Accelerating Literacy Progress for New School Entrants: The Preschool Literacy Project (Stage 3) in Victoria.

This paper reports stage 3 of a research project conducted in 40 preschools in Victoria, Australia. During the first stage of this project, preschool teachers were asked about their concerns relating to young children's literacy development. Their responses revealed little access to recent thinking concerning emergent literacy, either through their initial training programs or through subsequent professional development opportunities. Their understandings and beliefs with regard to early literacy rendered them unable to provide for this development in their programs. Stage 2 of this project included these teachers and their assistants in an action research professional development cycle which informed and supported them in reviewing and changing their practice. Stage 3 followed the children from these preschools to the end of their first year in school. Marked improvements were noted in the trajectory of these children's literacy progress when they entered school (N=347) in contrast to those children who had not attended this group of preschools (N=613). (Contains 46 references, and 11 tables and 9 figures of data.) (Author/RS)