Changes in New Zealand early childhood teachers’ use of strategies to facilitate children’s emergent literacy development

Abstract

The development of children’s emergent literacy and language skills is facilitated by early childhood teachers. However, there appears to be variable practices amongst early childhood teachers, indicating that teachers may benefit from professional learning and development to strengthen their practice in this area. This project investigated the changes 15 New Zealand early childhood teachers made in their use of strategies to support children’s emergent literacy development, after participating in two Teacher Talk (Greenberg, 2006) workshops combined with video coaching. The workshops focused on the use of meaning related and code based skills while interacting with children. After each workshop, teachers participated in an individual videocoaching session, focused on building teachers’ self awareness and reflective skills in supporting children’s emergent literacy. A multiple baseline across subjects research design (Portney & Watkins, 2014) was utilised to establish the effectiveness of the workshops and videocoaching for enhancing the teachers’ use of meaning and code related strategies. Of the fifteen participants in the project, six made significant changes in their use of meaning related strategies, and three made significant changes in their use of code based strategies while sharing books with children. This project indicates that Teacher Talk combined with video coaching is promising professional learning and development for early childhood teachers in facilitating children’s emergent literacy and language development.