Why It Matters: Emergent Readers
Who is the Emergent Reader?
GOAL: TALK! TALK! And more TALK!
Typically the Emergent Reader ranges in age from 6 months to 5 years old. Over this period of growth, children will discover, play, and explore the word of literacy through daily interactions surrounded in oral communication.
Emergent Readers work on two specific skills helping to develop a foundation for literacy:
(1) the ability to hear and manipulate sounds in the spoken language (Phonemic Awareness),
(2) the ability to connect the sound to the written symbol (Phonics).
Learning develops best when one is engaged and having fun. Continued learning comes from positive interactions, creating good feelings, leading to motivation to more literacy experiences.
Support a young child as they grow and develop their language and literacy skills, with engaging activities including actions, songs, and stories. At this young age, all of these interactions NEED to contain a LOT of TALKING!
6 to 12 Months
Over the first 12 months, children will prosper in their ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in a spoken language. Foundational literacy skills will flourish when they are surrounded with talking - LOTS of talking.
These interactions include a wide assortment of real-life activities, along with actual objects and fun stories, songs, and finger plays. Continue to talk with your child, using Parrot Talking and Repeating sounds.
When engaging in real-life activities, explain the actions you are doing in natural language.
The importance of face-to-face interactions cannot be emphasized enough to support development in building a strong literacy foundation.
Face-to-face interactions are the KEY.
1 to 3 Years
From ages one to three years, children continue to grow in their ability of hear and manipulate the sounds in the spoken language. At this young age, they also begin to isolate individual sounds in a spoken word. Foundational literacy skills will thrive as children continue to be surrounded with talking - LOTS of talking.
Interactions continue to include a wide assortment of real-life activities, along with actual objects and fun stories, songs, and finger plays. Continue to talk with your child, assisting with proper enunciation.
When engaging in real-life activities, explain the actions you are doing in natural language.
The importance of face-to-face interactions cannot be emphasized enough to support development in building a strong literacy foundation.
Face-to-face interactions are the KEY.
3 to 5 Years
Continue with the strong literacy foundation of TALKING! Children in this age group will strengthen their oral manipulation of sounds in the language along with the isolation of sounds in a word. At this age, direct connections flourish between the isolated sounds a chid hears to the alphabet letters.
Interactions will continue to include a wide assortment of real-life activities, along with actual objects and fun stories, songs, and finger plays.
When engaging in real-life activities, explain the actions you are doing in natural language.
The importance of face-to-face interactions cannot be emphasized enough to support development in building a strong literacy foundation.
Face-to-face interactions are the KEY.
Why it Matters
The printed word is founded on one’s oral language, turning the spoken sounds into symbols, which carry meaning (Bretzmann, 2018). The importance of developing a child’s spoken language cannot be undermined. Research (Scarborough, 2001; Snow, 1983) established a very strong correlation between a child’s oral language development their literacy progression.
Additional research supports that the prerequisites for learning to read and comprehend are founded in letter recognition, letter-sound knowledge, and phonemic awareness (National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
From this strong foundational platform, a reader is able to develop stronger fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension skills through practice. So where do we start - at the beginning, one’s oral language. Let’s talk!
SPEECH MILESTONES
The Speech Milestones chart will offer a general development of vocalizations of children.
NOTE: Each stage of development assumes that the preceding stages have been successfully achieved.