The child care teacher's role in providing reading-related literacy experiences for four-year-old children

Child-care teachers act as mediators of children's early literacy development by deciding what literacy experiences to provide in the classroom setting. Thus, it is critical to investigate the ways in which they are exercising this role. This study is a systematic replication of an earlier study by the investigator, and provides descriptive information about the reading-related literacy opportunities provided for children by child care teachers: the books they read and make available to children, the reasons for their book selections, and the resources they have for obtaining books. Eleven teachers of fouryear- old children from a sample of IO child-care centers participated. Data were obtained using interview, booklist, questionnaire, teacher's log, and observational measures. The results of the present study replicate the results of the earlier study by showing that the range in richness of the emergent reading environments varied widely among the childcare classrooms. Major concerns relate to the absence of book areas in most of the classrooms, the use of structured pre-reading and writing activities by a majority of the teachers, and the disparity in storybook reading hours among the classroom teachers.