Children’s early introduction to reading and writing in in-school daycare: engagement in and openness to books
This article focuses on children’s early introduction to reading and writing (early literacy: EL) in in-school daycare. Following the implementation of an in-school daycare EL program designed and tested for a year with kindergarten children, the objective of this article is to present the program’s effects on the engagement and openness that the children showed during discovery activities. Specifically, we compare underprivileged and privileged groups at the entry into kindergarten and at the end of the school year, with some children having been exposed to the activities of the EL program and others not (total N = 556). The quantitative analyses performed suggest that the EL program had significant effects on engagement in and openness to books for the population exposed to the program compared to the population that was not exposed.