Development of Early Literacy Skills: A Comparison of Two Early Literacy Programmes

The aim of the present study is to monitor the effectiveness of a new conception of early literacy curriculum (in force since September 2016) which provides -- unlike the previous one -- a wide range of purposeful literacy practices and literacy events. The study compares graduates of previous early childhood literacy curriculum (tested in June 2016) with children who attended kindergarten in the years 2016-2019. Several indications of early literacy development were selected especially those that are culturally more sensitive, i.e. are significantly shaped by the social environment offering the broad spectrum of reading experiences. Results show statistically significant relationship of story listening comprehension with comprehension monitoring and narrative production, especially at the level of understanding the implicit meaning. The most profound group differences were found again in narratives and implicit meaning comprehension. On the other hand, no differences were found in indicators of phonemic awareness, comprehension monitoring and understanding the explicit meaning. The results are discussed in terms of their implications to educational practice.