By: Ashley Williams

Emergent literacy is a gradual process from birth - until a child can read and write in a conventional sense. The key terms that refer to early literacy are speaking, listening, reading, writing, and viewing.

During early speech and language development, children learn skills that are important to the development of literacy. Young children develop knowledge of how print works before formal instruction begins. Early literacy behaviors are developed in early experiences with print in the home, in preschool programs, and in kindergarten.

The basic components of emergent literacy are oral language development, concepts about print, alphabet knowledge, and phonemic awareness.

Beginning in the 1970s, researchers began to challenge traditional reading readiness attitudes and practices. One of the pioneers in examining young children's reading and writing was Marie Clay (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). Clay (1966) first introduced the term emergent literacy to describe the behaviors used by young children with books and when reading and writing, even though the children could not actually read and write in the conventional sense. On the other hand, the concept of reading readiness suggested that there was a point in time when children were ready to learn to read and write.

Clay (1975) emphasized the importance of the relationship between reading and writing in early literacy development. Up until this time, it was believed that children should learn to read before they could learn to write. Clay's research on emergent literacy evolved to include several elements:

1). Literacy development begins before children start formal instruction in elementary school (Teale & Sulzby, 1986). For example, by age 2 or 3 many children can identify signs, labels, and logos in their homes and in their communities (Idaho Center on Developmental Disabilities, 1996).

2). Reading and writing develop at the same time in young children, rather than sequentially (e.g. Idaho Center on Developmental Disabilities, 1996; Teale & Sulzby, 1986).

3). Literacy involves listening, speaking, reading, and writing abilities, which is a form of both oral and written language.

4). The functions of literacy such as knowing that letters spell words and that words have meaning have been found to be as important a part of learning about reading and writing during early childhood (e.g. Council for Exceptional Children, 1996; Idaho Center on Developmental Disabilities, 1996; Teale & Sulzby, 1986).

5) As children actively engage with adults in reading and writing situation and explore print on their own they begin to learn to read and write. (e.g.. Idaho Center on Developmental Disabilities, 1996; Teals & Sulzby, 1986).

Reading and writing develops at the same time in young children. Writing often becomes easier for children than reading.

Children understand information about print by what they see and interact with in their daily environment.

Once children begin to enjoy print, they can recognize words that rhyme, scribble with crayons, point out signs, and are able to name some letters of the alphabet.

Children then begin to combine what they know about speaking and listening with what they know about print and become ready to learn to read and write. As children are exposed to more print, this helps them to improve their writing.

Children learn literacy through active engagement with books and writing opportunities. Children re-enact what they know by rereading favorite books and by using invented spelling.

Listening to books plays a very important role in the literacy development of children. Children develop a feel for the structure written language at a very early age by listening to books read aloud

Reading to children each day helps them develop a positive attitude towards reading.

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Emergent Literacy Reading Readiness

Emergent literacy is a gradual process that helps children develop literacy through their own natural learning ability and their experiences with print.

Reading Readiness is the moment at which children are ready to learn to read. During this time children transition from being non-readers to readers.

Use sentence construction and grammar

Oral language reflects literature to which student is exposed

Shows pleasure in language

Has acquired most of the concepts about print

Use print in everyday life

Shows evidence of phonemic awareness

Use phonics and knows many letter sounds

Use both consonants and vowels sounds

Uses decoding strategies to begin to build fluency: sight words, context, graphics, and word structure

Begins to construct meaning in writing

Know and writes his or her name

Writes letters and uses some other writing conventions

Write for own purposes

Becomes familiar with the writing process

Constructs meaning in writing

A literacy-rich environment should include material introduced from drawings, writings, books, and reading assignments. Print should be found throughout the classroom. Some examples are poems hung on the walls, stories dictated by children hung on the bulletin boards, notes written by the teacher printed on poster paper, children’s names written on desks and a variety of words displayed on word walls. Large print posters, labels for centers, and newly learned vocabulary words taken from content studied should also be posted (Gunning, T. J. 2005).

