Play and Pre-Literacy Among Young Children

The program will run for 60 minutes once per week for 10 consecutive weeks and will consist of three components: direct FMS instruction, unstructured exploratory free-play, and an interactive storybook reading activity. The curriculum and teaching strategies to be used for the first two segments of our intervention have been successfully implemented in previous research to improve the motor skills of 4 year old children with autism (Bremer, Balogh, \& Lloyd, 2014). Specific strategies and books were selected from an existing evidence-based curriculum (Justice \& McGuinty, 2009). There will be active involvement of at least one parent in the direct instruction and reading components.

The participants will not participate in the motor and pre-literacy program for 10 weeks after enrollment and will continue with their normal daily life without any intervention. After the experimental arm completes the motor and pre-literacy program, the wait-list group will receive the exact same motor and pre-literacy intervention.