Literacy knowledge development

Literacy Development in Children | Maryville Online

Tables of Contents

What Is Literacy Development?
Language and Literacy Development in Children
5 Literacy Development Stages
Literacy Development in Early Childhood
Early Literacy Development Stages in Children

The benefits of physical activity for a person’s health and longevity are well documented. However, not everyone is aware of the many health benefits of the most common form of mental exercise: reading.

Reading stimulates brain development in children and adults and promotes social and emotional skills that contribute to healthy lifestyles.
Reading reduces stress and symptoms of depression; it lowers readers’ blood pressure and pulse rate, and it reduces the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and late-life cognitive decline.
Reading fiction enhances emotional intelligence by teaching how to perceive and understand other people’s feelings; it also improves memory and the ability to concentrate.

For children, literacy development provides benefits that begin immediately and last a lifetime.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that instructing parents on the benefits of reading aloud to their children and providing an age-appropriate and a culturally appropriate book to a child at each health supervision visit from birth to 5 years improves the child’s language development and home environment. The improvement was greatest among children at socioeconomic risk.
Research published in the journal Pediatrics links language exposure in children ages 12 months to 24 months to higher language skills and IQ scores through age 14.
A study reported in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics determined that children who are read to regularly in their first five years of life are exposed to 1.4 million more words than children who are never read to.

The importance of early literacy development to a child’s success in school and life can’t be understated. Even though the literacy rate in the U.S. is 99%, researchers estimate that 43 million U.S. adults have low literacy skills that impair their cognitive abilities. Introducing children to books and reading from their first months of life prepares them to succeed in school while also strengthening family bonds and promoting children’s health and well-being for a lifetime.

Crayons, Pencils, and Keyboards; Martin-Pitt Partnership for Children; and Nationwide Children’s Hospital report these benefits of language and literacy: They build confidence and self-esteem, encourage independent learning, enhance cognitive ability, strengthen brain function, improve attention span, and enrich communication skills.

What Is Literacy Development?

Literacy development is the process of learning words, sounds, and language. The acquisition of early literacy skills begins in a child’s first year, when infants begin to discriminate, encode, and manipulate the sound structures of language, an ability called phonological awareness.

Before their first birthday, children begin to store phonemes, or basic units of meaning in a language, in their memory.
In subsequent years, they learn how to manipulate and combine phonemes into meaningful language units by applying morphology (words) and syntax (grammar).
They’re able to retrieve and produce words in ways that express ideas, and they can coordinate visual and motor processes (speaking written words).

It’s important to assess a child’s language skills at an early age, because delays in literacy development could indicate a language or reading disorder. Research has shown that languages with consistent sound-to-letter correspondences, or orthographic consistency, are easier for children to learn.

Languages with regular orthographies, such as Spanish and Czech, tend to be easier for young children to learn than languages with inconsistent orthographies, such as English, Danish, and French.
Primary school children acquiring languages with opaque orthographies tend to make more errors than children learning a language with transparent orthographies.
A language’s orthographic transparency affects the ability to diagnose dyslexia, for example: In languages with transparent orthographies, the inability to quickly retrieve and produce words, or rapid automatic naming, is more predictive of dyslexia than in languages with opaque orthographies, in which lack of phonological awareness is a better indicator of potential dyslexia.

Encouraging Communication and Reading Skills

Reading-related activities in the child’s home are key to early literacy development. These activities include joint reading, drawing, singing, storytelling, game playing, and rhyming.

Joint reading entails children and their parents or caregivers taking turns reading parts of the book. The children are asked to describe what they’re thinking as they read.
Drawing not only helps develop a child’s motor skills but also encourages creative thinking and lays the foundation for early writing. It also helps children gain cognitive understanding of complex concepts and builds their attention span.
Singing makes it easier for children to identify small sounds in words and build their vocabulary. A song’s rhyme structure teaches similarities between words, and singing helps develop a child’s listening skills.
Storytelling sparks a child’s imagination in addition to teaching sounds, words, and grammar. Children learn to focus and concentrate while also picking up social and communication skills.
Game playing presents an opportunity for children to learn language and reading skills while engaged in favorite activities, such as using props and objects to act out scenarios, role-playing, and imagining new experiences.
Rhyming is both enjoyable and memorable for young children while also teaching phonemic awareness and fluency in reading and speaking. In addition to helping children learn the fundamental patterns in language, rhyming helps build their confidence and instills in them a joy of reading.

