In our last article, we explained the first three pre-literacy skills that have been identified as predictors of later reading ability: vocabulary, narrative skills, and phonological awareness. Here, we will take a look at the other three pre-literacy skills: print awareness, print motivation, and letter knowledge. Parents can help children build these abilities through easy
Pre-Literacy Skills: Easy Ways To Build Them At Home
Did you know that when you chant nursery rhymes with your toddler, you’re not just amusing him – you’re actually helping him build foundational skills for reading? Great focus is placed on reading skills once students hit school age. In reality, the foundational skills for reading are laid when children are much younger: in preschool
Supporting Higher-Level Reading Comprehension
Several of our recent articles have focused on the interplay of language with reading skills. We have discussed how decoding (the process of using rules to read words) is affected by underlying language processes such as syntax (grammatical word order) and semantics (word meaning). For older students, even when these systems are intact individually, the
Reading and Underlying Language Processes: Semantics
In our previous article, we explained that a child struggling to read may not just have difficulty with phonics (the word-letter association system) or decoding (the process of using phonics rules to put together words), but that several other underlying language processes may be at play as well, intertwined with the reading process. Syntax (grammatical
Reading And Underlying Language Processes: Syntax
One of the most important skills acquired in elementary school is reading – and it can be the source of great difficulty when students do not learn to read as expected. But a struggling reader is not necessarily just grappling with putting together words and letters – there are in fact numerous underlying language processes
