Indicator: Literacy (LIT)

Children demonstrate emerging literacy skills

Literacy is a complex activity that builds upon early language, print, and phonological skills that are interrelated and that mutually influence one another. Learning about literacy begins at birth, with the development of intentional and goal-directed behaviors that lead ultimately to intentional and symbolic communication.

With symbolic communication, children are able to use such symbols as words, signs, and marks on paper to communicate meanings. Over time, children become increasingly skilled at using symbols, and they go on to develop early print knowledge, phonological awareness, and language skills that form the foundation of reading and writing.

From the first year of life, children engage in a variety of print-related activities. Infants explore books and enjoy listening to adults read and tell stories. Young children begin to ask questions and make comments about pictures, and they learn how to hold books upright and turn the pages. They also like to make marks on paper and attribute meaning to the marks. Preschoolers are interested in printed letters, sounds, and words; and they know that it is print that tells the story, not the pictures. They know many letters by name and sound and can recognize their names and other familiar words. They pretend to write using scribbles and letter-like marks. Gradually they learn to write letters and their own name, along with other familiar words.

Young children enjoy participating in songs, finger plays, and rhymes. Gradually they show interest not only in the meaning of words, but also in how words sound. They become able to recognize and identify words that rhyme and words that start with the same sound. They play games with words and can blend and segment parts of words (syllables and phonemes).

As children develop vocabulary and narrative skills, they also progress in their ability to comprehend text and retell stories. Toddlers make simple comments and ask questions about stories that are being read to them. Preschoolers retell a few events about the story. Older preschoolers can retell the main events of the story in the correct order and predict story events in familiar stories.

Young children learn best about literacy through everyday activities during which caregivers support their literacy by providing print-rich environments, encouraging children to actively explore materials, modeling literacy behaviors, providing meaning to activities, and offering directions for tasks or adaptations for materials to make them appropriate for the child’s interests and developmental level.