Using Childhood Literacy to Treat Communication Disorders

While nearly all children experience problems with a few language sounds, words, or syntax, some children struggle to reach literacy milestones that are common for their age group. These are among the language problems that young children may encounter:

Receptive language, or understanding what others are saying. This may be due to a problem hearing or an inability to understand the meaning of words.
Expressive language, or using language to communicate thoughts. The child may not possess sufficient vocabulary to express themselves, not understand how to put the words together, or may know the words but not how to use them correctly.
Speech disorders include difficulty forming specific sounds and words or problems speaking smoothly, such as stuttering.
Language delay occurs when the child takes longer than usual to comprehend language and speak.
Language disorders include aphasia (difficulty speaking and understanding due to a brain injury or atypical brain function) and auditory processing disorder (problems in comprehending the sounds the ear sends to the brain).

Some language development problems relate to hearing loss, so children experiencing language problems should have their hearing checked. Speech language pathologists are able to help children overcome language learning difficulties; they also help parents, caregivers, and teachers overcome language learning difficulties in children. Children under the age of 3 who appear to have problems with literacy development may qualify for state early intervention programs that help them develop cognitive, communication, and other skills.

Language and Literacy Development in Children

How children develop language skills and become literate are two separate but closely related processes:

Language development occurs as the child’s ability to understand and use language emerges. Receptive language skills are the ability to listen and understand, while expressive language skills relate to the child’s use of language to communicate ideas, thoughts, and feelings.
Emerging literacy is the child’s initial use of language and communication skills as the foundation for reading and writing. Infants and toddlers begin to apply their new receptive, expressive, and vocabulary skills, while preschoolers begin to distinguish the differences and similarities of spoken and written language.

These are the components of language and literacy development programs for young children:

At this stage, the child focuses on communication and language from others, understanding, and responding. The four aspects of attending and understanding are know, see, do, and improve:

Know: For infants and toddlers, the parents or caregivers respond to their verbal and nonverbal communication with words and facial expressions to establish a back-and-forth exchange. Toddlers are encouraged to respond to questions and short comments. For preschool children, communication expands from simple words and short phrases to more complex words and sentences.
See: For infants and toddlers, the caregivers describe what they’re doing and what the infants or toddlers are doing and observe their response to indicate whether the infants or toddlers understand. For preschool children, the caregivers describe what’s going to happen and give the children an opportunity to communicate and respond.
Do: For infants and toddlers, the caregivers narrate what’s happening during an activity and give the children an opportunity to participate, focusing on the things that draw the children’s attention. For preschool children, the caregivers engage them in a conversation about what’s happening and help them pick up the cues of a give-and-take exchange, such as waiting for their turn to speak.
Improve: For infants and toddlers, the caregivers individualize the responses to their verbal and nonverbal communication and react using facial expressions, gestures, signs, and words when the children indicate that they understand. For preschool children, the caregivers initiate conversations with them and let them know they’re valued conversation partners. The children are encouraged to strike up conversations with other children.

Communicating and Speaking

Early communication efforts by infants and toddlers focus on what the child wants or needs through facial expressions, gestures, and verbalization. The child engages with others using increasingly complex language and initiates interactions with others verbally and nonverbally to learn and gain information. Preschoolers learn to vary the amount of information they communicate as dictated by the situation. They begin to understand, follow, and comply with the rules of conversation and social interaction.

Vocabulary

Through their interactions with others, infants and toddlers learn new words and begin to use them to communicate and respond. The parent or caregiver shows an object or action and repeats its name, and also demonstrates words that express feelings and desires. Preschool children learn how to use a wider range of words in various settings and with shades of meaning in specific situations. They also begin to categorize words and understand relationships between words. When engaging children in conversation, the person takes every opportunity to introduce new words to the child that relate to the topic and setting.

Emergent Literacy

The earliest stages of literacy for infants and toddlers is their repetition and use of rhymes, phrases, and song refrains. They begin to physically handle books and understand that they’re the source of stories and information. Children start to recognize pictures, symbols, signs, and basic words; understand what pictures and stories mean; and make marks that represent objects and actions.

Phonological Awareness

Preschoolers begin to understand that language is composed of discrete sound elements that have their own meaning. Singing songs, playing word games, and reading stories and poetry aloud help make children aware of phonological distinctions in the words, phrases, and sentences they’re using. Through wordplay, such as being called by name with the separate sounds of the name highlighted, children become aware of the individual sounds that make up words.

Print and Alphabet Knowledge

Preschoolers begin to show that they understand how printing is used and the rules that apply to print. They can identify individual letters and associate the correct sounds to the letters. The parent or caregiver can draw attention to the features of printed letters and show children different print types, such as those used in menus, brochures, and magazines. The person can emphasize the relationship between letters and sounds. Reading alphabet books together helps children connect a letter with words that use the letter and pictures of the objects.

