Policies

Play Based Intervention to Develop Literacy

Context and Problem

Having literacy skills is crucial for children. However, many children enter kindergarten without the necessary readiness due to developmental difficulties with their cognitive skills. This means that standard methods used to teach literacy may not be appropriate for these children. As a result, they may struggle to develop their vocabulary and other literacy skills, leading to a domino effect of a delay in overall academic progress, including challenges in reading comprehension, writing, and academic achievement.

Solution

A study by Cassandra Laursen utilised ‘Foundations for Literacy’, a play-based and experiential learning intervention designed to help kindergarten students with developmental delays (DD). The program focuses on code-based (letter recognition) and meaning-based (vocabulary) literacy skills. The program was implemented among 6-8 kindergarten students. These students were split into intervention and control groups. The intervention group used the “Foundations for Literacy” program, focusing on plat and experiential learning, and the control group used a traditional guided reading method. The progress was monitored utilising phonemic awareness tools, letter sound identification, and letter recognition assessments.

Impact

The study revealed a significant improvement in early literacy skills among the intervention group. Uppercase letter recognition saw an average increase of 3-9 points, while lowercase letter recognition increased by 5-10 points. Moreover, phonemic awareness showed a remarkable improvement, with the intervention group demonstrating gains of up to 16 points in letter sound identification and 10 points in phonemic awareness.

Analysis

There's a promising potential for this program to be scaled up from a small experiment to a widely used teaching tool in kindergartens. The structured nature of the Foundations for Literacy program, combined with its concrete and experiential methods, indicates that the intervention could be successfully replicated in other settings, yielding similarly positive outcomes.