The continuity of literacy development: Kindergarten to year 1

The purpose of this study was to investigate the continuity of strategies and provisions that teachers use to develop children\u27s literacy in kindergarten and Year 1. In two metropolitan Ministry of Education districts, 27 kindergarten and 25 Year 1 teachers completed a questionnaire concerning issues relating to literacy development in these two educational settings. From this population four teachers were interviewed to investigate areas of interest that arose from the questionnaire. The results showed that kindergarten and Year 1 teachers differed in the selection of strategies and provisions to promote literacy in young children. There was a clear delineation between the Year 1 and kindergarten teachers when ranking the importance of play as a literacy strategy in early childhood settings. The differences found in surveyed teachers\u27 practices between kindergarten and Year 1 may lead to discontinuous literacy experiences for children moving from one year level to the other. Further research could pinpoint the areas of discontinuity by participant observation of literacy experiences in these two settings