Comprehension and Text Structure

By hearing and reading stories, preschoolers begin to comprehend the narrative structure of storytelling and start to ask questions about and comment on the stories. Children are introduced to stories by reading aloud together, and after several rereadings, they’re able to recall its plot, characters, and events. They’re also able to retell the story using puppets and other props related to the book, as well as through their own illustrations and writing.

Writing

Preschoolers can be introduced to writing as a way to describe in their own words a story or an event, such as preparing a shopping list before going to the grocery store. They can also be asked to write captions for pictures and photographs. Children can be taught the proper spacing of words by writing each word of a sentence on a separate piece of paper. Drawing helps children develop the motor skills required for writing; in place of a pencil or crayon, they can be encouraged to write using their finger or a stick to write in sand or dirt.

According to The Edvocate, This Reading Mama, and UpToDate, readers should be able to complete the following tasks at each literacy development stage. Emergent literacy: sing the ABCs; alphabetic fluency: see the relationships between letters and sounds; words and patterns: read silently without vocalizing; intermediate reading: read to acquire ideas and gain knowledge; and advanced reading: comprehend longer texts such as books.

5 Literacy Development Stages

Early literacy typically occurs in a child’s first three years, when the child is introduced to books, stories, and writing tools (paper, pencils, etc.). Children learn language, reading, and writing skills simultaneously, in part through their experiences and interactions with others. Parents and caregivers can encourage early literacy development stages through various activities:

Read to children beginning in earliest infancy.
Let them handle books.
Help them identify and interact with images in books.
Narrate and imitate the actions in the pictures.
Spend as much time as possible talking to infants.

The goal of early literacy efforts isn’t to teach children to read at a very young age but rather to prepare them for each stage of literacy development, from earliest image recognition through reading fluency at ages 11 to 14. The five stages of literacy development are emergent literacy, alphabetic fluency, words and patterns, intermediate reading, and advanced reading.

1. Emergent Literacy

The initial stage of literacy development sees children acquire literacy skills in informal settings before their formal schooling begins. This preliterate phase lasts until children are 5 or 6 years old and is characterized by specific pre-reading behaviors:

Pretending to read books that others have read to them
Holding books correctly and playing with them
A growing interest in pencils, paper, crayons, and other material related to reading and writing
Speaking or chanting letters even though they may not yet recognize them
Scribbling make-believe letters or pretending to write

At later ages in this stage, children may recognize and be able to write the letters in their names, distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, and identify an increasing number of high-frequency words.

2. Alphabetic Fluency

At this novice reader stage, children between the ages of 5 and 8 begin to recognize relationships between letters and sounds. These activities are typically observed during this phase of literacy development:

Recognizing and pronouncing words they see in print
Writing phonetically
Using pictures and other context clues to identify unfamiliar words
Pointing at words as they read them out loud
Occasionally reversing letters when they write them

3. Words and Patterns

During this transitional stage that occurs from ages 7 to 9, children’s reading fluency improves, and children begin to recognize syllables and phonemes rather than simply individual letters. Children in this decoding reader phase have reading vocabularies of up to 3,000 words. Behaviors in this stage include the following:

Reading without assistance
Much improved reading comprehension
Silent reading without vocalizing
Greater recognition of high-frequency words
Reduced reliance on context clues to figure out the meaning of new words

4.

Intermediate Reading

By ages 9 to 15, children begin to acquire ideas from what they’re reading. Their reading material includes textbooks, dictionaries and other reference works, newspapers, magazines, and trade books. At this stage of literacy development, a child’s reading comprehension becomes equivalent to listening comprehension. These are some of the experiences of readers at this phase:

Gaining new knowledge
Experiencing new feelings through the stories they read
Exploring issues from various perspectives
Developing strategies for learning the meaning of unfamiliar words
Reading at a faster pace

5. Advanced Reading

At the last stage of literacy development, readers can comprehend long and complex text without assistance. They’re also able to find on their own books and other printed material that’s relevant to a specific topic. Characteristics of readers at this stage include the following:

Reading for many different purposes and to expand their own interests
Seeking different perspectives and points of view and understanding that what they read can influence their opinions
Gaining a deeper understanding of the subtext of what they read, or reading between the lines to grasp the wider context of the material
Expanding their vocabulary and knowledge of subjects through reading recommendations or their own selection of material

Literacy Development in Early Childhood

Literacy development in early childhood entails helping children build language skills, including their vocabulary, ability to express themselves, and reading comprehension. Learning to read is a complex process that children master at their own pace, so it’s natural for some children to proceed more slowly than others.

