Early Literacy Profile of Kindergarten Children: Ankara Sample

This study aimed to make an early literacy profile of kindergarten children educated in Ankara. Participants were 403 kindergarten children selected from several schools located in neighborhoods of different socioeconomic statuses in Ankara. The early literacy skills of children were tested with seven sub-tests (Receptive Language, Expressive Language, Category Naming, Function Knowledge, Letter Knowledge, Phonological Awareness, and Listening Comprehension) of Test of Early Literacy (TEL). All the testing sessions were carried out in a quiet room located on the school grounds of the tested participants, individually. All the gathered data were analyzed into two steps. Firstly, the descriptive statistics of children's early literacy scores, then the distribution of these scores in each sub-test were analyzed separately. Findings from the present study indeed point that children were only close to the expected level in the vocabulary knowledge field but in all other fields, they were below than this level. All these findings are discussed with reference to the existing curriculum and the educational activities used in kindergartens.