonemic awareness skills will develop. Those preschoolers who do not have that advantage, must develop phonemic awareness skills while learning to read or else face reading problems. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Special Needs Education)

Thesis (MEd )--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This research was undertaken due to the increase of Afrikaans L1 learners in an English medium class and the problems these learners face. This study reports on An Observation Survey of Early Learning Achievement (Clay, 2002) in order to assess the emergent literacy of grade two learners in terms of specific literacy skills in English. This survey aimed to assist the educator in determining the progress and processing behaviours made by Afrikaans L1 learners in terms of literacy content in an English medium class. The Observation Survey was conducted thrice over a three month period. It was aimed at determining what processing skills and strategies the learners use and if traditional teaching combined with Outcomes Based Education (OBE) enabled learners to acquire strategies for learning. Simultaneously it was determined if code switching, code mixing and mother tongue (Afrikaans) use facilitated learning. The data indicated the language problems, preference and proficiency of the learners. This research necessitated the use of both quantitative and qualitative data. Using a case study design, a qualitative tool with quantitative elements was used to collect data. Further data was collected at parent meetings with the learners in the study as well as from written correspondence from parents. This data gave insight to the learner’s ethnographic background and the language proficiency of the parents. The findings of this study indicate the need for ongoing support and in-service training for educators in the ever changing curriculum. In conclusion it was determined that various factors contribute to the literacy development of learners. In order for them to stay abreast with the curriculum further research and support is imperative for educators.

This thesis explores the development of emergent literacy in Hong Kong Kindergarten children who are learning English as a Second Language (L2). Two interrelated empirical studies have been conducted, and both aim to examine the contribution of code-related and oral language skills to predicting early L2 reading ability, controlling for home influences. The majority of research on emergent literacy has been conducted on First-Language (L1) English-speaking children, and it is possible that these established concepts and models could also be relevant to L2 children. The first is a 2-year longitudinal study examining the continuity of L2 emergent literacy development in Hong Kong children from Kindergarten to early Primary school. The convenience sample of 51 children were initially assessed in their final or penultimate year of Kindergarten (mean age: 4;6 SD = 6.16) on 3 emergent literacy measures (receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter identification) and a non-verbal cognitive measure. They later progressed onto the Primary section of the same school, and were assessed again as first or second-graders (mean age: 6;4 SD = 6.21) on a more comprehensive battery of measures. An extensive parental questionnaire on family demographics and the home literacy environment was also administered. In addition to assessing a wide range of L2 emergent literacy skills and English word reading ability, a Chinese syllable deletion task was also included, to explore the potential effects of cross-linguistic phonological transfer between the children’s L1 (Cantonese) and L2 (English). The second study sought to improve upon the first by selecting a larger, more representative sample of children from 3 bilingual Kindergartens in the Kowloon City School District. It examines the concurrent relationships between emergent literacy skills and L2 word reading ability in 137 children. They were all in their final year of Kindergarten (mean age: 5;2 SD = 5.61), and were assessed once on largely the same battery of measures as Study 1 (Time 2). Again, a non-verbal cognitive measure was administered, as well as the parental questionnaire on home support for language development. The main data analysis was carried out via multivariate statistical techniques such as multiple regression. Further analysis was conducted using structural equation modelling in Study 2, but in a cautious and exploratory manner. The overall findings suggest that like the L1 emergent literacy model, early L2 word reading ability is predominantly influenced by children’s code-related skills, especially print knowledge and phonological sensitivity. Also, the relationship between oral language and word reading seems to be mediated by code-related skills. Thus, while oral language abilities do not appear to make substantial direct contributions to early L2 reading, they do play an essential albeit indirect role. Furthermore, L2 children’s home influences seem to make their strongest impact before formal schooling begins, again in the form of indirect effects on pre-school oral language skills. In short, the development of emergent literacy and early word reading skills is similar in many ways for both L1 and L2 children, and implications for practice are considered.

This is a study of how four teachers work with pupils’ early literacy learning. Interviews were conducted with two teachers who chose to use a specific method, Writing to Read (WTR), for teaching pupils to read, and with two teachers who had not chosen a specific method. The aim of the study was to compare how the teachers worked, their motives for their choice of method, and the ideas the teachers have about early literacy learning. To see whether the teachers’ choice of method was related to the individualization of the teaching and their views of pupils’ learning in interaction, Vygotsky’s theories about children’s learning have been used. The result shows that there are both similarities and differences in the teachers’ reasons for their choice of method. Those who use WTR say that they do so to be able to individualize the teaching, while the teachers who do not use a specific method use the same arguments. There is a difference in whether the teachers aim for structured or unstructured teaching, regardless of the choice of method. Several parallels to Vygotsky’s theories were found, in that all four teachers, irrespective of method, think that their teaching should be characterized by interaction and individualization.

This thesis will illustrate how pretend play can be used in the home for educational purposes. The major emphasis of the work will be emergent literacy, however, application principles can be applied in all subject areas. Parents who desire to expand their child's literacy skills while exposing the child to an arts enriched home environment need ideas and tools developed with supportive research to strengthen and focus their efforts. These tools will greatly expand parental resources by offering several principles as a guide for adapting existing classroom materials for home use. The following Seven Components form the core foundation for adapting pretend play materials to aid the home learning environment curricula: (1) Child as Active Participant (Vygotsky; Piaget). (2) Parent as Role Model for Dramatic Play and Literacy, serves as Facilitator, and Co-player (Haight and Miller; Vygotsky). (3) Physical environment could be anywhere: car, office, or bedroom. (4) Resource material: should be able to use common found objects in home, with limited preparations or expense. (5) Play Content needed to provide elements of literacy: cognitive learning, symbol representation, oral language, self-expression, listening and comprehension (Goodman). (6) Promote creative and fun learning experience with a relaxed, informal atmosphere. (7) Play should be process and discovery oriented, and not for performance (Brown and Pleydell; Tuge). This thesis will also examine the preliminary results of a study for parents and children who applied a curriculum developed with the core components and explored the participants' interest level in such activities. Recommendations for further research will also be made.

No description available.

Text in Afrikaans / Learners who struggle to read from the start, will stay behind. But the earlier intervention can start, the greater the chances of success. But what type of intervention is needed? Nowadays researchers overseas use phonemic awareness as a criteria to predict reading success. About 80% of pre-school children will have no trouble grasping the phonological structure of their home language, provided that they are thoroughly immersed in literacy. It is these same 80% who will not have any trouble learning to read. But literacy is a continuous process that starts at birth and there is no magical moment in a child's life that he will all of a sudden be ready to receive literacy instruction. Experience and practice will ensure that the hierarchy of phonemic awareness skills will develop. Those preschoolers who do not have that advantage, must develop phonemic awareness skills while learning to read or else face reading problems. / Educational Studies / M. Ed.(Special Needs Education)