Skills Needed for Reading Comprehension

The many individual skills required for reading comprehension can be divided into seven broad categories: decoding, fluency, vocabulary, sentence structure, sentence cohesion, background knowledge, and working memory and attention.

The skills that make up reading comprehension, according to Reading Rockets and Understood: 1. Decoding — Sound out words. 2. Fluency — Recognize words by sight. 3. Vocabulary — Become familiar with a collection of words. 4. Sentence structure — Understand how words build sentences. 5. Sentence cohesion — Understand how words connect ideas. 6. World experience — Relate to what’s being read. 7. Working memory — Take in information from text.

Decoding: Children learn the meaning of words by sounding out words they’ve heard before but haven’t seen in writing. Decoding requires phonemic awareness, or knowledge of the basic building blocks of meaning in a language. This is part of broader phonological awareness, which allows children to associate specific sounds with their written representation.
Fluency: Once children can recognize words immediately as they read, they’re able to comprehend what they’re reading much faster. Children learn irregular words that they can’t sound out, such as “of” and “the.” Fluency improves comprehension by allowing readers to consider groups of words together to get a better sense of their meaning.
Vocabulary: While children learn some of their vocabulary through direct instruction, they learn most new words by reading on their own and from their everyday experiences. Among the creative ways to introduce children to new words are through using them in conversations with children, telling jokes, and playing word games.
Sentence structure and cohesion: Reading comprehension depends on a child’s understanding of how phrases and sentences are constructed. Sentence cohesion is the ability to connect the ideas expressed in a sentence and between sentences, while coherence describes how the ideas in a sentence link to the overall theme of the book or material being read.
Experience, reasoning, and background knowledge: Children and adults bring their own knowledge and experience to the material they’re reading, so they can place the information in a broader context and more closely relate to the subject. Gaining the ability to reason about what they’re reading is helped by giving the child greater exposure to the world through hands-on experiences, conversations, art, and reading itself.
Working memory and attention: Working memory and attention are considered part of a child’s executive function, which is required to complete complex tasks. This includes organizing and planning, staying focused, and tracking their own progress. Working memory lets children retain and reuse information as well as identify the words they don’t understand. Maintaining attention as they read bolsters comprehension and lets children read at a faster pace.

Activities That Stimulate Reading Comprehension

The best way to prepare children for a lifetime of reading enjoyment is to surround them with words from infancy through their teen years. Everyday activities, such as eating meals, going to the store, taking a bath, and playing outside are excellent opportunities to build a child’s vocabulary and other literacy skills. These literacy activities are suitable for infants and toddlers, as well as for pre-K and school-age children.

Talking to and singing with young children: Rhyming is a great way to catch and maintain a young child’s interest, whether by reciting nursery rhymes or making up rhymes in everyday conversations. Repeat the sounds that the child makes, or ask children to repeat the sounds they hear. Narrate your walks or car trips, and ask the child to repeat the sounds of the objects seen.
Reading actively: While reading together, emphasize the rhyming words, and make up rhymes for the words the child encounters. Let the child turn the book’s pages and ask the child to comment on the images on the page. Stop on occasion while reading to ask the child what will happen next. Ask the child to act out the story, and tie what’s happening with events in the child’s own life.
Scribbling and drawing: Scribbling and drawing help children develop the motor skills they need for writing. They also help children understand that certain writing and pictures have specific meanings. Ask children to add a scribble or drawing to cards and letters or to describe what they’ve drawn, writing down the words they use so that they can connect writing with the sound of words.
Making a storybook or alphabet book: Using a computer or paper and pencils, help children create a story using their own drawings and words. A simple example is an alphabet book with each letter on one side of a page and a drawing of an item that begins with that letter on the opposite side of the page.

Resources: Literacy Development in Early Childhood

Scholastic, 6 Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension — Strategies include asking children to read aloud, rereading simple and familiar books to gain fluency, and talking to the children about what they’re reading.
S. Department of Education, Early Learning Resources — Resources include language building tips for parents, guides for preschool teachers and child care providers, and early childhood literacy assessment techniques.
Raising Readers, How to Get Your Child Ready to Read — Tip sheets for parents and families in several languages, along with downloadable handouts that teach a different aspect of literacy for each month of the year.

Early Literacy Development Stages in Children

While researchers in early literacy development agree that it’s a step-by-step process, they define the steps in different ways. Generally, the path a child takes from earliest awareness of print and reading to independent, competent reader and writer is completed in five stages:

Awareness and Exploration Stage

Between the ages of 6 months and 6 years old, children hear and experiment with reproducing and creating a range of monosyllabic and polysyllabic sounds, ultimately forming words that represent discrete things and concepts. Their introduction to reading is typically through listening to and discussing storybooks, participating in rhyming activities, and beginning to identify letters.

