The next study employed a variety of ethnographic data collection techniques to investigate the emergent literacy perceptions held by three family child care providers. This is an important topic to investigate, since roughly 15-20 percent of preschool-age children receive early learning experiences within family child care settings for a significant portion of each day. Each of the providers was visited on eight different occasions, with the author conducting formal and informal observations, interviews, and document analyses.
The data were analyzed for patterns related to providers' perceptions of emergent literacy, their role in literacy development, their personal literacy behaviors and child-rearing practices, and their understanding about literacy-learning behaviors and literacy-play connections. While the results suggested that the children were receiving some literacy activities, the children had limited access to literacy materials and the providers rarely viewed themselves as readers and writers who serve as literacy role models to the children. In addition, role ambiguity associated with family child care providers, low status in the early care and education field, and limited education and training combine to potentially limit the literacy development of children in family day care settings.
The author suggests that greater collaboration between family child care providers and public school personnel could lead to enhanced school achievement for children in family child care settings. Indeed, local neighborhood public schools could conduct community mapping exercises within their geographical boundaries to identify those child care centers and family child care settings that reside within the area. Linking to these providers by conducting free literacy workshops after school and on weekends may serve as a conduit for improving the early literacy outcomes of the children in their care. (This article only an abstract, to get the full text please contact admin web, use the contact form)
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|