Early Literacy Skills: How and Why to Support Them

Learn all about early literacy skills...what are they and how can we support them? Plus why early literacy intervention is so important!

We are so excited to have our very own literacy specialist, Margaret, share her tips, tricks, and knowledge from nearly 18 years of experience! In this post, we are learning all about early literacy skills and why they are so important! PS: did you miss our meet the team page? Click here to meet our dedicated team!

What is Early Literacy and how can we support it?

Before they even enter Kindergarten, read books on their own, and write their own stories, children engage in early literacy in so many ways! Beginning as early as infancy, experiences like talking, singing, and playing are the building blocks for future reading and writing success. When we talk, sing, and play with young children we are supporting their phonological awareness, or the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words or sentences.

Children need oral language skills, or the understanding and using vocabulary, grammar, and narrative structure. They need to be able to recognize and play with sounds in spoken language (phonological awareness). They need print awareness, or the ability to understand how books work and that print carries meaning. Children also need the ability to recognize letters and understand that letters represent sounds (letter knowledge). Unfortunately,  these early literacy skills don’t automatically develop for children, so it’s important to provide children with some necessary experiences as soon as we can. Below are some ways you might support early literacy skills with your young children. 

• Reading aloud daily and engaging with your child in the text - follow their lead! 

• Singing nursery rhymes or making up your own silly rhymes 

• Clapping the words in a sentence 

• Clapping the syllables in words 

• Naming and talking about objects during play

• Engaging in conversation with your child and asking meaningful questions 

• Providing easy access to books and writing tools (eye level book shelves, paper and crayons) 

  

  
  

Why Intervene Early?

Risk factors for reading difficulties, such as dyslexia, can be detected prior to formal reading instruction. Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is characterized by difficulties with accurate word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities.  These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language. Screening for risk and providing early intervention is critical. Once they begin elementary school, students will be expected to develop quickly in areas like phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Without the foundational building blocks, you may find your child struggles to decode words, spell, or understand what they are reading. If you notice that your child may have trouble with any of these early literacy skills, explicit instruction and practice may help! Intervening in preschool or early elementary school is much more effective than trying to catch up as children get older. When we invest in early literacy, we are ensuring our children are confident, independent and successful readers and writers! 

Foundational Skills Checklists:

Unsure about what the foundational literacy skills are ? Check out our quick guides below!

Foundational Skills

By the end of Preschool your child should be able to … 

• Identify the basic features of printed and written text (books, words, letters, and the alphabet)

• Recognize and name some uppercase letters of the alphabet and the lowercase letters in their own name

• Recognize and produce some rhyming words  

• Segment words in a simple sentence by clapping and naming the number of words in the sentence

• Identify the initial sound of a spoken word and generate a few other words that have the same initial sound

• Match an initial sound to a picture of an object that begins with that sound and to the corresponding printed letter (e.g., link the initial sound /b/ to a picture of a ball and to a printed or written “B”).

• Recognize their own name and some familiar signs and labels (e.g., STOP)

Foundational Skills

By the end of Kindergarten your child should be able to … 

• Recognize and produce rhyming words 

• Segment syllables in spoken words

• Identify and name the first and last sounds of spoken words 

• Identify and name the beginning, middle, and final sounds in words like “cat”

• Identify and produce the primary sound of each consonant

• Begin to use the long and short vowel sounds when spelling words 

• Read some common high-frequency words (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, is, are, do)

How are speech and language and literacy connected? 

Did you know that literacy specialists and speech and language pathologists often work together in schools? That’s because the skills children need to be strong readers and writers are often the same skills children need to be effective speakers, listeners, and communicators! Many of the same early literacy skills (phonological awareness and oral language skills) are the same skills that speech and language teachers support during early intervention. Both specialists have the same goal - to nurture strong readers ,writers, and communicators! 

If you have concerns about speech and language or literacy skills and are looking for more individualized support or feedback, we’d love to help! Feel free to reach out to us and book a free call here!