Preschoolers' Emergent Literacy Development Posted May 4th 2014 |
The idea that there is a developmental continuum of reading skills—from those that are characteristic of a preschooler to those of a proficient reader—is referred to as emergent literacy. Young preschoolers might be able to identify a McDonald’s or “Burger King sign” when they see these signs but most preschoolers do not read — not really. According to Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998), emergent literacy entails the skills, knowledge and predispositions that are deemed to be the precursors to conventional forms of reading and writing… and the environments that support these developments, such as shared book reading (p. 849). Children’s engagement with literacy artifacts and their learning during story time with a significant other and/or a more capable peer, for example, set the stage for formal reading instruction and reading proficiency over time. According to researchers Whitehurst and Lonigan (1998), there are nine components of emergent literacy:
(1) Language
Reading is built on a well-established language system and children need to possess some degree of versatility in the use of their "mother tongue" (native language) before they are expected to read it.
(2) Conventions of Print
Children who are exposed to reading during their early years come to know the conventions of print. For example, children whose first language is English quickly learn that reading is done left -to-right, top-to-bottom and from front-to-back.
(3) Knowledge of Letters
Most youngsters can recite their ABCs and can identify individual letters of the alphabet, although many think that "ELEMENO" is the name of the letter between "K" and "P".
(4) Linguistic Awareness
Children must learn to identify not only letters but the linguistic units or the distinct sounds of phonemes, syllables and words. Phonological processing or making sense of the various sounds of language is a critical linguistic ability for young readers.
(5) Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence
Once young children have figured out how to segment and discriminate the various sounds of a language, they must learn how these sounds correspond to written letters. Some children begin this process during the preschool years, with letter knowledge and phonological awareness occurring simultaneously and reciprocally (Burgess and Lonigan, 1998).
(6) Emergent Reading
Many young children will pretend to read. They will take a familiar storybook and will read one page after another, mimicking the reading behavior of a significant other or teacher. Sometimes children will take an unfamiliar storybook and make up a narrative to correspond to the pictures on the pages.
(7) Emergent Writing
Just like in pretend reading, young children will often pretend to write, making squiggles on a page to write their name or a story. Children who have advanced writing skills may string together real letters to produce a story, a note to someone special or a shopping list.
(8) Print Motivation
There is evidence to indicate that young children who are interested in figuring out the secret code that allows adults to make sense of a series of marks on a paper have greater emergent literacy skills than less motivated children. These are the children who are more apt to notice print, ask questions about print, encourage adults to read to them and who will more than likely spend more time reading once they acquire the skill.
(9) Other Cognitive Skills
There is a variety of individual cognitive skills beyond those simply associated with language and linguistic awareness that influences children's reading ability such as memory, meta-cognitive skills, mental processing (analytical) abilities, the use of mnemonic strategies, field-dependent versus field-independent thought tendencies, etc.
What do you consider to be the most prevalent components of emergent literacy? With regard to your work with young children around literacy, in what ways do the explanations provided above resonate with your experiences? What particular strategies are you currently using in your preschool and early elementary classrooms to bolster children’s literacy development?
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| Reply from Jennifer S posted on May 28th 2014 |
| In my professional and personal opinion I feel as though language development and print motivation are key components or emergent literacy. For example, with my students who come from bilingual homes I encourage their parents to speak both languages to their children all of the time. I feel as though having a strong language development, especially two different languages, allows for the child's mind to develop and progress in a more complex manner due to the different modalities that are associated with language development. In relation to language development it is salient for parents to speak with children and encourage to utilize both their language and print to express their feelings and develop their mind. In sum, by simply talking or reading to your child, your child's literacy abilities can increase and can influence the academic attainment of your young child. |
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| Reply from Anthy Thao posted on May 20th 2014 |
| I think the most prevalent components of the development of emergent literacy would be linguistic awareness, emergent writing, and emergent reading. With my experiences working with young children, I see it a lot when the children are reading their favorite books, in which most of the time they like the book for the pictures. They'll be able to read or understand the title of the book but when it comes to the content of the book, the children just mumbles through the pages while they slide their finger across the words. While reading to the children, the children are able to improve on their linguistic awareness with the sounds of phonemes, syllables and words read to them out loud. To help the children bolster their literacy development, I read books to them that they're interested in. Also, I help the children sound out words and letters when they need extra assistance. Also, when the children want to know my name, I ask them to read my name tag to see what my name is rather than just telling them my name. |
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| Reply from Tanya Taranchuk posted on May 20th 2014 |
