Early Reading First and Beyond helps preschool teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators understand and implement Early Reading First legislative initiatives and enhance the early language and emergent literacy skills of preschool children. The first chapter explains Early Reading First initiatives and current legislation from the U.S. Department of Education and No Child Left Behind. Subsequent chapters provide detailed explanations on each of the essential domains of early literacy development. The text summarizes current research and shows educators how to promote early literacy and pre-reading skills and how to create preschool programs of excellence.

The author discusses the key elements of Early Reading First:

- Partnering with parents
- Designing preschool educational programs of excellence
- Oral language development
- Phonological awareness
- Print awareness
- Alphabetic knowledge
- Developing early metacognitive thinking