Using environmental print to foster emergent literacy in children from a low-SES community

•An environmental print RCT intervention was used to foster emergent literacy skills in children from a low-SES community.•Print awareness, print knowledge, and sound knowledge were significantly improved.•Guiding children's interactions with environmental print supported emergent literacy growth.

Young children are exposed to environmental print within their communities and this print may be a useful resource to foster emergent literacy skills. This pre-post-test randomised controlled study examined the effects of using environmental print to enhance emergent literacy skills in children aged three to four years (N = 50) from a low-SES community in south-east Queensland, Australia. The 8-week (30 min/week) environmental print programme provided multisensory strategies for children to interact with environmental print by identifying letters and words, tracing letters with fingers, and writing letters. ANCOVAs were conducted with pre-test scores as covariates. Children in the environmental print group significantly out-performed the control group on print knowledge, sound knowledge, and print awareness skills. The programme had moderate to large effects sizes and showed that guiding low-SES preschoolers’ interactions with environmental print using multisensory strategies is an effective way to foster emergent literacy skills.