Developing Early Literacy Skills for School Readiness
- Posted by spectrum
- On June 27, 2022
- 0
There are so many aspects that go into preparing your child for school, for example learning to open their lunchbox, being able to separate from parents at drop-off and learning their teacher’s name. However, another key aspect of school-readiness is developing early literacy skills. Research shows that a strong foundation for literacy skills helps children as they learn to read in kindergarten and beyond.
There are two sides to early literacy skills: text awareness and phonological awareness.
Text awareness is understanding that written words have a purpose and are related to spoken words.
Some ways to develop text awareness are:
- As you read, follow along the words with your finger to help your child connect what you’re saying with the written words.
- Talk about how you read left to right and top to bottom, that there are numbers on the pages and that the pictures go with the written words.
- Encourage your child to hold the book, explain holding the book the right way up and encourage them to turn the pages when you’re finished reading each page.
Phonological awareness is understanding that spoken and written words are made up of smaller sounds and being able to manipulate these sounds and break them apart into chunks. For example, being able to break sentences into words, words into syllables and individual sounds, as well as hearing if words rhyme and if they start of end with the same sounds.
Some ways to develop phonological awareness are:
- Teaching the letter sounds alongside letter names. Knowing what sound each letter makes is a more important skill for learning to read than knowing the name of the letters as knowing the letter sound allows children to sound out new words.
- Teaching your child to clap out syllables, this introduces the concept that words are made up of smaller chunks. Practice clapping out the syllables to longer words, for example “*cro* *co* *dile*.
- Point out words that rhyme, hearing rhyming words can be difficult for children as they start to learn this skill even though the rhyme may sound obvious to us. Begin by bringing their awareness to rhymes before encouraging them to say if two words rhyme or not.
- Practice sounding out and blending. This is a great skill for children to learn to read independently and figure out difficult or unfamiliar words. Check out our recent video on our Instagram page for more on sounding out and blending!