For children to become strong readers, they need to learn a huge number of words--at least 100,000 by the time they get to eighth grade. It is impossible to teach that much vocabulary directly; children gain most of their vocabulary indirectly, as their knowledge of the world expands. This article discusses how much of this learning happens…

Families are children's first and most important teachers. However, their ability to support children's learning and development at home varies due to knowledge, skills, and confidence. Family interventions aimed at increasing parents' skills are labour-intensive and expensive. In contrast, text messages are low-cost and scalable. Text messages…

This literature review examines the main factors in a child's life that directly impact the development of emergent literacy skills. The literature in this review was collected from several peer-reviewed articles and government-certified websites. As discussed in the literature, the development of emergent literacy skills is dependent upon a…

Assessment is a process of collecting information. Screening is an assessment process that helps teachers identify students who are at risk for not meeting grade-level learning goals.

Background: Poverty-related disparities in school readiness are well documented (Dreyer, 2020). Increasing cognitively stimulating parenting practices can contribute greatly to addressing such disparities, and therefore represent a key modifiable target for preventive interventions beginning early in life (Brooks-Gunn & Markman, 2005).…

The following document is an Executive Position Paper which provides a model that can be followed when implementing a training program for families that teaches them how to support their child's learning by way of reading. All children have the potential to succeed in school and life, and all children deserve to be loved and supported in their…

The acquisition of cultural capital can only be understood in the light of the formation of habitus, including the socialisation process, and in the context of the field in which any such capital has value. Yet, the relation between cultural capital and habitus is seldom discussed in research. Drawing on the data from focus groups with 96 students…

The study examined aspects of parent-child shared reading interactions of two Hebrew alphabet books, children's motivation to engage in early literacy activities, and how these variables relate to children's early literacy skills. Participants were 44 children (32 girls, 12 boys) aged 4.6 to 6.6 years (M = 5.6, SD = 0.54) and one parent (42…

The twenty-first century Reading War is, in fact, nothing new, but some of the details are unique to our current culture driven by social media. This volume seeks to examine the current Reading War in the context of the historical recurrence of public and political debates around student reading abilities and achievement. Grounded in a media…

Many children in developing countries do not acquire functional literacy skills despite being in school. We apply a cumulative risk (aggregate over a range of risk) and protection framework to assess Ghanaian kindergarteners' early academic skills (N = 1,852, M(age) = 5.3 years; 50.2% female), considering how family-level risk factors and…

This research attempts to reveal the views of the primary school teachers, having Syrian students in their class, on these students' Turkish and mathematics skills and the challenges they have confronted in the classroom. The research used a mixed research method and 347 primary school teachers who met the criterion of having Syrian students in…

You and the school share responsibility for your child's language and literacy learning. Collaborate with your school to make decisions about your child's literacy education right from the start. Your child benefits when you and the school work together to support her literacy development. Working together promotes faster development and catches…

Dialogic reading, in which parents engage children in discussion of books, is associated with long-term literacy success. Social media is an emerging platform for promoting behavioral change, but it has yet to be tested as a platform for engaging parents in use of dialogic reading strategies with their young children. This exploratory study was…

This study provided workshops for parents on either early literacy or socio-emotional learning to examine the impact on their children's reading and social skills development (n = 576 parents; n = 584 children). Parents of kindergartners were offered interactive workshops designed to help them identify everyday opportunities to support reading…

The purpose of the study was to ascertain which human, material, and experiential resources supporting emergent literacy of children were present in the microsystems of some low-income families with children under the age of four. This mixed methods study used naturalistic inquiry as the primary strategic approach. Methods included home visits and…