Effectiveness
Doors to Discovery™ was found to have potentially positive effects on oral language and print knowledge, and no discernible effects on phonological processing and math.
Program Description
Doors to Discovery™, an early childhood curriculum, focuses on the development of children’s vocabulary and expressive and receptive language through a learning process called “shared literacy,” where adults and children work together to develop literacy-related skills. Literacy activities, organized into thematic units, encourage children’s development in a number of areas identified by research as the foundation for early literacy success:
oral language, phonological awareness, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, writing, and comprehension. Each unit is available as a kit that includes various teacher resources.
Research
One study of
Doors to Discovery™ meets What Works Clearinghouse
(WWC) evidence standards, and one study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. The two studies included 33 preschool classrooms and 220 prekindergarten children from three to five years of age in two locations in the southwest United States.
Based on these two studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Doors to Discovery™ to be medium to large for oral language and print knowledge, and small for phonological processing
and math. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of Doors to Discovery™ in the early reading and writing or cognition domains.
