What is literacy?
Literacy is the "ability to listen and speak, and eventually to read and write" (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2007). Children start to become literate in the home. At first, infants and toddlers become aware of what's spoken around them at home, and as a natural response, they interact verbally with their family (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2007). Infants gradually learn to enjoy listening to rhymes, learning words, and singing songs. As time passes by, they start to use words that they've learned, and eventually understand that one can write and read words (Gonzalez-Mena & Eyer, 2007).What are the stages of literacy development?
According to Bank Street College’s Guide to Literacy, there are three stages of literacy development:
- Emergent readers and writers
- Early readers and writers
- Early fluent/fluent readers and writers.
Emergent readers and writers (pre-kindergarten through first grade)
Emergent readers and writers are in the pre-literacy category. Children in this stage pretend to read books and write (Grose et al., 2001). They know that words that sound subtly different can change the meaning of words (e.g., no versus go, dog versus dogs; Invernizzi, 2003). They also begin to understand that "symbols are often associated to objects or ideas" (e.g. dogs are likely to bark and run, but not talk; Rosenkoetter & Knapp-Philo, 2006). In terms of reading and writing, they can recognize letters and sounds, scribble, and write letters (Grose et al., 2001).
Early readers and writers (first through second grade)
Early readers know books carry meanings and messages that don't change, and can recognize and compose words (Grose et al., 2001). Early writers may use spaces between words, include more sound/letter association in spelling, and can re-read their own writing (Grose et al., 2001).
Early fluent/fluent readers (second through third grade)
Early fluent/fluent readers can easily recognize many words and have much more elaborate ideas; they can place things in and out of context (Rosenkoetter & Knapp-Philo, 2006). Early fluent/fluent writers can write, draft, edit, and use correct spelling (Grose et al., 2001).
