What is early literacy
What is Early Literacy? | Lexington Public Library
Home » Services » Kids » What is Early Literacy?
Early literacy does not mean teaching young children how to read. Instead, it means helping children develop the skills they will need to become successful readers. Early literacy activities build rich language skills: vocabulary, self-expression, and understanding (comprehension). These skills help children make sense of printed words when they start reading.
Children’s Librarians have identified five early literacy practices that help children get ready to read. Here is a list of the five early literacy practices, and some activities you can do with your child to develop his or her language skills:
Playing | Singing | Reading | Talking | Writing
Playing Children learn how to express themselves when they play. They also discover the meaning of words, and how to tell stories. When they learn new words through play, they will recognize those words in print when they start reading. Learning how to tell stories builds reading comprehension.
- Let your child play dress-up with old clothes, hats, and jewelry.
- Act out favorite stories with stuffed animals or puppets.
- Play with blocks. You can pretend you are building castles, skyscrapers, or whatever you like.
Singing helps children hear how words can be broken down into smaller parts. This skill will help them sound out words when they start reading on their own. Songs also teach new vocabulary, and introduce new concepts.
- Sing lullabies at bedtime.
- Sing along with children’s CDs. The library has a great selection.
- Many picture books illustrate popular children’s songs. Ask a librarian to help you find books you can sing together.
Reading with your child is one the best ways to help children get ready to read on their own. The language in books is much richer than the language we use every day.
This means reading expands your child’s vocabulary. Hearing lots of “rare words” in early childhood will help your child recognize words in print when he or she starts reading. This means he or she will understand what they read.
- Read with your child every day!
- Read package labels at the grocery store.
- Point out words and letters as you read to your child.
Talking with your child is one the best ways to develop language and early literacy skills. Conversations help a child express thoughts, learn what words mean, and gain new information about the world. Talking also gives children a rich foundation of knowledge they can apply to their independent reading. The more children know about the world, the more words they will recognize on a printed page or digital screen.
- Ask your child open-ended questions. These are questions that can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no.”
- What did you do at the park today?
- What will happen next in our story?
- If your child tells you a word, add more words.
If your child says “fire truck,” reply, “Yes, that’s a big, red fire truck. It has a siren on top. The siren makes a loud noise to tell people to get out of the way. The fire truck is going to help people.” - Talk about your daily routines as you do them. For example, “We are going to make dinner. First we get the ingredients out. The ingredients are the things we use to make our food. Then we get the pots, pans, and measuring cups. Can you help me measure the ingredients and put them in the pot?”
Writing activities help children learn letter names and sounds. Writing, or scribbling and drawing, also helps children learn that marks on paper represent spoken language. This knowledge will help them decode words on pages and screens when they start reading.
- Let your child help you write a grocery list.
- Ask your child to draw a picture of everything in his/her room. Help your child write the name of each object in the room.
- Help your child write name tags for his/her stuffed friends.
Early Literacy
Early literacy is what children know about reading and writing before they actually learn to read and write. It is not teaching reading, drilling or using flashcards. Instead, it is laying the foundation, so that your child has the necessary skills when they are developmentally ready to read.
Babies are born ready to learn. Recent research shows that babies are born with billions of brain cells called neurons. The more stimulation a baby receives through its senses, the more pathways develop between brain cells. Young children must develop early literacy skills in order to be successful with formal reading and writing in school. 46% of children in the United States enter kindergarten unprepared. Research shows that children who start behind typically stay behind. Providing young children with opportunities to develop early literacy skills is important to their success in school, their success learning to read, and their success in life.
Enjoy these simple activities with your child anytime and any place throughout the day. Besides being fun, they will help your child get ready to read!
- Talking: Learn language by listening to others talk. Hearing words leads to understanding their meaning as you hear them in context.
- Singing: Songs slow down language and break down the sounds and syllables in words. Practicing rhythm and rhyme help.
- Reading: The single most important way to help children get ready to read is to read together!
- Writing: Connect spoken and printed language. Scribbling counts!
- Playing: Playtime exercises imagination and encourages expression of thoughts.
Most of our children's services librarians have received Early Literacy Training and incorporate exercising these skills with your children during our library programs. These early literacy practices come from Every Child Ready to Read, a project of the American Library Association.
Counting Down To Kindergarten
Learn how to read, write, sing, play and talk with your child to get them ready for kindergarten.
We've created fun printable activity sheets you can download for free that will help you and your child get to know the five Early Literacy Practices.
See the Five Early Literacy Practices in action with our new Early Literacy Videos.
My Little Rhyme Book
View My Little Rhyme Book to learn new songs, practice new rhymes, and play storytime at home!
DOWnload My Little Rhyme Book
Our Children's Librarians have developed several lists of books to help get your child ready to read.
- Books for children that teach early literacy skills
- Books for parents of early readers
- Books that toddlers will love
- 1000 Books Before Kindergarten
Six habits of early literacy | Multnomah County Library
Young children need a variety of skills to become successful readers.
The Reading Experts Group has identified six specific early literacy skills that are the foundation for further development of reading and writing skills. Research shows that the more of these skills children have when they first enter school, the better they understand reading guidelines in school.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary, that is, knowing the names of different things, is an extremely important skill that children need when they are learning to read. Most children, when they come to school, know between 3,000 and 5,000 words. Help expand your child's vocabulary by reading a variety of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and by naming everything the child sees around.
Craving for the printed word
Craving for the printed word is the child's interest in books and the pleasure he gets from reading books. A child with a craving for the written word likes to be read to, plays with books, pretends to write, asks to be read to, and loves to go to the library.
Cultivate this love of books in your child by turning book reading into a special ritual, giving your child access to books and letting him know that you also like to read. Explain how you use reading in your daily life.
Understanding the concept of writing
Understanding the concept of writing includes knowing that writing in English follows certain rules, such as writing from left to right and top to bottom, and that people who can read read the printed text on the page. An example of understanding the concept of writing is a child's ability to point to individual words on a book page. Your child's understanding of the concept of writing can be developed by pointing to words and reading them aloud wherever you see them - on signs, on labels, in grocery stores and in the mail.
Storytelling skills
Storytelling skills, that is, the ability to understand and tell stories and describe things, are important for a child to understand what they are learning to read.
An example of a storytelling skill is a child's ability to tell what happened at a birthday party or when they went to the zoo.
Help your child develop their storytelling skills by asking them to tell you about a book instead of just listening to you read it. Regularly ask your child to tell you about what he did.
Letter knowledge
Letter knowledge refers to knowing that letters have names and that they are different from each other, and that certain letters correspond to certain sounds. Letter knowledge is when a child can say what the letter B is called and what sound it corresponds to.
Letters can be developed through many fun activities that include reading and writing; for example, you can point to letters in the alphabet, in picture books or on signs and labels and name them. Talk with younger children about the shape of objects, and with preschoolers, you can try drawing letters and pictures in the sand.
Understanding the concept of sounds
Understanding the concept of sounds is the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds that make up words. Understanding the concept of sounds includes the ability to hear and create rhymes, to speak words while skipping certain sounds or parts of words, and the ability to put two parts of a word together. Most children who have trouble reading also have difficulty understanding the concept of sounds.
Develop your child's understanding of sounds by playing fun word games:
- Think of funny words by replacing the first sound in a word: wolf, regiment, talk, folk, rolk.
- Say the words, pausing between syllables ("cro-" and "-lik"), and have your child guess which word you are saying.
- Read poems with rhymes or different sounds to your child.
Early literacy: birth to age six
Reading aloud to your child every day increases his brain's ability to comprehend language, develops his literacy skills, and is the single most important thing you can do to prepare him for learning to read.
Children prepare to read long before they enter school: early literacy is all that children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write. Early literacy is the baby who chews on a book, the toddler who wants to have his favorite book read over and over again, and the preschooler who "reads" you a story by heart.
Early literacy skills begin to develop in the first 5 years of life. We used to think that a child's successful reading skill depended on the "right" first grade teacher. We now know that your child's chance of success in first grade depends on how much they learned about reading before they entered school. Your child's early exposure to books and language lays the foundation for success in learning to read.
Early literacy is not “learning to read”.
You have heard many times that you are your child's first and best teacher. And it is true. But your task is not to formally "teach" reading.
Your child will learn to read at school. The most important thing you can do to promote early literacy is to create an atmosphere that is fun, verbal and stimulating, not school-like. The focus should not be on learning, but on the pleasure you get with your child – give your child plenty of opportunities to talk and be heard, to read and listen when read to, to sing and listen to being sung.
There is no need for any memorization, text and picture cards, workbooks or exercises. Children exposed to an interactive rich educational environment full of enjoyable language learning opportunities will develop early literacy skills.
You are the key to your child's success in learning to read. When you read, talk or play with your child, you are stimulating the growth of his brain and the building of those connections that will become the building blocks for learning to read. Brain development research shows that reading aloud to your child every day enhances their brain's ability to develop language, reading and writing abilities, and is the single most important thing you can do to prepare your child to learn to read.
