Thesis Defense1

Evidence-Based Best Practices for
Developing Emergent Literacy Skills

in Preschool to Kindergarten Age
Children at Risk for Reading Difficulty.
By: Abigail Ku
The literacy crisis of today’s America
67%
• “67% of 4th graders read
below grade level
contributing to 8,000
students dropping out
of high school every
day.”
(RIF, 2022)
“At risk” due to a lack of basic skills
• “34% of children entering
kindergarten lack the basic skills
needed to learn how to read.”
34%
(RIF, 2022)
Emergent literacy skills:
•Code-based skills •Meaning-focused
skills
PREDICATIVE of reading PREDICATIVE of reading

achievement in 1st & 2nd Grade achievement in 3rd & 4th Grade
(Whitehurst and Lonigan 1998: 849

Snow 1991: 8)
How can we help at risk Written Oral
children develop this Language
Phonological Language
fundamental knowledge that Awareness Ability
Awareness
will produce these skills?
Parents and
educators can
help increase:
Evidence-based Practices:
• Home Literacy
Environment
Written • Environmental Print
Language
Awareness • Print Referencing
Creating a rich Home Literacy Environment
• The HLE is made up of physical Parents can use the Home Literacy
objects that relate to literacy as Environment to:
well as parent role models who • Concept of print
demonstrate literacy behaviors. • Provide a setting for literacy interactions
• Letter-name knowledge
• Concepts of books
*parent-child interactions: active/passive
(Sénéchal and LeFevre 2002: 109;

C
A B
Lau and Richards 2021: 1)

Utilizing Environmental Print
• Words, letters, numerals, and Parents can use Environmental
symbols that when encountered Print to strengthen:
in a particular context, fulfill • Letter knowledge
purposeful functions in everyday • Difference between letter/word
life.
• Logographic reading
* Scaffolding/Noticing
(Neumann et al. 2012: 253

Horner 2005: 115)
Practicing Print Referencing
• During shared story book reading time the
Parent use explicit verbal print referencing (e.g.,
“This is letter C,” “Where is the word cat?”) and
nonverbal print referencing (using their finger to
point to and trace print while reading).
Parents can use Print Referencing to

strengthen:
• Directionality of a book
• Mechanics of text
• Word concept/segmentation
abilities (Justice and Ezell 2000: 266)
Evidence-based Practice:
• Implementation of
Synthetic Phonics
Written
Phonological
Language
Awareness
Awareness
Phonemic Awareness & Synthetic Phonics
• Synthetic Phonics is a skill-
based approach that provides
a structured systematic
strategy for young learners to
connect the 44 phonemes of
English to their graphemes.
Educators can use Synthetic
Phonics to strengthen:
• Phonemic awareness
• Grapheme phoneme connection
(Johnston and Watson 2005:1–70;
• Early reading Hatcher 2004: 356)
Evidence-based Practice:
• Dialogic Book
Reading
Oral
Language
Ability
Dialogic Book Reading
• During story book read alouds adults uses a • Parents and educators can
systematic framework to conduct use DBR to strengthen:
interactive reading and creates a dialogue • Oral language
with the children by using prompts to
extend children’s articulation of their • Expressive language output
thoughts, give feedback to their responses • Use of decontextualized
and to scaffold language development. language
*Low to high cognitive and linguistic demand questions
(What Works Clearinghouse 2007;

Whitehurst and colleagues 1988: 870)
Succes
Primary
Formal
s School
Reading
Instruction to school!
Dialogic Book Reading

Synthetic Phonics
Phonological Print Referencing
Awareness Environmental Print
Emergent Literacy Skills Written
Home Literacy Environment
Language
Oral Language Awareness
Reference List:
Freepic. 2023. “People flat”. https://www.freepik.com/vectors/people-holding-signs. Accessed March 21, 2023.
Hatcher, Peter J., Charles Hulme, and Margaret J. Snowling. 2004. “Explicit phoneme training combined with phonic
reading instruction helps young children at risk of reading failure”. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 45.
338–358.
Horner, Sherri L. 2005. “Categories of environmental print: All logos are not created equal”. Early Childhood Education
Journal 33. 113–119.
Johnston, Rhona S., and Joyce E. Watson. 2005. The effects of synthetic phonics teaching on reading and spelling
attainment: a seven-year longitudinal study. 11th ed. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.
Justice, Laura M., and Helen K. Ezell. 2000. “Enhancing children’s print and word
awareness through the home–based parent intervention”. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 9. 257–
269.
Lau, Carrie, and Ben Richards. 2021. “Home literacy environment and children’s
English language and literacy skills in Hong Kong”. Frontiers in Psychology 11. 1–17.
Neumann, Michelle M., Michelle Hood, Ruth M. Ford, and David L. Neumann.
2012. “The role of environmental print in emergent literacy”. Journal of early childhood literacy 12. 231–258.
Whitehurst, Graver J., and Christopher J. Lonigan. 1998. “Child development and
emergent literacy”. Child development 69. 848–872.
Reading is Fundamental (RIF). 2022. “The Issue”. Literacy Network. Nov. 01 https://www.rif.org/literacy-network/the-
issue#:~:text=Secondary%20navigation%20%2D%20Literacy%20Central%20%2D%20Logged&text=Ther
Reference List:
Whitehurst, Graver J., and Christopher J. Lonigan. 1998. “Child development and
emergent literacy”. Child development 69. 848–872.
Code-based skills require knowledge of:
• Written Language Awareness
• Phonological Awareness
• This knowledge helps a child to arrive at the alphabetic principle and

is highly predictive of reading achievement in 1 st and 2nd grade.
(Snow 1991: 8)
Meaning-focused skills require knowledge of:
• Oral language which includes vocabulary, semantic
knowledge, grammatical/syntactic rules, and
pragmatics.
• This linguistic knowledge helps with comprehension and is crucial in

determining reading test performance scores in 3 rd and 4th grade.
(Snow 1991: 8)

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Evidence-Based Best Practices for

Developing Emergent Literacy Skills

PREDICATIVE of reading PREDICATIVE of reading

(Whitehurst and Lonigan 1998: 849

*parent-child interactions: active/passive

(Sénéchal and LeFevre 2002: 109;

Lau and Richards 2021: 1)

(Neumann et al. 2012: 253

Parents can use Print Referencing to

*Low to high cognitive and linguistic demand questions

(What Works Clearinghouse 2007;

Dialogic Book Reading

• This knowledge helps a child to arrive at the alphabetic principle and

• This linguistic knowledge helps with comprehension and is crucial in

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