Encouraging Emerging Literacy
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Preschool Years
The preschool years are a prime time for developing the skills needed to support future literacy and reading skills. Formal reading instruction at this point is NOT recommended for most children. Instead, providing an environment rich in language opportunities built around the child’s every day experiences is the key to ensuring that pre-reading skills are acquired before the child enters kindergarten.
The skills that need to be developed and nurtured during the preschool years include:
Print Awareness
Understanding that the letters and symbols that permeate a child’s world have meaning, and that they can be used in many different ways to communicate and share information. Letters, combined into words, are written symbols for spoken language.
The Alphabetic Principle
More than being able to recite the alphabet or sing the “Alphabet Song,” children who are ready to enter school need to be able to recognize most letters automatically. The less time a child has to spend thinking about the names of individual letters, the more he will be able to concentrate on words as a whole.
Phonological Awareness
Ouch! This is a very complex-sounding word for a group of concepts that are key to reading success, and not as complicated as the term implies. Basically, children need to understand that language is broken up into individual units of sound, they need to be able to distinguish these individual sounds and combine them in different ways to form new words, they need to hear the rhymes and rhythms of language. They will also need to connect these sounds to individual letters or groups of letters.
The good news is that all of the above required skills, and other concepts that are important like counting, “pretend” writing, and recognizing colors, shapes, and patterns can be acquired using every day activities and opportunities. During this time, there are several things adults can do to help develop a child’s early literacy skills.
Create a Language-Rich Environment
Make sure the tools of literacy are readily available by providing paper, writing materials, and books. Spend time talking about the stories you read and the day’s activities. Show and share with your child the ways in which you use print, reading, and writing to conduct your every day life.
Sing Songs and Play With Words
You can make up silly words to reinforce language sounds and rhyming skills. Talk about the names of things, find things that begin with the same letter as your child’s first name, label things around the house or classroom.
Read With Your Preschooler
The research is very clear that the amount of time a child has spent sharing books and stories with caring adults is the greatest predictor of future reading success.
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