| I think language and print motivation are the most prevalent components of the development of emergent literacy. Working with young children around literacy, I noticed that children that have a more developed language skills are more motivated to participate in reading activities and enjoy reading books. Furthermore, print motivation encourages children to engage more in reading and writing because they are curious about the process. In my preschool classroom, we read books together during circle time to bolster children’s literacy development. Furthermore, each child has a writing journal that they practice writing their name and letters in every day. In addition every week we work on an alphabetical letter and during the week we practice writing that letter, reading books about that letter, and having children identify objects and things that start with that letter. |
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| Reply from Brianne Moreno posted on May 18th 2014 |
| I think the most prevalent components of emergent literacy are knowledge of letters, linguistic awareness, and emergent reading and writing. The knowledge of letters I think is an important aspect of literacy knowledge because without knowing each letter, or being able to recognize each one, they will not have a stable foundation for learning how to read and write. After this comes linguistic awareness. After the child learns their alphabet, learning how words are read, such as how many syllables are in each word, is another stepping stone towards learning to read. When a child has understood and learned the aspects in these two components, they will start demonstrating emergent reading. Before my little cousin Mark knew how to read, he would make up stories that would correspond with the pictures from the story book. I think this is an important part of the development because they are able to grasp the idea of what a story should be like and what a story should consist of. Now emergent writing is just as important because by just being able to scribble things out, they are practicing their penmanship skills and they are recognizing how to write. In my placement classroom, I help the kids with the phoneme-grahpeme correspondence part of literacy knowledge by using the phonics cards that are stapled on the wall. When they do not know how to read a word, I cover each letter and make them sound each letter out and of they do not know what sounds the letter or letters make, I make them find it on the wall and then they instantly remember what sounds to make. |
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| Reply from Alexis Dixon posted on May 17th 2014 |
| I believe the most prevalent components of emergent literacy are emergent reading, linguistic awareness, and conventions of print. I think that these three components facilitate the reading process as it relates to learning in the classroom, and succeeding in school, given that reading is involved in just about every area of schooling. It is key for children to know the foundation of reading in a way in which they can model it which is illustrated through emergent reading. Additionally, I think that children need to know the sounds that letters make more than they need to know the letter, although it could be heavily argued that letters need to be known first so that children can identify the letter and match it to the sound. I have witnessed an increasingly high incidence of children being asked, “what sound(s) does this letter make,” as opposed to “what sound(s) does A make.” When children are looking at a book I think it is valuable for them to be able to recognize that a shape (letter) makes a given sound, and from there they can use their knowledge of sounds to carry our emergent literacy. Also, conventions of print appear to be minute aspects of emergent literacy, however they play a significant role in the reading process as the rules contribute to the natural relationship children have with reading as opposed to them being able to read words, but questioning the order of the sentence or story, which may distract them from the information they are reading, and thus inhibit understanding of the material. The explanations above mirror my experiences with children to such an extent that I envisioned certain children carrying out the term as I was reading it. I have worked with both children who have not yet mastered reading, as well as children who have learned how to read, and I have observed these components of emergent literacy amongst all of the children. I would conclude that knowledge of letters and emergent reading dominate the list of terms provided with regards to what I observe children doing in an effort to read. In an effort to bolster children’s literacy development the child care center that I have spent time in is using various strategies including providing children with a multitude of books to choose from, introducing new books to the class when they are provided, rotating books every two weeks between same age classrooms so as to keep the interest of the children, sitting on the floor alongside the children with a book, providing comfortable pillow covered areas in which children can spend time reading, using puppets to relate the reading to real life scenarios, and incorporating drawing into the classroom as it relates to a story or book that the class has recently read. |
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| Reply from Olivia Briceno posted on May 14th 2014 |
| I consider the nine to all be important components of emergent literacy. If I had to choose, I would say that language and print motivation would be the most prevalent for emergent literacy. In regards to working with young children, I feel that the language explanation resonates with my experiences, because reading is built on a well-established language system. I have found that when the children posses a degree of versatility in language, they can better comprehend their reading, and do better in this area. I also feel that print motivation is very important because the child should be motivated to learn to read and figure out the \"secret code.\" I currently am not working in a classroom setting, however I do think using the term \"secret code\" of reading and writing can help young children to find these subjects more appealing.
