Research School Network: The value of Print referencing in the EYFS classroom Early Years Series

The one thing most EYFS teachers will endeavour to achieve from day one with their reception class is engaging them in a good book. It is an ideal opportunity to teach and praise the skills conducive to learning in a classroom setting: sitting, looking, listening, engaging. Beyond these basic classroom skills, adults then begin to focus on modelling reading with expression, developing vocabulary and comprehension skills, and developing an understanding of the structure of texts. But according to Justice and Ezell (2000), they ​‘rarely take advantage of opportunities to talk about print-related skills’.

However, print knowledge is an important element of reading, as highlighted in ​‘The Reading Comprehension House’, see below, adapted from Hogan, Bridges, Justice and Cain (2011), see Caroline Bilton’s blog on the Reading Comprehension House.

There has been a lot of emphasis over the past decade on the teaching of phonological awareness, and this is a vital skill, but as EEF’s ​‘Preparing for Literacy’ Guidance Report highlights in recommendation 2​‘using a number of different approaches will be more effective than focusing on any single aspect of early reading’.

Studies tracking children’s eye gaze found that children spent only around 6 – 7% of the time looking at print when having a story read to them (Justice et al., 2005 and Evans, Williamson and Pursoo, 2008). By using the strategy of referencing print through planned storytime, ​‘the emergent reader is developing important knowledge about the forms and functions of print that, coupled with developing skills in oral language and phonological awareness, will serve as a foundation for later achievements in word recognition and reading comprehension’ (Zucker, Ward and Justice, 2009).

Justice and Ezell (2004) identified four broad domains of print knowledge to address through print referencing; print as an object of meaning, book organisation and print conventions, alphabet knowledge and concept of word. Examples of each of these can be seen in Zucker, Ward and Justice, 2009 and provide a great starting point for planning the explicit teaching of print referencing.

Whilst many children have started to develop their emergent reading skills and understanding of print before starting school, others, often our disadvantaged pupils, haven’t had the early hands-on experiences with books we would hope for. These children require modelling and explicit instruction in the basic concepts of book handling, and understanding that print conveys messages, as well as being given planned opportunities to explore texts independently.

Randomised trials and research studies ​“provide strong and consistent evidence that use of print referencing within the familiar contexts of read-alouds is a useful method for improving emergent readers’ knowledge about print.” (Zucker, Ward, Justice, 2009). Furthermore, Justice and Ezell (2002) conducted research with children from lower-income households and found that those in the print-focus group made significantly more gains in measures of word in print, print recognition, and alphabet knowledge.

Print Referencing in Practice

Offering a simple picture book to children to ​‘read’ in their first few weeks of EYFS and observing their behaviours can be a great way of gauging prior experiences with books. Teachers will very quickly identify children with less experience, and can ask diagnostic questions to determine gaps in their knowledge, for example:

Print Referencing for emergent readers

Taking information from this diagnostic activity will provide a starting point for small group or 1:1 intervention, to close the print knowledge gap.

Zucker, Ward and Justice (2009) suggested that ​“particularly for those at-risk for later reading difficulties, it is important to use social activities like read-alouds to foster a positive orientation to literacy”. For the children at the very early stages of emergent reading, we start with short, interactive books, which some of their peers may have experienced years earlier.

We have found that books such as the well-loved ​‘That’s Not My…’ series, that most of you will have come across, can be useful. This would begin with the explicit teaching of turning pages, reading left to right, tracking text and identifying letters and words whilst reading books with repetitive, predictable phrases of only 4 – 5 words per page. The touchy-feely element aims to engage even the most reluctant of ​‘readers’ whilst also supporting in the development of descriptive language. Children should very quickly be able to join in with repetition, and predict, based on the texture on the page.

The repetitive language should allow children to begin ​‘reading’ the words as the adult tracks for them, and following a few adult-led sessions, children can then be given the opportunity to ​‘read’ a book of their choice from the same series to themselves or a friend, and you very quickly observe the skills and confidence in emergent reading develop. Examples of other books we regularly use with children at this level are shown below, as they have memorable, predictable, repetitive language, which makes reading attractive to emergent readers.

Progression can then be made onto other texts, such as Dear Zoo, where you will draw attention to environmental print, or books such as Campbell’s Busy series, which have a range of salient text features to be explored.

Print Referencing as Whole Class Instruction

For whole class instruction, we read longer, more complex picture books to cover the print referencing techniques, choosing those with salient text features to explicitly reference whilst reading. Print referencing does not require schools to purchase new texts to read with their class. When looking at the table below (Zucker, Ward and Justice, 2009), our EYFS team very quickly found lots of suitable texts with high print salience in the classroom, and used these to plan story times accordingly.

Children should ​“have multiple opportunities to hear each book, as this seems an important component of most print referencing studies to date” (Zucker, Ward and Justice, 2009), so we chose some high-quality texts to repeat regularly, and during each read we draw attention to different print salient features.

Throughout the year in EYFS, we select one book a week to plan and teach elements of print referencing, either in small groups, or whole class. But the beauty of reading texts with print referencing in mind is that you can simply reference print as and when it is appropriate. It is important that you don’t detract from the enjoyment or understanding of the story but use print referencing as an additional interest point for in the text. It is not revolutionary, or complex, we all do it naturally, but having a focus and a checklist of print referencing techniques, and print salient features is a useful tool for all adults selecting and reading texts within a classroom.

References:

Bilton, C. (2022) ​‘EEF blog: The​‘Reading Comprehension House’ and foundations that support word reading’

Evans, M.A. , Williamson, K. and Pursoo, T. (2008) ​‘Preschoolers’ Attention to Print During Shared Book Reading’, Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(1), 106 – 129

Justice, L.M., & Ezell, H.K. (2000). Enhancing children’s print and word awareness through home-based parent intervention. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 9(3), 257 – 269.

Justice, L. M., & Ezell, H. K. (2002). Use of storybook reading to increase print awareness in at-risk children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 11(1), 17 – 29.

Justice, L.M., & Ezell, H.K. (2004). Print referencing: An emergent literacy enhancement strategy and its clinical applications. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35(2), 185 – 193.

Justice, L. M., Skibbe, L., Canning, A., & Lankford, C. (2005). Pre-schoolers, print and storybooks: An observational study using eye movement analysis. Journal of Research in Reading, 28(3), 229 – 243.


Zucker, T.A., Ward, A.E. and Justice, L.M. (2009) ​‘Print Referencing During Read-Alouds: A Technique for Increasing Emergent Readers’ Print Knowledge’, The Reading Teacher Vol. 63, No. 1 September 2009