The use of popular culture environmental print to increase the emergent literacy skills of prekindergarten children in one high-poverty urban school district

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2009-05-15

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Limited studies have focused on using popular culture environmental print in the literacy curriculum to teach early literacy skills to prekindergarten students. This study examined whether using popular culture environmental print to explicitly teach alphabet knowledge and print concepts increased the achievement of these skills. After a nine week intervention was implemented, data were collected from 56 urban prekindergarten children in a control and experimental group. The use of popular culture environmental print appeared to increase the achievement of print concepts and alphabet knowledge in prekindergarten children from one urban high-poverty school district. Data revealed an increase in the mean rank of the experimental group on the post-test of alphabet knowledge. Additionally, English as a second language learners expanded their knowledge of alphabet letters after the popular culture environmental print intervention. Also, a statistically significant difference appeared to exist between the control and experimental groups? means on the knowledge of print concepts. Descriptive statistics revealed increases in print concept means of the control and experimental groups from the time of the pre-test to the posttest as tested by the Preschool Word and Print Awareness Assessment (PWPA). A statistical significant difference between the groups the children were in and the early literacy skills of alphabet knowledge and print concepts were determined at the end of the popular culture environmental print intervention. The increase in print concepts and alphabet knowledge appeared to be due to utilizing popular culture characters children observed at home. The popular culture characters garnered the attention of the children and became a source of motivation for increasing emergent literacy skills. Also, through explicit teaching of print concepts and alphabet knowledge with the popular culture environmental print, the children expanded their knowledge of these emergent literacy skills.

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