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| Reply from Alina Slivinskaya posted on May 13th 2014 |
| As an educator in a preschool setting, I believe that all nine components of emergent literacy are important to apply in the teaching of the children in the class. Children learn by hearing, seeing and trying on their own. In my four year old class every morning we start off with the pledge of allegiance and by now (end of the school year) the children know it by heart even though they don't know how to read. Children also learn and remember stories by others reading to them constantly. Another example to continue with the brand signs such as McDonalds or Burger King is because the children go there with the families and they are familiar with the places and that's how they learn. When children are exposed to music, stories and real life experiences such as games they learn and it opens doors to the things around them. |
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| Reply from Betsy Uda posted on May 13th 2014 |
| In both my personal experience and in my professional work, I have found that emerging children in both a print rich and and language rich environment is the key. reading to children, talking to children, pointing out print in their everyday world build literacy. We should never talk at children, we need to talk to children ! Having books available, going to the library all contribute to their attainment of literacy. |
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| Reply from Amanda Huynh posted on May 9th 2014 |
| Although all nine components of emergent literacy play an important role in emergent literacy, I would consider “Language” to be the most prevalent. I believe that it is important for children to be verbally versatile in a language before they can effectively learn how to write. In order to successfully learn how to read and write, it is important for children to understand the language and be familiar with it. The familiarity of the language that stems from being verbally functional will aid the child in learning how to read and write. They are more accustomed to using certain words and will be able to understand, to an extent, what they are reading and/or writing. At school and at home, teachers and parents can promote this by consistently speaking with children and encouraging them to formulate words and sentences to convey what they want to say. This will allow for children’s ability to streamline their reading and writing abilities. Comprehension, I believe, is the foundation of effective learning. |
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| Reply from Gee Lor posted on May 9th 2014 |
| I would consider emergent reading to be the most prevalent component of emergent literacy because children can learn best through their curiosity and interest. If a child is motivated to mimic the reading behaviors from adults and peers and make up a narrative to a story, she is more than ready to increase her literacy skills. And adults can promote children's emergent literacy skills by exposing them to print, language, reading and writing early on to stimulate their interest to explore, ask questions and learn. |
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| Reply from Breanna Burton posted on May 8th 2014 |
| I believe print motivation is key to children's literacy development. If the child has interest and is motivated to learn, the other components will fall into place with appropriate guidance. With that said, providing many opportunities to encounter different kinds of books and reading interesting books aloud to children will help spark their interest and promote motivation to learn to read. Also giving student an opportunity to act as a character from the book or put on a play may promote print motivation in youngsters. |
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| Reply from Amberly Seelapasay posted on May 8th 2014 |
| What I consider to be the most prevalent components of emergent literacy are emergent reading and emergent writing. With my work with young children around literacy, I have found that the young children really do pretend to read and write and they way they do these things mimics real behaviors of reading and writing.. I have found that if there are older children or siblings around who are reading or writing, younger children are more likely to copy what they are doing. For example, there is a 22 month old where I work at. She has 3 year old sister that loves to pull out books and pretend to read them. The 22 month old will also grab a book, sit down, open the book and point, nod, and babble at the books. There are also children who will draw a picture and draw squiggles on top of their paper. When I ask what the squiggle is, the child will proudly say “I wrote my name!”.
A strategy I use to bolster children’s literacy development is I participate in shared reading, play word-rhyming games, and I ask children about what happens in stories while reading.
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| Reply from youth posted on May 5th 2014 |
| Personally, I believe that the most prevalent component to emergent literacy is print motivation. It facilitates curiosity, exploration, and repetition of encounters with print. As children continue their interest and focus on print, all other aspects of reading begins to come together such as conventions, knowledge of literature, sound or segment correspondence of letters, emergent reading and writing. Personally, I was not expose to much reading as a child and consequently I feel I am ESL and lacking in writing skills. Therefore, I am a huge advocator for early exposure to reading materials to facilitate interest, curiosity, and motivation to figure out the "secret code." At work, we expose children to a variety of books such as human diversity, seasons, word plays, and etc., which have other inherent benefits. |
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| Reply from Amanda Alvarez posted on May 4th 2014 |
| My nephew is three years old and he can't read yet, but he definitely has a knowledge of letters as well as print motivation. He is always asking to be read to and tried to read by himself as well. I think that those along with linguistic awareness are the most prevalent components of emergent literacy. Children need to be exposed to books and other forms of reading and writing as much as possible. |
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| Reply from Amanda Alvarez posted on May 4th 2014 |
| My nephew is three years old and he can't read yet, but he definitely has a knowledge of letters as well as print motivation. He is always asking to be read to and tried to read by himself as well. I think that those along with linguistic awareness are the most prevalent components of emergent literacy. Children need to be exposed to books and other forms of reading and writing as much as possible. |
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