Early Literacies Course

HomeEarly Literacies Course
type here...
Early childhood
Thought leadership
School

Early Literacies Course

HomeEarly Literacies Course

ONLINE COURSE | START ANY TIME

This course explores the development of literacies in the early years and how teachers can support young children to understand and express themselves in multiple ways. It will provide participants with the tools to reflect upon and apply practices and strategies in their own unique local early childhood education contexts. 

Learning objectives:

  • To understand key principles relating to literacy in early childhood education (ECE) contexts
  • To identify multiple ways that young children engage with literacies within everyday interactions in ECE settings
  • To relate and apply course content to teachers’ own practices around supporting and extending early literacies in local ECE contexts

Outcomes:
Throughout the course, you will be supported to put your learning into action in your own context of practice through undertaking a case study of a particular child.

Interviews with

  • Professor Mary Kalantzis
  • Professor Bill Cope
  • Professor Claire McLachlan
  • Speech-language therapist Hana Tuwhare

Case studies of practice

  • Elim International Kids Early Childhood Centre
  • Stokes Valley Kindergarten
Enrol now
Already enrolled?
Access the course through your Account

 

Start today with our self-directed pathway

Time commitment

Allow 5-6 weeks, 60 minutes per week, plus putting your learning into practice in your own work context

Flexible engagement

With course content available 24-7 and no cut-off date, you can choose when to engage with the learning materials

Multimodal learning

A rich mix of interviews, readings, video case-studies, reflections, and practical activities

Course outline

PART 1
Core principles of early literacies 

Explore the multiple forms of literacy in early childhood education settings, including embodied, spoken, and written literacies, including:

  • The importance of teachers partnering with families to understand and build on home literacy practices     
  • How literacies are situated in cultural practices and the importance of affirming indigenous parenting practices and giving children a sense of connection, identity, and belonging

PART 2
Embodied, nonverbal literacies 

This part explores some of the ways that children learn to understand and express their meaning in embodied, nonverbal ways. This includes:

  • Connections between embodied literacies and everyday play and social interactions
  • Ways that early childhood teachers can encourage children to develop embodied literacies
  • The role of digital technologies in supporting children to make and share meaning

PART 3
Spoken and written literacies 

This part focuses on ways that early childhood teachers can encourage children to develop spoken and written literacies through everyday interactions. This includes:

  • Oral languages, including speaking and listening, vocabulary and comprehension
  • Phonological awareness, or building awareness of sounds in words by playing with rhythm, syllables, rhyme, and phonemes (sounds)
  • Print awareness, or building awareness that written symbols carry meaning, and that sounds correspond with letters

PART 4
The power of stories 

This part examines why stories are such an important aspect of literacy for young children. This includes:

  • Different ways that children might experience stories in ECE settings in oral, written, and embodied ways, including their role as storytellers
  • How ECE teachers can support children’s learning about and through stories
ENROL NOW

Early Literacies Course

Enrolment instructions

1. Select your enrolment requirements below carefully, especially if you are enrolling a group.
2. If you are enrolling someone else (one person or more) onto the course, and you do not wish to take the course yourself, you must choose the option called Enrol others NOT yourself. You will receive information about how to invite them onto the course after you have completed the transaction. 
3. You can choose to pay via invoice (choose offline payment on the next page), Paypal or by credit card.
4. Once enrolled, you’ll find the course on your Account page. You will also receive an email welcoming you to the course.

Group enrolments

Enrolling as a group offers you great savings, and enables teachers to share their learning journeys and centres to collectively make changes in their practice based on their learning. Each teacher receives their own log in, linked to their email address, and can complete the course in their own time, on their own computer or tablet.

Pricing

  • 1 teacher: NZ$110.00
  • 2-10 teachers: SAVE 15% (NZ$93.50pp)
  • 11-25 teachers: SAVE 20% (NZ$88.00pp)
  • 26+ teachers: SAVE 25% (NZ$82.50pp)
  • Please note: Prices are subject to 15% GST (local sales tax). Discounts only apply to group enrolments made in one transaction, and cannot be applied retrospectively if your group size increases.

Who are you enrolling?

Enrol yourself

NZ $110 .00
  • No discount
  • Lifetime access*
  • Online discussion boards
  • Personalised certificate
Start enrolment
Discounted

Enrol others AND yourself

from NZ $82 .50
  • Group discounts of 15-25%
  • Lifetime access*
  • Online discussion boards
  • Personalised certificates
Start enrolment
Discounted

Enrol others NOT yourself

from NZ $82 .50
  • Group discounts of 15-25%
  • Lifetime access*
  • Online discussion boards
  • Personalised certificates
Start enrolment

Prices shown are per person, and are subject to GST (local sales tax) of 15%. * Lifetime access means for as long as the course is hosted on The Education Hub

Keeping our courses affordable

The Education Hub wants as many teachers as possible to be able to take our courses and benefit from the high quality professional learning they offer. Therefore, we are committed to keeping course fees as low as possible. It is through the support of our ever-generous supporters that we can produce such rich, multimodal learning opportunities while offering participants significant subsidies.

See all our early childhood courses
Please note, all our courses are best completed on a desktop/laptop computer or tablet. Because of the amount of content, we do not recommend using a phone. 
* Group discounts apply to the full price, and can only be applied in one transaction, not retrospectively, or on the addition of more enrolments. ** Our standard terms and conditions are available here

Past participants recommend our courses

“Thanks for the opportunity. This was without doubt amongst the best professional development I have done in many years.”
Course participant
Assessment & Intentional Teaching

Get unlimited access to all our webinars

Buy a webinar subscription for yourself, your school or centre and enjoy savings of up to 25%

The Education Hub webinars provide high-quality research-based content for teachers. A webinar subscription costs just NZ$60+GST per person (with discounts of up to 25% available for groups) and provides access to all our live webinars for 12 months, plus all the recordings in our archive.
Find out more

12-MONTH WEBINAR SUBSCRIPTION

NZ$ 60 per person +GST
  • All live webinars for 12 months
  • Access to our library of over 100 webinars
  • Personalised certificates
  • Group savings of up to 25%
Buy now

About The Education Hub

The Education Hub’s mission is to bridge the gap between research and practice in education. We want to empower educators to find, use and share research to improve their teaching practice, and then share their innovations. We are building the online and offline infrastructure to support this to improve opportunities and outcomes for students.

New Zealand registered charity number: CC54471

Find out more

We’ll keep you updated

Follow us on social media

Like what we do? Please support us

Donate now to show your appreciation

© The Education Hub 2025 All rights reserved | Site design: KOPARA

Close popup
Message from The Education Hub Choose how you stay up to date

Early childhood education
School

Your details:

Already have an account? Login here

* Required fields

By clicking submit, you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

We value your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal information. The data you provide on this form will be used to keep you informed about our latest news, updates, and promotional offers. Rest assured, your information will be handled in strict accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Your data will be stored securely, and you have the right to access, correct, or delete your information at any time. For more details, please review our Privacy Policy or Terms of Service.