The Program: My Magic Story Car is a video-based program of five make-believe games to strengthen 4-5-year-olds’ emergent literacy in any child care setting. Children ‘drive’ Magic Story Cars (cardboard boxes, cushions or chairs) to play five games for practicing skills such as phonological awareness, print knowledge, alphabet letters and vocabulary. The games also enhance adults’ skills for fostering emergent literacy.

This online version of My Magic Story Car includes Instructions and Materials for the games, a manual for downloading, and a video showing how to play one game, Octopus Treasure. The full version of the program includes manuals for adults and an interactive video or DVD showing children how to play all five games. (See How to Purchase.)

National Testing with 434 preschoolers in the care of 259 parents, teachers and home care providers in low-income communities in six states demonstrated significant gains in children's emergent literacy after playing the program's games for just two weeks; and the vast majority of children continued to use these skills on their own without adult intervention.

The Program Was Developed by Emmy Award-winner, Harvey F. Bellin, and Prof. Jerome Singer and Dr. Dorothy Singer, Directors, Yale University Family TV Research Center, under a United States Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences SBIR-II grant.