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WHAT IS L I T E R A C Y
By: Pauline, Speech Pathologist
| What is literacy? | Simply put, literacy refers to the ability to read, write, and spell. |
| Why is it important? | The ability to interpret information and express oneself in text are critical skills in this Information Age. |
What should my child be able to do at his/her age?
- Understand that print carries a message
- Make attempts to read and write
- Identify familiar signs and labels
- Participate in rhyming games
- Pretend to read, either by remembering a story and by using the pictures to help them tell the story
- Name various letters of the alphabet and make some letter-sound matches
- Use upper- and lower-case letters interchangeably
- Know how to write a few letters and know the direction of writing on a page
How can I help my child at home?
- Most importantly, read with them! The benefits of shared reading cannot be stressed enough! While you are reading…
- pause while reading to talk about the story and pictures
- point to each word with your finger as you read
- Make books available for your child to read with you as well as explore on his/her own
- Make reading a fun, everyday activity and read with enthusiasm (beware of not making it a chore)
- Give your child many opportunities to see you reading because this will show your child how important reading is to everyday life (newspaper, labels, books)
Activities to support your child
Research has shown that the skills targeted in the following activities are foundational to the development of literacy skills.
Syllable Awareness (age 4-5) – identifying how many syllables are in words
| If you are in a hurry… | If you have more time… |
| While driving in the car or on the train, ask your child, “Can you clap and count the parts in rainbow?” This can be done for any word, as opportunities arise. Start with 2 syllable words like ‘apple’ and 3 syllable words like ‘banana’ | Ask your child to think of the longest word they know and demonstrate the length by clapping out the syllables, for example: caterpillar, elephant, alligator. |
Awareness of Sounds (age 5-6) – identifying beginning, middle and final sounds in words.
| If you are in a hurry… | If you have more time… |
| While stuck in traffic, sitting in the doctor’s office, or on the bus play I Spy.
For example, “I spy something beginning with the sound “k”, I spy something that ends with the sound ‘p’ and, I spy something that has ‘o’ in the middle. (remember to say the sound not the letter name). On a piece of paper, write the beginning sound and the end sound and let your child add in the middle sound e.g. ‘m—p’ for ‘M-o-p’ |
Set up a shop that only sells items that begin with a sound. For example: milk, mice, marbles, marshmallows, mugs, mops, maps etc.
Play what sound is last: ‘c-u-p’ |
Sound Blending (age 5-6) – able to blend sounds in a word (for example, after hearing c-a-t said with the sounds isolated, your child says “cat”).
| If you are in a hurry… | If you have more time… |
| Play a different version of I Spy by sounding out the name of the object you are looking at. Your child must blend the sounds together to determine the object. For example, “I spy something that is round. I spy a ‘c-u-p’. | Use a grab bag of toys, peek inside and tell your child, “I see a toy d-u-k- in here. Do you know what I see?” Use longer words if your child is doing well e.g. ‘t-a-b-le’ and ‘b-l-o-ck-s’ |