Measure 36 — LIT 3

Letter and Word Knowledge

Child shows increasing awareness of symbols, letters, and words in the environment, and their relationship to sound

The development of symbolic representation, or the capacity to use symbols—such as words, objects, and drawings to represent people, objects, actions, and ideas—is a major achievement for young children. (A symbol is an object, word, gesture, sound, or image that stands for or represents something else.) Over time, children are able to use different forms of symbols and to combine them in various ways to represent sequences of ideas and activities. The acquisition of symbolic representation leads the way to rule-governed communication systems based on verbal, gestural, and graphic modalities, such as spoken English, American Sign Language (ASL), and written text. During the preschool years, children make important progress in understanding the alphabetic principle (the idea that words are written with letters and that letters have sounds). This understanding is key to reading and writing in alphabetic languages, such as English and Spanish. Preschoolers learn that print has meaning, written words represent spoken words, and letters represent sounds.

Infants first react to movement, patterns, gestures, and facial expressions by directing their attention to the event. They eventually become capable of joint attention, the act of focusing on the same thing as an adult by following an adult’s gaze and gesture to look at a specific person, object, or picture.

Toddlers begin to understand that objects can represent real things. They use miniature objects symbolically in their play by pretending to feed a doll with a toy bottle, for example, or talking to their grandmother on a toy telephone. Toddlers also begin to understand that pictures represent people and things. They show interest in and make comments about pictures in books. They read books by following the pictures, they remember stories, and they notice when an adult skips part of the text when reading a familiar story.

Young preschoolers recognize symbols in the environment, such as numerals, letters, and frequently-seen logos. They know the difference between pictures, words, letters, and numerals; and they understand that the print on signs gives information. They know and can identify some letters, including the letters in their name, alphabet books, and environmental print and letters on blocks, magnets, and stamps. They associate some letters with specific words (“‘M’ for Mommy,” for example). Preschoolers learn to recognize their own name and other familiar words in print, such as the names of friends.

Older preschoolers recognize a written word as a unit of print. They know that letters are grouped to form words and that words are separated by spaces. They recognize several letters by sight and name and begin to identify specific letters as they appear in written words. They are learning the connection between letter names and letter sounds (the alphabetic principle). At this age, they will eventually learn the names of most letters in the alphabet and will be able to say what sound many of the letters make. Many older preschoolers are beginning to recognize familiar words. Some may even attempt to write words by sounding out individual sounds and matching them with letters.