Novice Reading and Writing Stage

At ages 6 and 7, children match letters with sounds and connect printed and spoken words. They can tell simple stories, and understand the orientation of printed words on a page. They’re also able to read and write individual letters and high-frequency words and sound out new monosyllabic words that they encounter.

Traditional Reading and Writing Stage

When they’re between the ages of 7 and 9, children gain fluency in reading familiar stories, increasing their enjoyment. They’re able to decode elements of words and sentences while building their vocabulary of words they recognize on sight. Their reading skills allow them to process new information, and they have a better grasp of the meaning of the material they read.

Fluent and Comprehending Reading and Writing Stage

Between the ages of 9 and 15, children are able to understand what they’re reading from multiple perspectives and learn new ideas and concepts. Their reading expands to reference books, textbooks, and various media, in which they’re exposed to a range of worldviews in addition to new syntax and specialized vocabularies.

Expert Reading and Writing Stage

When children reach their midteens, their reading skills allow them to tackle advanced topics in science, history, mathematics, and the arts. They’re able to make associations across subject areas and consider complex issues from diverse points of view. Their reading and writing span topics from social and physical sciences to politics and current affairs.

Importance of Literacy Development in Children

Children gain confidence in many areas of their lives when they grow up to become strong readers. The literary skills they began learning in their first months of life enhance all aspects of their lifelong education. By encouraging a love of reading in children, we instill a desire to learn and progress that propels them through their school years, careers, and personal lives. Children learn that reading is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable skills they’ll ever possess.

Infographic Sources

Crayons, Pencils, and Keyboards, “Why is Literacy Development Important for Children?”

Martin-Pitt Partnership for Children, “Benefits of Early Literacy Skills”

Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “Early Literacy: Why Reading is Important to a Child’s Development”

Reading Rockets, “Comprehension Instruction: What Works”

The Edvocate, “What Are The Five Stages of Reading Development?”

This Reading Mama, “Word Pattern Readers and Spellers {Stage 3}”

Understood, “6 Essential Skills for Reading Comprehension”

UpToDate, “Emergent Literacy Including Language Development”

The 5 Stages for Developing Literacy

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Teaching Tips

June 17, 2021

4 min

Literacy development is the process of learning words, sounds, and language. Children develop literacy skills in order to learn to read and write confidently and eventually improve their communication skills overall. The stages of literacy development that a child goes through can vary depending on the child’s comprehension levels but generally include the same key concepts along the way. Understanding literacy development in children as an educator is key for helping children master these core skills that set them up for their education. With an understanding of literacy development and how to address each of the stages of literacy development, both educators and students alike will be set up for success in the classroom.

Why is Literacy Development Important?

As the pillars of language and reading skills, literacy development is a crucial time in a child’s life. Educators need to understand why literacy development is so important in order to effectively help children within each stage of their early literacy development.

Here are just a few reasons early literacy development is important:

Children with confident reading abilities typically struggle less with their studies and have a confident approach to their education.
Strong literacy skills translate well into independent learning and encourage consistent growth in and out of the classroom.
Literacy development affects the way students communicate and problem solve. Those with strong literacy skills usually have improved cognitive ability.

The Five Stages of Literacy Development

As a child grows older and demonstrates the key stages of literacy development they will improve their reading and writing ability. The five stages of literacy development include emergent literacy, alphabetic fluency, words and patterns, intermediate reading, and advanced reading. Each stage of literacy development helps the child move forward and become a stronger student. Keep in mind that a child's current age group doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re at that step in their early literacy development.

Stage 1: Emergent Literacy

Age Range: 4-6 years old.

As the earliest stage of literacy development, emergent literacy is the first moment that a child begins to understand letters and words. While many of the behaviors of the emergent literacy stage are not fully formed and irregular, these are still some of the first signs that a child is beginning to form literacy ability.

Here are Some Behaviors of Stage 1 Learners:

Pretending to be able to read children’s books.
The ability to recognize the first letter of their name.
Singing the ABCs, even if unable to identify letters separately.
Trying to memorize certain books to “read” them.
The ability to recognize some letters and potentially their sound.
The ability to find words in their environment.

To learn helpful strategies to support emerging readers by helping them understand what alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness are and why they are both so critically important watch this free webinar, 5 Essential Strategies to Effectively Teach Letters and Sounds.

Stage 2: Alphabetic Fluency

Age Range: 6-7 years old.

As the child grows older and more comfortable with learning their words and letters, they enter the alphabetic fluency stage of literacy development.

Here are Some Behaviors of Stage 2 Learners:

No longer “pretend” reading.
Finger-pointing to words while reading them.
Beginning to recognize words.
Admitting that they’re unable to read certain words.
Using pictures and context clues to figure out certain words.
Reading out loud word by word.

Stage 3: Words and Patterns

Age Range: 7-9 years old.

Sometimes referred to as the “transitional” stage of literacy development, the words and patterns stage is when children begin to develop stronger reading skills. This is the stage when children can vary the most in terms of skills and may adopt behaviors in multiple stages of literacy development.

Here are Some Behaviors of Stage 3 Learners:

Less decoding of words and stronger ability to comprehend reading materials.
More self-correction when what is read is unclear.
Less sound by sound reading and easier time grouping letters.
Able to recognize words that pop up most often automatically.
Less reliance on context clues to figure out unknown words.
Beginning to be able to spell complex consonant words like “-tch”.

Stage 4: Intermediate Reading

Age Range: 9-11 years old.

During the intermediate stage of literacy development, children begin to rely less on educational crutches that help a child learn new words. This is also when children are becoming able to write out sentences with less error and develop stronger fluency overall.

Here are Some Behaviors of Stage 4 Learners:

Reading to learn new information and writing for multiple purposes.
Less difficulty with independent reading.
Reading to explore new concepts from numerous perspectives.
Reading longer materials such as textbooks with little difficulty.
An interest in wanting to learn and develop new vocabulary.

Stage 5: Advanced Reading

Age Range: 11-14 years old.

As the last stage of literacy development, advanced reading is when children become fully fluent and capable of relying on independent reading to learn new information. Reading and writing provide little difficulty and students can absorb complex reading materials during this stage.

Here are Some Behaviors of Stage 5 Learners:

The desire to read numerous types of reading materials.
Reading becomes a daily tool for learning new information.
The ability to formulate longer texts such as essays or book reports.
Readers usually have a strong understanding of the meaning and semantics of words.
The ability to understand and retain complex reading materials.

Develop Early Literacy with Learning Without Tears!

Each stage of literacy development provides its own unique challenges and triumphs in learning to become confident in reading and writing. Learning Without Tears specializes in early childhood development programs that help further progress within the stages of literacy development. Learning Without Tears offers a wide range of educational materials to help teachers create an engaging lesson plan that will get children excited to learn more. With resources for parents to get children set up for school and programs for teachers to teach early literacy concepts, Learning Without Tears is committed to helping children become confident students. Learning Without Tears has created resources and educational materials for children in pre-k to 5th grade to help students succeed during every stage of literacy development and early childhood education. Explore Learning Without Tears to help children get the most out of their education today.

A—Z for Mat Man and Me

Seamlessly bring the ABCs to life while building foundational literacy skills with our new letter book series. Each of our illustrated letter books introduces a letter of the alphabet and emphasizes their associated sound through captivating, visual stories. The engaging stories in each book capture children's imaginations and expose them to social-emotional skills and diverse cultures.

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7 simple ways to improve literacy

Did you know that literacy is "a means of expanding personal freedoms and opportunities, as well as a tool for developing human potential" ? It is with this definition that the RIA Novosti literacy test precedes.

The definition is still something, but you can hardly argue with it. An illiterate copywriter is in principle possible, although extremely rare.

However, literacy superheroes are also rare among copywriters. Rather, we can talk about authors who are more or less indifferent to literacy issues.

But not only copywriters should be literate. Despite the fact that videos, pictures, infographics are becoming more and more popular, active Internet users write something every day. And, of course, it will be better if what comes out from under your keyboard is understandable to everyone you are addressing.

Fortunately, there are very simple ways to increase literacy. Choose from this magnificent seven the methods that suit you.

Method No. 0. Write dictations, take courses

Dictation not only checks the level of literacy, but also improves it. However, this method, like taking courses or classes with a tutor, for the most part causes rejection. Many will say: "We studied and studied at school, and now we also write dictations after school." Therefore, we believe that this method is zero and only professionals use it.

For example, the copywriters of our Bureau have already written the dictation, and repeated and fixed the most difficult rules at the Intensive Russian Language Workshop, which took place in the summer.

Method #1. Read books and look up dictionaries

Psychologists have long studied the connection between reading and writing. One of their conclusions speaks in favor of the fact that reading is a must.

To write correctly, it is not enough to know the rules. It is necessary to constantly accumulate "images of words with traditional spellings." And this can only be done while reading.