Writing instruments, paper, books, and magazines available for children to browse and utilize.

Stories and books written by students displayed

Allow students time to draw, paint, scribble and write for enjoyment

Use blank books and white boards

Allow children opportunity to dictate stories

Model writing by allowing students time to write group stories, messages, letters, greeting cards and shopping list

Create patterned language charts

Use books to help children write

Create writing centers Students should be

encouraged to keep a writing journal.

Books should be given to browse and time to read and share.  

A listening center should be use to allow children to listen to stories while they follow along with the book 

Children practice print by turning pages and tracking print

Use dramatic play such as acting out stories/characters

Use storytelling, nursery rhymes, read-alouds, re-reading stories, alphabet books, concept book. Big books, Predictable books and Picture books

Talk about selecting, discussing, sharing, reciting, and rhymes

Use comfortable Reading Center, with lots of print and a variety of books

Use informational books, nursery rhymes and poetry books

Develop connections Share stories with repetitive

patterns Use age appropriate text Use engaging themes and

wordless picture books

Phonological awareness otherwise known as sound awareness is the understanding that oral language can be broken into individual words, words into syllables, and syllables into individual sounds.

The skills should include the ability to know and manipulate the sounds within spoken words, to know the letters of the alphabet, and combine the letters with the sounds (alphabet knowledge).

Children should be taught phonics in a one-on-one situation or in small homogeneous groups.

Model the pronunciation of words clearly, and without raising and lowering voice distortions

Model spacing between sounds when completing blending and segmenting activities

Use songs, rhyming games, and word play to support children’s language developments

Use blocks and claps, rhyming, blending, phoneme Isolation, phoneme segmentation, phoneme manipulation, songs and chants

Combine and manipulate letters to change words and spelling patterns

Use sound-letter relationships that are organized systematically and provide practice

Use activities that are in context to the words children are reading and writing

Lessons should help children understand spelling conventions in a systematic way

Practice decoding and identifying words that contain the letter-sound relationships children are learning to read and need for reading and writing

Use word wall with sight words, word families, high frequency words and content words

Use games and materials that encourage capital and lower case letter

Use word families and rhyming patterns

“Word play" activities should encourage children to change beginning, middle, and ending letters of related words

Alphabetic awareness activities should focus on printed words made up of patterns of letters

The teacher plays a critical role in modeling literacy behaviors, developing meaningful literacy activities, and creating a bond between home and school to encourage literacy learning.

The teacher should be the facilitator who helps build on a student’s background knowledge by providing support and scaffolding instruction for student success.

Teachers who use Big Books for shared reading while helping students develop an understanding of a variety of print such as directionality, parts of a book, and an understanding of words, letters and sentence structure often help students learn to read and write better.

Teachers who understand that each reader brings various levels of prior knowledge, socio-cultural experiences and beliefs to the emergent literacy process often are able to help the emergent learner learn to read and write faster.

Barclay, Kathy; Benelli, Cecelia; & Curtis, Ann. (1995). Literacy begins at birth: What caregivers can learn from parents of children who read early. Young Children, 50 (4), 24-28.

Clay, Marie. (1966). Emergent reading behaviour. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Clay, Marie. (1975). What did I write? Auckland, New Zealand: Heinemann Educational

Delgado-Gaitan, C. (1996). Protean literacy: Extending the discourse on empowerment. London: Falmer Press.

Goodman, Yeta. 1986. "Children Coming to Know Literacy." In Emergent Literacy: Writing and Reading, ed. William Teale and Elizabeth Sulzby. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Goldenberg, C., Reese, L., & Gallimore, R. (1992). Effects of literacy materials from school on Latino children's home experiences and early reading achievement. American Journal of Education, 100, 497-536

Gunning, T. J. (2005). Creating literacy: Instruction for all students. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

Morrow, Lesley Mandel. (1997). Literacy development in the early years: Helping children read and write. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Teale, William, & Sulzby, Elizabeth. (1986). Emergent literacy: Writing and reading. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation