How the Six Early Literacy Skills Contribute to Skilled Reading

"The science is clear: children need responsive care and attention during their earliest weeks, months, and years to build cognitive, social and emotional skills necessary for healthy growth and development." - www.ounceofprevention.org

What is a "Skilled Reader"?

The two primary aspect of learning to read are:

• Decoding: putting together letters and sounds to make a word. For example, the letters and sounds /c/ /a/ /t/ make the word "cat."

• Comprehension: understanding the meanings of the works and the meaning of the story.

How do the Six Early Literacy Skills contribute to the concept of a "Skilled Reader"?

Foundation for Skilled Reading

• Print Motivation

Contributes to Decoding:

• Phonological Awareness

• Print Awareness

• Letter Knowledge

Builds Reading Comprehension:

• Vocabulary

• Narrative Skills

"In Colorado, in a 2001 Educare Survey of Kindergarten and First Grade teachers, it was found that teachers believed four out of 10 children (40%) entering the classroom were not prepared to learn." - Colorado Department of Education

Early Literacy

"Children who have not developed basic literacy practices when they enter school are three to four times more likely to drop out in later years." -National Adult Literacy Survey, 1993

What is Early Literacy?

Early literacy is what children know about reading and writing before they learn to read and write. This reading readiness begins at birth. The experiences throughout the early years (before starting school) profoundly affect the development of literacy. Research shows that children need to have six basic skills as a foundation prior to learning how to read.

The Six Pre-Reading Skills:

Sue has posted this information earlier in the comments, but here's another overview with Mary Kuehner and Jefferson County Public Library's terminology in purple quotations:

• Print Motivation "Love Books"- is an interest in and enjoyment of books.

Why is it important?

Children who get pleasure from books will want to read more and will learn to read more easily.

• Phonological Awareness "Play with Sounds" - is the ability to hear and play with the smaller sounds in words.

Why is it important?

Being able to hear rhymes, beginning sounds, ending sounds, and syllables is critical to later reading success.

• Vocabulary "Learn New Words" - knowing the names of things.

Why is it important?

Children need to know the meaning of words in order to understand what they are reading. The more words they hear and know, the stronger their reading comprehension.

• Narrative Skills "Tell Stories" - is the ability to describe things, sequence events, and tell stories.

Why is it important?

Good narrative skills will lead to good comprehension! Writing abilities will be supported as well.

• Print Awareness "Use Books" - is noticing print everywhere and knowing how books work.

Why is it important?

It relays the message that print is meaningful and that books are made up of words and pictures. We read from front to back and left to right. We hold the book upright and turn pages in order.

• Letter Knowledge "Know Letters" - knowing letters look different and that each letter has a name and makes sound(s).

Why is it important?

To read written words, children must know how to quickly identify and decode letters.

"According to the National Academy on an Aging Society, 73 billion dollars is estimated annual cost of low literacy skills in the form of longer hospital stays, emergency room visits, more doctor visits, and increased medication."
- "Toward a Literate Nation," Luis Herrera, Public Libraries, Jan/Feb 2004

Every Child Ready to Read Training

"The single most significant factor influencing a child's early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school."
- National Research Council, 2000

Wow, what a session to motivate us! Sue (the trooper!) and I had a terrific time with our Every Child Ready to Read Trainer, Mary Kuehner, from Jefferson County Public Library and the ECRR Grant Coordinator, Patricia Froehlich, from Colorado State Library.

The training entailed:

• The understanding Early Literacy.
• The understanding the Six Early Literacy Skills and how these contribute to skilled reading.
• How to support children's early literacy skill development in storytime.
• The importance of sharing and how to share early literacy information with parents and caregivers.

What's empowering is that we already intuitively do Early Literacy Stroytimes, but now we have new tricks to add to our bags, research and statistics to back up what we do and emphasize how important it is, and a more structured direction for our storytimes.

This blog is set up for the purpose of expanding our knowledge of Early Literacy and enhancing our storytimes around these principals. Sue and I will share what we learned in our training session and the Grand County Youth Services Librarians can promote Early Literacy in each of our storytimes. In communicating, we can share our ideas and experiences with each other regarding Early Literacy storytimes. Hopefully, this will not only promote new ideas, but give a support basis and provide a strong foundation for us to continue community education through our programs.

The information for this blog is provided by the Colorado Libraries for Early Literacy with Colorado State Library for the LSTA Storytime Grant Training Manual & The Discussion Guide of Enhancing Library Storytime with Early Literacy Skills and Messages from the Multnomah County Library.

"By the time they were two years old, the children whose parents had a high level of speech with their children had a vocabulary five times as high as those children whose parents had a low level of speech."
-Huttenlocher, Janellen et. Al. Early Vocabulary Growth: Relations to Language Input and Gender. Developmental Psychology v. 27 no. 2 March 1991

Every Child Ready To Read

Announcing ECRR Training

March 14th @ 9:00am

@ the Granby Public Library.

Welcome grant recipients to the first session of the Every Child Ready to Read training. Remember to bring your lunch as we will be meeting from 9:00 am - 3:00 pm.