Emergent Literacy in Early Childhood Special Education

Abstract

The purpose of Project I.E.P. (Intervention for Early Progress) was to discover whether young children with handicaps who were exposed to structured, print-rich environments with opportunities to engage in a variety of preliteracy and literacy experiences would develop behaviors indicative of early “reading'' and “writing.'' Thus, Project I.E.P. sought to replicate emergent literacy studies previously conducted with youngsters with and without handicaps. The results of a year-long study confirm the findings of an exploratory investigation in emergent literacy conducted with very young children with handicaps. Emergent literacy behaviors were developed in a group of children ( n = 14; mean CA = 5.4) identified as having special needs who were exposed to numerous structured literacy activities every day. A statistically significant difference in concepts of print from pre- to posttest between experimental and control groups was found. The children's independent book interactions were found to progress in complexity and sustained attention, and they demonstrated a marked preference for certain types of books in the classroom library over the period of study. Finally, the “writing'' behaviors of participants also increased in complexity, variety, and structure over the period of the study. Theoretical and practical implications for how we view literacy development in general, as well as how and when special education literacy programs are implemented, are considered.