The effects of a parent–child environmental print program on emergent literacy

Abstract

Young children are surrounded by ubiquitous environmental print (e.g. signs, product labels) on a daily basis in their homes and communities. Parent–child interactions with environmental print has the potential to foster emergent literacy. A randomised controlled pre–posttest study was conducted to examine the effects of a parent–child environmental print programme on emergent literacy skills (letter knowledge, letter and name writing, print concepts, environmental print reading, numeral name knowledge). Parent–child dyads ( N = 32, M child age = 3.63 years) participated in an 8-week (30 minutes per week) programme that used multisensory strategies to identify, trace and write letters and words embedded in environmental print. At post-test, the environmental print group showed improvements across all measures, making significant gains in letter knowledge and environmental print reading. These findings highlight potential benefits of coaching parents to use environmental print to support aspects of young children’s growth of emergent literacy skills.