To measure the degree to which early childhood educators promote language and literacy activities in their centers, a 23-item survey (excluding demographic items) was developed. The survey began with the following question: "In my early childhood program, we..." Participants were then instructed to respond to a series of statements indicating how often they engage children in specific activities (see the Appendix for survey items). Response options for each of the 23 items ranged from 1 (Never) to 5 (Always).
Items focused on specific educational strategies associated with the promotion of children's emergent literacy skills including (1) current caregiver-child reading practices, (2) instruction about books, (3) exposure to books, (4) word and letter recognition, and (5) promotion of phonological awareness. When combined to form a single measure of language and literacy promotion, the 23-item scale showed excellent internal reliability (alpha reliability = .94).