Early Literacy Strategies
Skill development – in vocabulary, self-expression, understanding and subsequently print concepts, phonological awareness, and knowledge of letter names and sounds – cultivates proficient, happy readers. Here are some examples of strategies and how they help children become readers.
Vocabulary
- dialogic reading
Self-Expression
- interactive read alouds
Comprehension
- asking and answering questions
- story retelling
Print Concepts
- identifying parts of the books
- discovering spaces between words
- discussing punctuation
- identifying upper and lowercase letters
- recognizing print directionality
- distinguishing between sentences, words, and letters
Phonological Awareness
- rhyming and alliteration
- sentence segmentation
- segmenting and blending syllables
- segmenting and blending onsets and rimes
- phonemic awareness – blending, segmenting, and manipulating word sounds
Letter and Sound Learning
- connecting sounds and spellings
Research shows:
- reading aloud to children and having children read aloud is the best way to increase vocabulary
- a child with a large vocabulary is better able to understand the context of surrounding words
- dialogic reading engages the child in reading and helps the child become the teller of the story
- interactive reading allows for knowledge construction through conversations around literature and encourages the use of expressive language and attention to punctuation
- asking and answering questions engages readers with the text
- story retelling improves communication skills and supports comprehension
- knowledge of print concepts prepares the reader for reading, and teaches the child how reading “works”
- phonological awareness is the awareness of sounds in words and is critical to blending (reading) and segmenting (writing) words, laying the foundation for phonics
- letter/sound learning helps children to sound out words
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