Method #2: Write and Edit

Another immutable rule of literacy is to study the rules in the semantic context of speech. That is, it is better not to know the rules and write than to know all the rules by heart, but not to write.

What you have written needs to be edited. But it is not necessary to edit only your texts. Searching for errors in "foreign" texts, in books and magazines increases spelling vigilance.

Method No. 3. Spelling reading

Perhaps someone got sick of spelling while still at school. We were taught to speak out loud and to ourselves every word we read, to dictate to ourselves when you write.

If ordinary reading, in which we do not have to pronounce every word, helps to accumulate images of words through visual memory, then spelling reading also uses speech-motor memory for the same purpose: to save word images that correspond to the spelling norm.

Method No. 4. Copy and rewrite

Regular copying also helps in improving the literacy of writing. However, in order for this lesson to be meaningful, it is better to take notes.

Cheating gives greater efficiency if you arm yourself with a ballpoint pen and a notebook. But you can also transfer this lesson to a computer, especially when mastering the touch typing method.

If you wish, you can use the following algorithm:

1. Read the sentence.

2. Repeat it from memory.

3. Determine which spellings are found in the sentence.

4. Read it spelling and repeat from memory, pronouncing all the sounds.

5. Close the text and write down the sentence.

6. Test yourself on the text.

Method No. 5. Keep a style sheet

American writer Jen Yager suggests this method in her book "No Writers Are Born. How to Write Successful Texts - From Business Letters to Books and Articles".

The style sheet helps improve the quality of writing. Its essence is quite simple. The page is divided into two columns. In the left column we write out all the words in which we often make mistakes. Everything related to grammar and the use of words falls into the right column.

Method No. 6. Play word games and draw

To remember the spelling of a word/rule in which you constantly make a mistake, you can draw the word or rule. How you do it - depends only on your imagination.

To increase literacy, it is also useful to solve charades and puzzles, crosswords and anagrams.

There are a lot of word games. And for sure everyone played in them as a child.

Method No. 7. Buy a textbook and do all the exercises

Another method that is reminiscent of school days and can cause dislike. But we couldn't help mentioning it. Because this method is one of the most effective.

It's one thing when you have to open a textbook and do some assignments almost every day. It is quite another thing when you perform the same exercises on your own initiative.

By the way, this method is in the arsenal of the authors working in the Copywriting Bureau Textbroker. ru. Some of them simply took Rosenthal's textbook and went through all the exercises from cover to cover.

Developing people-centric data literacy

Developing and continually improving data literacy is an individual, organizational and cultural challenge. I've been writing quite a bit about data literacy lately, and much of it is collected in my e-book Building a Data Literacy Program: What, Why, and How. In this e-book, I define information literacy as the ability to understand, make sense of, interpret, and communicate using data. I also illustrate the many activities of the data literacy program, as shown in Figure 1.

Data literacy activities

Evaluation, planning, training, etc. activities are essential. But ultimately, the development of data literacy begins and ends with attention to the person, and more specifically to individuals, groups and interactions. I've highlighted the coaching data links at the bottom of the diagram.

Connecting people for data literacy

Coaching has a real impact on the development of data skills, but it is only the beginning of a people-centric data literacy approach. Bringing people together in all the right ways to share data knowledge and gain data knowledge goes a long way. As shown in fig. 2, coaching, mentoring and community are the ingredients of a robust approach.

Data Coaching

A coach is a person who guides, advises and leads others through the performance of certain actions to obtain the desired result. Coaching is the act of providing guidance, instructions, advice, and direction. Data Coaching is project-oriented, bringing knowledge and skills to data analysis, data integration, data quality, and other data-driven projects. The data briefing provides guidance, advice, and guidance for project activities when working with data. Ideally, data trainers have a high level of skills and knowledge that they pass on to others as an integral part of working on data projects. Obviously, there are many activities involved in working with data. For illustration purposes in this article, I will limit the scope to data analysis, as shown in Figure 3.

Data analysis activities

Many data analysis activities offer many learning opportunities for data analysts, with each activity requiring a specific set of skills. Each person involved in data analysis is likely to be more skilled in some activities than others. Highly skilled individuals are well positioned to learn how to work with data, while less skilled individuals can benefit from coaching, especially as they acquire new knowledge and skills as an integral part of project work. For example, one person may help others find, access, and understand financial data, but still request the help of others to analyze and visualize the data. It is practical and pragmatic when one person trains and trains himself.

It is practical and pragmatic when one person trains and trains himself.

The goal is to create a peer-to-peer network Data Coaches .

To build a data learning practice, you need to identify who has skills in which areas and publish that information. The goal is to create a peer-to-peer network of data trainers that allows people to find the help they need to complete a project. Data Coaching is a project-level activity that aims to improve the efficiency of a project—for example, in a data analysis project, better analysis is performed faster.

Data Coaching + mentoring according to

data

Data mentoring is another method used to share knowledge, transfer skills and develop data literacy. Coaching and mentoring are different but compatible approaches. The coach gives guidance to the person doing the work on the project to help him achieve the goals of the project. A mentor shares his knowledge, skills, and experience with another person to help them learn and grow. Coaching and mentoring are consistent practices for developing data literacy. Mentoring is built around coaching, and the two methods used together are especially effective. To combine them effectively, it is important to understand the unique characteristics of each. Figure 4 demonstrates these characteristics.

Coaching and mentoring

Coaching, as already mentioned, is focused on achieving project work. Mentoring is focused on the development of individual abilities. It is likely that many people—potentially everyone involved in project work—are candidates for coaching. The pool of mentees, people who need to be mentored, will be much smaller. Direct mentoring resources to people with untapped potential, those for whom retaining talent is most important, and those who are seen as future leaders.

Coaching is a short term effort driven by needs and project duration. Mentoring is a long-term professional (and sometimes personal) relationship between people. The coaching effort ends when the required activity is completed. Mentoring relationships end by mutual agreement between the mentor and the mentee.

The purpose of coaching is to improve the effectiveness of the project. The purpose of mentoring is to stimulate individual learning and growth. In general, this means that coaching is directive and advisory: the coach describes what needs to be done in order to perform an action and get a result. The style of mentoring is more questioning and is determined by the interests and issues of the mentee. Differences in purpose and style lead to differences in attitudes. A coaching relationship is a many-to-many relationship where several people coach several others. Coaching roles and relationships change, shift, start and end depending on the dynamics of the projects. A mentoring relationship is a one-on-one relationship—a direct relationship between mentor and mentee. Sometimes a mentor may work with more than one mentee, or a mentee may have multiple mentors. But this is not a scalable approach, and the relationship between mentor and mentee remains individual.

Coaching relationships are based on project needs, usually project participants seek coaches when they recognize a need for guidance, advice and direction. A catalog of data coaches describing who is available for coaching, and on what topics and skills, is a valuable resource for building these relationships. Mentoring is based on a more formal agreement between mentor and mentee, recognizing them as a voluntary relationship and expressing mutually agreed goals, objectives, and working arrangements.

Coaching is typically a somewhat structured process in which the coach takes on a role in the project team. Time commitments, availability and schedules are agreed and compensation may be part of the agreement. The quality and speed of project results are the basis for coaching performance. Mentoring is a more fluid and dynamic process in which meetings and interactions occur as needed, but are limited by agreed goals, objectives, and work arrangements. Indicators for measuring the success of mentoring are based on the development of the skills and competencies of the mentees.

Communities of Practice for Data Literacy

"Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or passion for what they do and learn to do it better by interacting regularly." (Introduction to Communities of Practice, Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trainer.) The data literacy communities share a concern and passion for data and working with data to gain business knowledge and improve business performance. The authors say: “The community of practice is not just a community of interest… Members of the community of practice are practitioners. They develop a common set of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways to solve recurring problems – in short, common practice. ”

Remember my definition of data literacy as the ability to understand, make sense of, interpret and communicate using data. Consider opportunities for practitioners to learn together about the understanding, meaning, interpretation, and communication of data.

Think in the plural - communities, not communities of practice.

Consider the power of communities, of practitioners who share experiences and learn together, as a means to continually improve and expand data literacy skills. Shared experiences, stories, tools and problem solving techniques can be effective across many data disciplines. Think in the plural - communities, not a community of practitioners. What impact could you achieve with any of these communities?

Data Analyst Community
Data Science Community
Data Management Community
Data Quality Community
Data Management Community

… and much more. You may want something more specific, such as the Health Data Science Society or the Lifetime Data Science Society. The opportunities are many, and the potential impact when your data coaches, data mentors, and data scientists participate in communities is huge too.

Difficult question: where to start? First, you need to decide which communities to use. As with change efforts, it makes sense to start small and start learning. If you're a large company, you might want to build internal communities that start by bringing in your data coaches, mentors, and leaders. Larger communities with members from many organizations work well for smaller companies and also have the advantage of bringing different perspectives and experiences. You may find communities that already exist, or you may need to put in the effort to create new communities. Working through existing affiliates - DAMA, CIPS, etc. - to form new communities can work well. You can also find local organizations that can help (one of my favorite examples is the Oregon Tech Association).