Emergent Literacy in the Early Years

Dear Colleagues,

The term ‘emergent literacy’ is used to describe the stage in which children are building the blocks of the basic skills needed to be able to later read and write. These form the foundations for future learning. A child’s environment, whether that be at home or in an early years setting, can be fundamental to children’s early literacy development, which in turn can have an important impact on their later educational achievement and wellbeing (Roulstone et al., 2011; Law, Rush, Parsons and Schoon, 2009). The home learning environment is particularly important for child development, including cognitive ability, language and literacy development (Niklas and Schneider, 2013; Tarelli and Stubbe, 2010). High-quality early childcare has also long been shown to have positive impacts on children’s emerging literacy (Sylva et al. 2004; Ota and Auston, 2013). More recently, however, these factors have been brought to the fore with a recent study showing that children who attended early years settings during COVID-19 restrictions had better vocabulary skills than children who did not (Davies et al, 2021), with widespread concern about weaker language skills in children in the early years during COVID-19 (Tracey et al., 2022).

The components of this ‘emergent literacy’ stage in the early years are many and diverse, involving speech, language and communication, and cognitive and working memory skills. This can be broken down into more specific skills and a range of domains such as phonological awareness, receptive and expressive vocabulary, and conceptual knowledge, all of which are key areas in their own right. For different children, they can develop in different ways and at different times, and their precise impact on overall later ‘literacy’ can be hard to measure. This has led to suggestions that a ‘more sophisticated multidimensional examination of emergent literacy skills’ is needed to understand more about the ways in which they interact in early childhood (Whitehurst, & Lonigan,1998). Alongside this, it is acknowledged that there is a higher risk of preschool language difficulties in children from lower socio-economic groups (Law et al., 2017; Hart and Risley, 1995). Consequently, there have been calls for more support for parents in enhancing the home learning environment, and for improved provision within early years settings, which can often struggle to retain high-quality staff (Bonetti, 2020). One solution is the development and evaluation of programmes designed to improve emergent literacy based on theoretical underpinnings and assess their contribution to our understanding and to children’s literacy outcomes.

Examples of topics for this Special Issue can include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Early years settings, including different types of provision, e.g., childminders
• Home learning environment
• Programmes/interventions to enhance emergent literacy and their evaluation
• Professional development for early years practitioners
• Teaching literacy skills
• Early literacy skills including (but not limited to) print motivation, print awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, narrative skills, phonological awareness
• Book gifting and reading
• Speech, language and communication
• Children with higher needs
• Children who are English language learners
• Children from under-served populations

We welcome quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies, as well as theoretical papers and those with different national perspectives. Interested authors are welcome to discuss their ideas with the Guest Editor before submitting their manuscripts.

References

Bonetti, S. (2020.) Early years workforce development in England: Key ingredients and missed opportunities. Education Policy Institute.

Davies, C., Hendry, A., Gibson, S. P., Gliga, T., McGillion, M., and Gonzalez‐Gomez, N. (2021). Early childhood education and care (ECEC) during COVID‐19 boosts growth in language and executive function. Infant and child development, 30(4), e2241.

Hart, B. and Risley, T.R., 1995. Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing.

Law, J., Charlton, J., Dockerell, J., Gascoigne, M., McKean, C., & Theakston, A. (2017). Early Language Development: Needs, provision and intervention for preschool children from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. A report for the Education Endowment Foundation.

Law, J., Rush, R., Schoon, I. and Parsons, S. (2009). Modeling developmental language difficulties from school entry into adulthood: Literacy, mental health, and employment outcomes. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 52(6), 1401–16.

Niklas, F. and Schneider, W. (2013). Home literacy environment and the beginning of reading and spelling. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38(1), 40-50.

Ota, C. and Auston, A. (2013). Training and mentoring: Family childcare providers’ use of linguistic inputs in conversations with children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28. 972-983.

Roulstone, S., Law, J., Rush, R., Clegg, J. and Peters, T. (2011). Investigating the role of language in children’s early educational outcomes. Research Report. DFE-RR134. Department of Education.

Sylva, K., Melhuish, E., Sammons, P., Siraj-Blatchford, I., Taggart, B., Smees, R., Dobson, A., Jeavons, M., Lewis, K., Morahan, M. and Sadler, S. (2004). The effective provision of pre-school education (EPPE) project.

Tarelli, I. and Stubbe, T.C. (2010). Home literacy environment and reading achievement: A model for determining the relationship between socio-economic status, home literacy environment and reading achievement. In: 4th IEA International Research Conference, Göteborg.

Tracey, L., Bowyer-Crane, C., Bonetti, S., Nielsen, D., D’Apice, K. and Compton, S. (2022). The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children’s socio-emotional wellbeing and attainment during the Reception Year. Research Report. Education Endowment Foundation.

Whitehurst, G.J. and Lonigan, C.J. (1998). Child Development and Emergent Literacy. Child Development, 69(3) 848-872.

Dr. Louise Tracey
Guest Editor

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• early years
• literacy
• reading
• writing
• vocabulary
• speech
• language and communication
• home learning environment