Emergent Literacy

Emergent Literacy Skills

Early readers, as well as those children who become good readers during the first years of school, come well prepared in the area of emergent literacy skills. Language learned at home and literacy experiences are vital as prerequisites for school language and learning to read. Strong foundations in understanding and expression of language are the basics for the next stage of language development, emergent literacy. Well developed emergent literacy leads the way to understanding how to convert the print to sounds/symbols, or learning to decode the printed word. Finally, being a good reader is the key to academic success.

The following is a checklist of emergent literacy foundational skills.

Emergent Literacy Skills
0-5 years

1. Exposed to books on a regular basis	1. Limited exposure to books or print
2. Parental role model – parents are readers	2. Lack parental role models for reading- maybe illiterate or limited skills in reading
3. Many artifacts in the home: pens, markers, paper, books, cards etc.	3. Few to no artifacts in the home
4. Parent tells lots of oral stories: family history, rules, passing on of information	4. Limited story telling or telling of family history or rules
5. Cultural literacy	5. Culture has different values system of literacy
6. Books are valued	6. Books+/- limited value
7. Read to the child consistently	7. Limited, or no exposure in being read to
8. Great vocabulary (oral) exposure; being exposed to new words by family consistently	8. Limited exposure to oral vocabulary
9. Hearing, cognition and vision are within normal limits	9. Challenges in hearing, cognition, vision or other areas
10. Varied exposure to experiences with books and print on a regular basis	10. Limited experiences with books and print
11. Rich oral language in the home and / or at preschool	11. Limited foundations for literacy learning in the birth to five year age range