Emergent
Literacy

Early Literacy

Transitional & Conventional Literacy

Puting It All Together

Stages of Literacy

 

Children born in literate societies are exposed to literacy from birth on. As children develop, they begin to use more sophisticated strategies to make sense of the written word. Researchers often refer to this as different stages of literacy development.

 

1. Emergent Literacy

2. Early Literacy

3. Transitional & Conventional Literacy

 

The first stage is called emergent literacy and typically occurs from birth to about age 5. Emergent literacy includes the children's skills and attitudes about reading and writing that precede formal reading instruction.

The next stage is called early literacy and typically begins around kindergarten or first grade. At this stage, children become beginning readers and begin formal reading instruction, including decoding and phonics instruction.

The transitional and conventional literacy stage occurs later in elementary school (usually begins in grade 2 or 3) when children start using reading to learn, whereas in earlier stages children were still learning to read. The instructional focus for conventional readers shifts to comprehension and reading with an appropriate rate and fluency.

 

Stages of reading to reveal differences in children's skills across each stage for the domains of phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, strategies for reading, spelling and writing, and comprehension are shown below.

 

                     

Phonological Awareness

Emergent readers are developing PA skills to hear and manipulate large and small units of sound including words, sentences, syllables, and usually onset-rime.

In terms of PA, beginning readers need to be able to hear and manipulate the smallest unit of sound, the phoneme, to begin sounding out words.

PA skills are a means, not an end; when children are conventional readers they are using their underlying PA skills to decode fluently, but no PA instruction occurs in this stage.

Alphabet Knowledge

Children are learning letter names and begin to make connections between letters and sounds, especially for important letters like the first letter of their name.

Children know most letter names and sounds and focus on the alphabetic principle of matching sounds to letters. They understand letters can be combined to make words.

Children know many phonics rules that help them to read with greater speed and accuracy (i.e., fluency).

Strategies for Reading

Emergent readers memorize the shape of important words (e.g., McDonald's). They do "pretend readings" of familiar texts. There is not always a match between the written words they point to and their spoken language.

Beginning readers are beginning to be able to fingerpoint to words as they read a rhyme or text they have memorized. They read slowly and often look at initial letters for clues to help them guess words and are learning to sound out words. It is difficult to read silently at this age, because beginners need to say the words as they read.

Conventional readers know many words automatically and when they encounter an unfamiliar word can decode it easily. Conventional readers can read silently and prefer to do so, because it is faster than reading aloud. Accurate reading with good expression is a focus of this stage.

Spelling & Writing

Children begin emergent writing with drawing and scribbles that eventually become more linear, then more letter-like symbols, and may include a string of letters. Toward the end of this stage, children practice writing letters for a given sound.

Children can invent partial spellings of words and usually write the most salient sounds. Toward the end of this stage, they can invent spellings that include most phonemes in words and begin to remember the correct spelling of some words.

Children can spell whole words and are learning more complex spelling patterns including prefixes and affixes. Children's writing is more fluent making it possible to focus on developing ideas and more complex storylines.

Comprehension

Emergent readers cannot read on their own; therefore, their listening comprehension skills are learned by listening to others read aloud and talk about books or key vocabulary.

Beginning readers learn most listening comprehension skills through read alouds. They practice understanding the simple decodable texts they are reading, although most of these don't have a deep storyline for deep comprehension practice.

 

Conventional readers focus on learning to use comprehension strategies for various types of narrative, informational, and digital texts.

Differentiate Instruction: Stages & PA Continuum

 

The stages of literacy development provide guidance about the general types of skills children are developing at each stage. However, these skills are not "lockstep," meaning that some children will progress ahead a little more in one area than another.

 

Teachers can identify the stage of reading their children are in to inform the types of instruction they should provide. For example, the majority of preschool children will be emergent readers; however, most preschool classes have some beginning readers as well.

 

As you consider the different stages of literacy development, recall the PA continuum and how children's PA skills develop from large to small units of sound. Some emergent readers are still developing understanding of larger units of sound like syllables, while others are ready for smaller units like onset-rimes. Thus, some students might benefit from activities like clapping syllables in words, while others would benefit from listening for alliteration in tongue twisters. If a teacher wants to combine PA and alphabet instruction at this stage, an appropriate example is sorting pictures by their beginning sound into columns with two different letters (e.g., R vs. S).

 

A characteristic of beginning readers is that they are ready to hear and manipulate the smallest unit of sound, the phoneme. They might do activities like say-it-move-it in which a block is moved for each phoneme in a pictured word. An appropriate way to combine PA and letter instruction at this stage is to use a similar activity, but instead of just moving blocks for each sound in words, the actual letters are moved.

 

The stages of literacy development provide guidance about the general types of skills children are developing at each stage. However, these skills are not "lockstep," meaning that some children will progress ahead a little more in one area than another.

 

Teachers can identify the stage of reading their children are in to inform the types of instruction they should provide. For example, the majority of preschool children will be emergent readers; however, most preschool classes have some beginning readers as well.

 

As you consider the different stages of literacy development, recall the PA continuum and how children's PA skills develop from large to small units of sound. Some emergent readers are still developing understanding of larger units of sound like syllables, while others are ready for smaller units like onset-rimes. Thus, some students might benefit from activities like clapping syllables in words, while others would benefit from listening for alliteration in tongue twisters. If a teacher wants to combine PA and alphabet instruction at this stage, an appropriate example is sorting pictures by their beginning sound into columns with two different letters (e.g., R vs. S).

 

A characteristic of beginning readers is that they are ready to hear and manipulate the smallest unit of sound, the phoneme. They might do activities like say-it-move-it in which a block is moved for each phoneme in a pictured word. An appropriate way to combine PA and letter instruction at this stage is to use a similar activity, but instead of just moving blocks for each sound in words, the actual letters are moved.