Pre-literacy Skills are also known as phonological awareness. This refers to the skills needed to assist with literacy development. Having good literacy skills provide the foundation for many school activities and are important throughout our lifetime. Becoming familiar with books and identifying letters and sounds are some of the building blocks for literacy development.
Words and sentences.
It is important to introduce words or phrases that we use for reading and writing. Including:
- Talking about what a letter is (what sound it makes), what a word is and what a sentence is.
- Making up a sentence about a picture in a book.
Syllables
Syllables are knows as the beats in words, these help children to read by breaking down bigger words.
- You can get your child to identify the syllables in words by clapping the beats of familiar words e.g. ‘Mum-my, Dad-dy, ba-by’.
- Talk about how many beats are in a word e.g. ‘Mummy has 2 beats’.
Rhyme
Rhyme helps with identifying and reading words that have similar ending sounds e.g. cat, mat, bat.
- By putting emphasis on the two that rhyme they will begin to understand it and identify the similarities in the words.
- The next step is to get them to produce rhyme e.g. ‘pen, Ben, sen’.
Sounds and Letters.
It is important for your child to identify the sound a letter makes rather than just knowing the letter name.
- Sound identification can be practised by identifying the first sound in words e.g. /b/ is for ball, /b/ is for baby and /b/ is for bat.
- Then ask your child to identify the final sounds in words. e.g. cat, bat, mat.
Reading books
Reading books provides many opportunities for language, speech, phonological awareness and social interactions. Book reading is a great opportunity for your child to tell a story. They don’t need to be able to read to tell a good story. When reading with your child:
- Talk about the cover of the book, ask your child to find the front and back of the book.
- Point to the words as you read to encourage tracking from left to right.
- Ask questions about the story as you read and help your child comprehend and predict what might happen next.
- Talk about the actions and emotions in the story.
- Ask your child to recount what happened in the story and tell others.