Stages of Literacy Development

1. Stages of Literacy Development

2. Literacy begins at birth. • Prior to schooling literacy is made possible by providing children with a literacy-rich environment in which they are able to participate in literacy activities and interact with item such as books, paper, markers, etc.

3. Literacy experiences prior to schooling develop: • Interest in books • Interest in environmental print • Enjoyment in reading with an adult • Ability to describe pictures in books • Ability to label pictures • Beginning stages of writing

4. The Four Stages of Literacy During the Early Years of Schooling • Emergent ( Pre-School – 1st ) • Early ( 1st – 2nd ) • Early Fluent ( 2nd – 3rd ) • Fluent ( 3rd - 4th )

5. Characteristics of Emergent Readers and Writers: • Understand that written words have meaning • Begin to match spoken words with the print • Pretend to read by turning pages of books and inventing stories using the pictures • Identify some letters and some letter sound associations • Recognize some words and letters in books or in their environment • Inconsistent with the concepts of word and letter • Write some letters • Write in scribbles or strings of random letters • Read their writing, but may not be able to re-read it later • Match some words to print

6. Experiences for Emergent Readers and Writers: • Seeing reading and writing modeled by adults • Reading predictable books with pictures • Experimentation with writing • Build letter and sound recognition • Rhyming and word play • Oral and written language activities

7. Characteristics of Early Readers: • Understand that reading needs to make sense • Attentive to print • Identify most letters by name • Able to use some letter/sound knowledge to decode some words • Aware of some punctuation and capitalization, but may not use them consistently in their writing and reading • Recognize some sight words • Use pictures, story patterns, context, and phonics to read

8. Characteristics of Early Writers: • Use spaces between words, inconsistently • Spell using some sound/letter associations • Able to re-read own writing most of the time • May mix upper and lower case letters and may reverse some letters

9. Experiences for Early Readers/Writers: • Exposure to shared and guided reading • Modeling and teaching of strategies to figure out words and make sense of print • Games and activities to increase sight word recognition • Games and activities to build phonemic awareness • Encouragement to write using invented spelling • Language experience activities • Discussing and retelling stories read aloud

10. Characteristics of Early Fluent/Fluent Readers: • Recognize many words in and out of context • Apply phonics and other strategies to figure out new words • Monitor their reading for meaning and self correction • Read with increased fluency, accuracy, and expression

11. Early Fluent/Fluent Writers: • Use drafting, revising and editing in their writing • Express their ideas more elaborately • Use more conventional spelling • Increase their use of punctuation

12. Experiences for Early Fluent/Fluent Readers/Writers: • Opportunity to read and discuss challenging texts • Practice reading for meaning using comprehension strategies • Reading to build accuracy, fluency, and expression • Silent reading • Continue writing using strategies for revision and editing • Discussing a variety of literacy types

13. At this point.. • Literacy skills move from learning to read and write to learning from reading and writing.