Pre-literacy Skills (And Why Learning Our Letters Isn’t Enough for Reading)
Often when we think of learning to read, we think about the letters and how they come together. One of the first things parents focus on teaching their children is the ABCs. However, did you know that early literacy (aka reading) skills involve SO much more than just learning the alphabet?
Early literacy includes the following six skill sets:
Letter knowledge: learning to name letters, knowing they have sounds, and recognizing them in print
Print awareness: noticing print/text, knowing how to handle a book, and how words are followed on a page
Print motivation: a child’s interest and enjoyment of reading/books
Vocabulary: knowing the names of things and how to describe the world around them
Narrative skills: the ability to tell stories and describe events
Phonological awareness: the ability to hear the different sounds in a word, and to manipulate them (phonemic awareness)
These skills come together to support the foundation needed for a child to successfully learn to read and write. Emergent literacy skills are typically developed from birth through the preschool years, with the bulk of these skills emerging in preschool to kindergarten. At Resonate, we understand that everyone moves at their own pace, and emergent literacy skills may not align with an individual’s chronological age for a variety of reasons. We support pre-literacy skills and reading for clients of all ages, through both speech therapy and music therapy!
Let’s dive into that sixth early literacy skill set. What exactly is phonological (and phonemic) awareness?
Phonological awareness is a child’s ability to hear what sounds make up a word, as well as the ability to change those sounds. Phonological awareness skills can be broken down into eight smaller categories- these skill categories range in order from less complex to more complex.
Words into syllables: being able to segment “banana” into “ba” “na” “na”
Rhyming: being able to identify that two words rhyme, as well as provide a rhyming word for a target word (e.g., bat/hat/cat/mat)
Alliteration: sorting words by their initial and final sounds (hat, hair, ham, who)
Onset-Rime: verbally segmenting the first sound of a word from the rest of it (e.g., sun to s–un)
Segmenting initial and final sounds: verbally separating the first and last sounds of words (e.g., flag to f–lag/fla–g)
Blending sounds: hearing sounds and being able to blend them into a word (e.g., c–a–t = cat)
Segment words into sounds: being able to separate all sounds (e.g., turn “smoke” into s - m - o - k)
Delete/manipulate sounds: being able to remove or change sounds in a word (e.g., “say dog without the ‘duh’ sound” = “og”)
Skills 4-8 are specifically considered “phonemic awareness” skills, as they deal with the segmenting or changing of the smallest part of a word - phonemes (or individual sounds) within a word.
Because of the variety in English word spellings, the number of sounds do not always equal the number of letters. For example, cloud may have 5 letters in it, but it only has 4 sounds (/k, l, “ow”, d/). The word eye has three letters, but is pronounced the same as the word “I” with only one setter. Words can be one or many syllables (e.g., “pan” = 1 syllable, while “banana” = 3 syllables). Being able to hear these different sounds and parts in a word is imperative for those foundational literacy skills.
How can families and loved ones support the six areas of pre-literacy?
While reading books is a great way to start building your child’s pre-literacy/literacy skills, here are some other activities to help support that development:
Use music, and musical elements like rhythm: tapping the rhythm of the sounds of a word on a drum or using piano keys to rhythmically or melodically mark and separate syllables can bring additional auditory input cues for sound segmentation. You can help your child find rhyming words within favorite songs!
Use play: bring awareness to sounds in words while you’re playing with your child (e.g., “Car! Ooh, car has a ‘kuh’ sound, and so does ‘cow’, kuh-kuh cow”). Make a game of finding words that have the same sounds.
Use movement: clap out the sounds in a word or the syllables. Use stepping stones/colored discs to “jump to each sound/syllable.” Use your feet to stomp out syllables or jump them out on a trampoline. Sensory engagement while engaged in the cognitive work of pre-reading/pre-literacy can help solidify concepts by making them tangible.
Use games: play “I Spy” but segment the sounds instead of using a word (e.g., “I spy a ‘h - a - t’” “that’s right, a hat!”
Use visuals: draw circles or boxes to tap out sounds and syllables while coloring or painting
Use high-level interests: choose activities or books that involve topics your child has the most interest in to increase their success.
Emphasize rhyming words: many children’s books incorporate rhyming words. Take time while reading to pause and say these words together (e.g., “ooh listen, ‘make, cake, take’, these all rhyme - that means they have the same end sounds”). Point to letters you see on the pages. Use your finger to follow the words within a sentence.
And of course, reading! Exposure is one of the absolute best ways to build pre-literacy skills. Having fun with reading materials and written word, flipping pages together, and just generally getting your child involved in the reading process. Your child may want to read the same book over and over again, skip pages, read just the ‘fun’ parts- it’s okay to embrace it all.
Is your child getting frustrated with your prompting, or when you use any of the above strategies?
Make sure you’re not over-prompting, as processing time is critical! They may need space to engage with reading materials the way they want to, and it’s important to find strategies that they find fun. At Resonate Music Therapy, we get genuinely excited about supporting literacy skills! We have both music therapists and speech therapists on staff, and clients can access either or both services through us.
If you have questions or are concerned about your child’s pre-literacy skills don’t hesitate to reach out to us by emailing staff@resonatemt.com, or texting/calling 719-354-0893. We’ll see if we can help, or direct you to resources/people who can help!