Emergent Literacy in Pre-School Children: Findings from the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) Project
By Shaye Moffat and Cynthia Vincent
Literacy is a major part of the basic foundation for lifelong learning. All future academic learning stems from the initial basis of building letters into words, and then words into sentences. Literacy is taught from the initial entry into school, and is a priority for future academic progression.
What is emergent literacy?
The term emergent literacy encompasses everything that comes before an individual actually learns how to read. This includes concepts such as language acquisition, the understanding that letters create words, and that words can be put together to make sentences. It also includes the idea that different letters make different sounds, and that reading happens from left to right.
Emergent literacy may be somewhat genetically influenced, although it has also been demonstrated that one’s environment influences it. In fact, most often a child’s initial contact with literacy occurs in the home environment through shared-reading experiences with adults. It is within this environment that children’s views of literacy are most often defined, and therefore it is vital that children are given these opportunities to explore literacy in a safe and warm environment.
Why is emergent literacy important?
As children progress in their schooling, their initial literacy level is built upon for all of their future learning. All subjects require a degree of literacy, and children who struggle with reading will continue to lag behind in other areas of academia as well. Children become literate by using their acquired knowledge of the oral language and applying it to the processes of reading and writing. Consequently it is essential for the foundations of literacy to be laid out for future success.
What does the research say about emergent literacy?
Research clearly demonstrates the vital importance of emergent literacy-inducing activities. Since the preschool age group has not yet entered into an academic environment, it is important for them to have opportunities to become familiar with literacy within their own homes. In fact, the home setting is an effective atmosphere for promoting emergent literacy, since it provides the child with a safe and comfortable background for learning. This is why many school environments are made to mimic the home setting.
When children are placed in out-of-home care it is often due to neglect or parental incapacity; therefore they may not have had the same opportunities to learn in a normal home learning environment. For this reason, children placed in out-of-home care may be at an immediate disadvantage for emergent literacy and language acquisition due to the various pre-care barriers facing them. These barriers include a lack of access to literacy-inducing materials, less modeling of literacy activities by adults, and less interpersonal interactions with family members with books and literacy. Once in care, these children may face placement instability, frequent school changes, as well as less access to literary materials. This population of in-care children already face a potential disadvantage when compared to children residing in their biological homes. Studies have demonstrated higher rates of learning disabilities, achievement problems, special education placement, language disorders, grade retention, adaptive behaviour deficits, and mild mental retardation in maltreated children in foster care (Evans, 2001).
Emergent literacy research highlights the importance of many different activities that are important for later learning. These include parent-child book reading, meaningful conversations and interactions, high parental expectations and interactions, and emotionally healthy and secure family environments (Bennett, et al, 2002).
What was the purpose of this study?
The purpose of this study was to explore the extent of literacy-promoting activities that are being engaged in within foster homes in the province of Ontario. It was hypothesized that the more frequent that emergent literacy-promoting activities were provided to preschool children, the more likely their future literary and academic success would be.
Who were our participants?
The participants in this study were a sample of 114 preschool children between the ages of 1 and 4 years of age, who were in-care in the province of Ontario, and who took part in the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) project. The OnLAC sample was composed of 54 percent male and 56 percent female participants, and the majority (91percent) were in foster care, with an additional 9 percent living in kinship care. The children had been placed in care for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to physical, emotional or sexual harm, neglect, abandonment, problematic behaviours and domestic violence.
We compared this in-care group of children with participants from Cycle 1 (1994-1995) of the National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth (NLSCY; Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada, 1995), in which 4,403 parents of children between one and four years of age gave answers to the literacy-promoting activities scale in the NLSCY.
What did we compare?
We choose to examine the sample of preschool children in two age groups. First, we looked at children who were between 1 and 2 years of age, and secondly, we examined the children between 3 and 4 years of age. The emergent literacy-promoting activities being engaged in with the foster parents were analysed by looking at five variables within the Assessment and Action Record (AAR-C2) and NLSCY for 3-4 year olds, and four variables found within the 1 to 2 age group of the AAR-C2 and NLSCY. The items were answered by the main caregiver within the context of a conversation with the child’s social worker for the AAR-C2 questions only.
What were the study’s findings?
The study demonstrated that pre-school children in-care were being afforded many opportunities to participate in literacy-promoting activities within their current foster placements. In fact, for the 1-2 year-old age group, 77 percent of foster parents reported reading to their child on a daily basis, compared to the NLSCY group in which only 27 percent reported doing so everyday. Likewise, for the 3-4 year olds, 76 percent of foster parents reported that they read to their child everyday, whereas for the NLSCY comparison group, the percentage of parents who engaged in daily reading with their child was 63 percent. These same trends continued for the other various indicators.
In regard to how often the child looked at books, magazines, or comics on their own at home, 80 percent of the 1-2 year olds in-care were reported as doing so on a daily basis, whereas for the NLSCY group, only 32 percent reported their child as engaging in this activity every day. For the 3-4 year old age-group, 82 percent of children were reported as reading on their own on a daily basis, compared to 72 percent for the NLSCY comparison group.
Finally, regarding how often the child in-care used pens or markers to engage in pretend writing, the foster parents of the 1-2 year-old in-care group reported that 35 percent did on a daily basis. This is in comparison to the NLSCY group, in which only 29 percent engaged in pretend writing everyday. For the 3-4 year old age group, foster parents reported that 61 percent of the children in their care pretended to write everyday, whereas the comparison group from the NLSCY reported that 71 percent of children pretended to write everyday.
What can be done to encourage emergent literacy?
Emergent literacy is an extremely important educational concept that needs to be considered and highlighted within the child welfare system. Research demonstrates that early childhood literacy impacts the future educational outcomes of children, consequently it is imperative that every child be provided with opportunities to engage at an early age. It is important that current and potential foster parents understand this learning relationship, and do whatever they can to engage in literacy-promoting activities with the children in their care.
High expectations, encouragement and positive reinforcement of literary interactions for children are avenues that aid in later literacy acquisition, and are therefore important assets for parents to use. Children should be encouraged to participate in literacy-promoting activities, such as visiting libraries and bookmobiles, as well as conversing with adults about books and reading. Families and friends can be encouraged to give books as gifts, which can foster interest and enthusiasm for reading and learning within the child.
Foremost in encouraging emergent literacy is to provide children with role models to follow. Parents who include literacy in their own day-to-day routines pass on the importance of reading and writing to the children in their care.
Conclusions
Literacy is a skill that is continually built upon for all future learning and academic proficiency. It is important for children to see the skills inherent to reading and writing used continuously in their home environments, since this is the venue for much of their early learning. Parents and caregivers can do much to involve the children in their care with literacy and advocate for the importance of this lifelong skill.
About the Authors:
Cynthia Vincent and Shaye Moffat are members of the Ontario Looking After Children (OnLAC) Research Team at the Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services, University of Ottawa.
References
Bennett, K. K., Weigel, D. J., Martin, S. S. (2002). Children's acquisition of early literacy skills: examining family contributions. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 17, 295-317.
Evans, L. D. (2001). Interactional Models of Learning Disabilites: Evidence from Students Entering Foster Care. Psychology in the Schools, 38 (4), 381-390.
Flynn, R. J., Ghazal, H., and Legault, L. (2006). Looking After Children: Good Parenting, Good Outcomes. Assessment and Action Records. (Second Canadian adaptation, AAR-C2). Ottawa, ON, and London, UK: Centre for Research on Community Services, University of Ottawa and Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO).
Statistics Canada and Human Resources Development Canada (1995). National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth: Overview of survey instruments for 1994-95, Data Collection Cycle 1. Ottawa: Authors.
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