How do we know that a child is ready for kindergarten? As early care and education providers, we support the physical, social, emotional and cognitive skill development that sets the stage for children to thrive in kindergarten, elementary school and beyond. In this article, we take a look at emergent literacy, with a focus on the early experiences with reading and writing that are foundational to a child’s later academic success. This is the fourth article in G2K’s Kindergarten Readiness Series, which explores the learning domains of early childhood.
The term emergent literacy refers to foundational skills that are developed in early childhood, starting at birth, when children begin to make sense of sounds and words. Later, young children understand that words, letters, and printed text have meaning, and they begin to enjoy playing with books, looking at illustrations, and listening to stories.
An article from Reading Rockets adds, “Emerging literacy describes the gradual, ongoing process of learning to understand and use language that begins at birth and continues through the early childhood years (i.e., through age eight). During this period children first learn to use oral forms of language (listening and speaking) and then begin to explore and make sense of written forms (reading and writing).”
Early literacy skills pave the way for a smooth kindergarten transition and for ongoing academic success, by supporting the following key areas of early development:
Early childhood nonprofit, Reach Out and Read summarizes the key benefits of reading to young children during their first few years of life: “Starting at birth, reading with children puts them on a path to success. What happens during the first few years sets the stage for the rest of a child’s life. Spending time together while reading aloud…promotes healthy brain development. Children who are read to more often have improved language and listening skills, experience stronger emotional connections to their loved ones, and gain a lifelong love of reading.”
Educators can support foundational literacy skill development by talking, singing, playing, and reading books together. We can also create classroom environments and routines that encourage little ones to develop a familiarity with books and an interest in learning from books and stories. Below are a few specific tips to help you get started.
Create time in your classroom’s schedule for children to explore and practice writing. For younger children, that might mean introducing paper by letting them explore by scrunching, tearing, and feeling it before they begin to make marks and lines on the paper with crayons and other writing materials. Older children can practice drawing pictures and writing basic letters and simple words. You might offer journals to children who are more proficient at writing, so they can add to what they’ve written and see the progression of their writing skills!
Classrooms that have a variety of signs and labels with written words and text allow children to become comfortable and familiar with literacy from a young age. You might incorporate signs for children to use in your dramatic play center, place books in play areas throughout the classroom, or offer different alphabet materials such as stamps and magnetic letters.
For more information about how to incorporate literacy into your early learning environment, you might enjoy this G2K article from the archives.
To encourage lots of time spent reading, you’ll want to offer a selection of different books in your classroom. Try to include a variety of characters, story lengths, writing styles, images, and topics, so that children will enjoy re-visiting your classroom’s books to discover something that interests them.
Young children develop foundational literacy skills through everyday experiences and interactions with their caregivers. Below, you’ll find developmental literacy milestones, as organized by Reach Out and Read, along with information and ideas educators can use to support awareness of foundational literacy concepts among young children at each developmental stage.
If you’d like to find more resources and information about how to support children as they build foundational literacy skills, you might enjoy these G2K articles from the archives:
