In Colombia, the national law De Cero a Siempre (DCAS) provides a framework for holistic and integrated early childhood development and education for all children. Against the backdrop of the United Nations’Sustainable Development Goals and the DCAS policy objectives, Colombia set out to apply a comprehensive measure to track the quality of early childhood education programs that would inform pedagogical, programmatic, and policy strategies. Our study describes the process whereby key stakeholders selected, adapted, validated, and applied the Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) framework to characterize the quality of early childhood education at scale in the country. We describe the phases that led to the application of the different instrument modules, and the key enablers and challenges to the process. The paper includes implications for policy, practice, and research in Colombia and discusses lessons learned with relevance to the Latin American and global contexts.

Little is known about parents' book-sharing styles in indigenous communities undergoing social and cultural change. This study investigated Guatemalan Mayan parents' book-sharing styles and their relation to parents' schooling experience and children's narrative contributions. Thirty parents and their first-grade children (ages 7–9) were audiotaped sharing a worded picture book. Most parents either adopted the role of the sole narrator (40%) or shared the role of the narrator with their children (40%); other parents focused on teaching literacy skills (20%). Guatemalan Mayan parents with greater schooling experience were more likely to adopt the sole-narrator style than other styles. Children whose parents adopted the sole-narrator style contributed significantly less to the story (both in amount and type of new information provided) than children whose parents adopted other styles. Implications for family literacy programs working with Guatemalan Mayan and other indigenous communities are discussed.