Overcoming the challenges of COVID-19 to promote young children’s literacy learning

The year 2020 was an unusual year in Australia and around the world. First, there were raging bushfires and floods in Australia then the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though social and natural disasters are becoming increasingly prevalent, research investigating and offering practical advice to early childhood teachers around supporting children and families during these events is limited. In this paper I acknowledge the challenges of COVID-19 and discuss some tried and tested practices of early childhood teachers to promote very young children's literacy learning throughout the pandemic.