Early literacy is a key predictor of grade-level reading and school success. Too often, however, young children do not have equitable access to literacy-rich environments that foster the skills needed to attain reading proficiency by the end of third grade. While high-quality preschool and early elementary programs are necessary early literacy…

In this article, we think through six-year-old Mike's play with Lego and with his father, using Deleuze and Guattari's concept of the break. For Deleuze and Guattari, the break is thought about in relation to impersonal flows of desire that are always everywhere at work and to the refrain, which we describe as materials and energies organized into…

The acquisition of literacy skills is a complex and multi-faceted process that begins long before typical school-based literacy instruction. The present study sought to examine and expand research regarding the independent and interactive contributions of neuropsychological development, movement, play, and music on the development of literacy…

In this update of a bestselling classic, you will learn how to develop children's capacity and will to read. Each sequential chapter is practical, eye-opening, and exactly what you need to engage young learners, plan lessons, partner with parents, and align your PreK-3 classrooms to the science of learning and the science of reading. Gain the…

The research literature well establishes that adverse conditions, such as poverty, can affect children's cognitive development and academic achievement. Educators are challenged to translate these understandings into instructional practices grounded in research that best meet the needs of students, especially students living in poverty who are at…

This project is about exploring and strengthening young children's story-telling expertise. Building on research that shows that children's narrative competence is linked to later literacy learning at school, we wanted to understand more fully how conditions for literacy learning are, and could be, supported within early years education settings.…

Background: This article is based on a study that aimed at finding out how pre-primary teachers integrate directed play into literacy teaching and learning. Play is a platform through which young children acquire language. Aim: This study uses an action research approach to understand how guided play benefits incidental reading and expands…

By observing children aged 4 and 5 within the highly organized space of an early years classroom, we can explore the ways in which young children's desire to express cultural agency drives them to draw upon space and materials in order to make meaning and examine the ways in which space and resources mediate such experiences. These observations,…

Historically there has always been a lively research discussion on whether the development of number concept should be considered as innate, or whether the catalyst for the development of the number concept -- and for counting -- is hearing number words combined with seeing concrete examples. One can recognize these theories as the nativist view…

Early literacy is often over-simplified as a set of skills for beginning reading, an approach which overlooks the ways that children play their way into cultures, using play as a literacy that accesses popular media as rich literary repertoires of characters and storylines. This article examines how children's play reveals their participatory…

Many young children receive developmental screenings because they do not perform basic self-regulation skills needed in preschool and home environments. Previous research on Literacy-Based Behavioural Interventions (LBBI) shows promise for promoting acquisition and maintenance of skills and routines; however, research has not yet examined the…

This study builds on recent research into young children's pretend play. Social literacy practices and events in which children engaged were investigated to reveal features of their meaning making. Drawing on Vygotsky's view of the social nature of symbol use and writing, it stresses the significance of cultural and social features of meanings and…

The focus of this research was on examining a play-based, child-centered instructional technique known as story telling/story acting (ST/SA) within a Canadian preschool setting. The goal was to examine the changes that occurred in the narrative features of preschool children's stories, and to investigate whether ST/SA fostered emerging literacy…

This article examines the relationship between literacy and play in six- and seven-year-olds' engagement with non-fiction writing. I draw from a year-long ethnographic study (Erickson, 1986) of a US classroom's "writing time", intentionally structured on children's own interests and enquiries. Rather than strict adherence to monolithic…

Children from literate home backgrounds, who have exposure to supportive, positive reading role models using good quality texts, are the ones who are best able to cope with the demands of learning about literacy and the transition from home to school. This study of 3-year-old children will focus on their interactions with picturebook read aloud,…