ACQ Vol 11 no 2 2009

Literacy

Let’s Read A universal intervention to promote literacy in very young children Sharon Goldfeld, Natasha Napiza, Jon Quach, Carly Veness, Sheena Reilly, Obioha C Ukoumunne, and Melissa Wake

Keywords early intervention emergent literacy literacy parent–child interaction preschool

The last decade has seen an increasing number of early literacy promotion programs across the globe. This paper takes a brief look at the current research around emergent literacy and identifies some of the factors found to influence children’s literacy success. The paper then reports on the Let’s Read initiative, an early literacy promotion program that emphasises shared reading with young children, aged 0 to 5, taking place across Australia. The effectiveness of this program is currently being investigated, utilising a cluster randomised controlled trial. F ew would dispute that literacy attainment is one of the most important foundations for academic success. It is similarly now well established that attaining literacy skills depends on multidimensional influences, including: parental beliefs and goals about education and literacy; the way that families engage with or stimulate children; the environment in which children are raised; the school they attend and the way they are taught. Unfortunately, many children struggle to reach the minimum benchmarks set for literacy acquisition, and these deficits can be tracked with increasing prevalence from childhood through to adolescence and adulthood (Ministerial Council on Education, 2007; Persampieri, Gortmaker, Daly, Sheridan, & McCurdy, 2006; Thomson & De Bortoli, 2008). Although the term “literacy” refers to the ability to read and write printed text representing spoken language (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008; Baker, Piotrkowski, & Brooks- Gunn, 1999), more recent research has demonstrated the importance of key developmental and environmental

factors that, when present, predict future literacy success in preliterate children. Now referred to as emergent literacy, these factors have been brought together into a formalised framework (see Clay, 1972; Sulzby & Teale, 1991; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998), which includes: • language abilities : including receptive and expressive vocabulary size, understanding written text and being capable of talking about the text; • letter identification/knowledge : knowing the names and corresponding sounds of letters; • phonological awareness/sensitivity : the ability to identify and manipulate sounds in words; • conventions of print : understanding the basic concepts of writing and reading text, including the left-to-right and top-to-bottom direction of print on each page with print progressing from front to back across pages; • literacy environments : having favourite books, going to the library, having a number of books in the home, and engaging in other home literacy activities, including shared book reading. While most children develop spoken language skills to communicate in their first or native language naturally, children require more active instruction and modelling to acquire literacy skills, particularly skills to understand the written word. Therefore, literacy is thought to be experience dependent (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Current research shows that parental and family influences and interactions can profoundly enhance the quality and quantity of children’s exposure to and experiences with literacy and can lead to improved literacy outcomes (Evan, Shaw, & Bell, 2000). When parents or significant others are actively involved in literacy activities, children have larger vocabularies (Hart & Risley, 1995), faster vocabulary growth over time (Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991) and enhanced emergent literacy skills (Bracken &

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ACQ Volume 11, Number 2 2009

ACQ uiring knowledge in speech, language and hearing