I always find the most awkward part of a guest post on any blog is the introduction. Who is this person? Why are they here? Why should I even read this post? So in the interests of getting that bit over with as quickly as possible, hi: my name is Meredith and I’m here to hopefully give you a quick and simple but solid foundation on the ideas around early or emergent literacy. I’m a Masters of Library Science candidate, and I also spent about fifteen years nannying for every age through the most brand-new of brand-new new-borns through to school-age kids.
If we were in the same room, right about now I’d ask everyone there to tell me what leaps to mind when I say “early/emergent literacy” - and trust me, “absolutely nothing because I’ve never heard the term before in my life” is a perfectly reasonable answer! Other answers might be “early training in how to read”, “the steps before you learn how to read”, “things that make it easier for a kid to learn how to read”, “reading ‘early’” (that is, before around kindergarten) and answers on that general theme. If we’ve got some niche knowledge in the group we might get something along the lines of “early development of behaviours relating to reading, writing, and related objects and disciplines”.
(If there’s someone really educated or clever in the room who’s taken all the same courses and read the same studies as me, I’d make a big play of telling them to shush, don’t ruin my flow.)
Then, if I asked “what does it mean if I say ‘supporting early or emergent literacy’,” I’d expect to get answers like “reading books with your kids” and “taking your kids to the library” and “taking your kids to storytime” and “having lots of picture books” and “reading bedtime stories”. I might even get things like “doing phonics problems with your kids” or “practicing the alphabet with your kids” or “doing enrichment activities with your kids.” I’m sure a lot of the same things come to anyone reading this, although some of you may have already beat me to Google.
If I had a board, I’d write all of these things down on the board - whiteboard, chalkboard, big pad of paper, these are things that preschools tend to have around, and I like props. (We all have our quirks. ;) )
After the answers were shared and maybe written down, I’d ask one more question, and I’m asking it here - but just like if we were in the same room, I want to assure you that there’s no right answer, no judgement to the answer, nothing like that. In fact I’ll spoil the rhetorical device outright here and tell you straight that this is one of those questions meant to draw out a thought that might otherwise be left unspoken, so that we can talk about it and be a bit more relaxed about the elephant in the room.
So the question is: who just felt guilty? Who just got jumped by something along the lines of feeling bad because you worry you don’t read aloud enough? Who just got worried because their kid doesn’t know all their ABCs and the sounds the letters make and how to sound out an unfamiliar word at three or four years old? Who just got a trickle of icy dread that their kid would be (gasp) behind when it comes to reading when they hit school, and it’s all their (that is, the parent’s) fault?
Maybe nobody reading this felt that. Which is great! I’ll talk about why it’s great in just a minute.
For everyone and anyone who did, though, I asked the question because above just about anything else in this post I want to tell you to take a really deep breath and relax and as much as you possibly can, let that guilt, worry and dread go.
It’s okay!
You’re almost certainly fine, by which I mean hey: you’re doing your reading homework for a parent-participation pre-school! You spend time with them while they interact with the world, you’re here at the school with them helping them, they’re here, it’s all good! That means you are really, truly and literally (and I do mean literally!) already doing huge amounts to support your kid’s early literacy skills and development and you’re fine. Promise!
Shall we unpack that?
Early/Emergent Literacy: Not Quite What One Might Expect
So what is this “early/emergent literacy” thing and why is it important? This bit is a little dry, but bear with me: knowing this stuff will make you feel much more confident about going forward, I’ll bet you good money.
Probably the simplest but most accurate way to put it is, early or emergent literacy is everything that children know about reading and writing before they can actually read or write. “Early” and “emergent” mean the same thing here. Some sources use one, some the other, some split the difference like I tend to by sticking a slash in between them. “Early” is used by people who are worried that the term “emergent” sounds too much like literacy is something that we’re ever finished learning. Contrariwise, “emergent” is used by people who are worried that the term “early” makes it sound like we’re trying to make kids learn to read at a younger and younger age (spoilers: that’s not what we’re trying to do at all). The combination is used by people like me, who just like to cover all their bases.
What’s important is, we’re talking about everything kids know about reading and writing before they get the actual concrete decoding skills - that is, before they’re able to look at text and read it and have it make sense, or produce text that makes sense themselves.
“Literacy” itself is also a tricky word, in a stealthier kind of way. We used to use it to mean “can people read words and write words”. But it turns out that wasn’t very satisfying. After all, just because someone can identify or even reproduce all the words on a printed page doesn’t mean they get much when they read Of Mice and Men. And on the other hand, just because somebody can’t make the symbols with a pen that would let them write you an essay doesn’t mean they can’t deeply understand and relate to and even analyse and unpack Lenny’s place in that story - that they can’t have a really solid understanding and relationship with that text.
Literacy is more than the mechanical skills to decode text written in the Latin alphabet (and it’s just as much decoding as if you were reading ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs! You’ve just had a lot more practice). It’s a whole range of ways we interact with text and the ways in which text is central to how our society works and how it conveys other things that are central to our society. On top of that, we’ve adapted the word apply to other things - we now talk about “cultural literacy” (knowing enough about a culture to operate inside it) or “mathematical literacy” (knowing your basics of arithmetic and early algebra and how accounting works enough to keep your bank from cheating you) and all sorts of other things.
On top of that, for some people the mechanical skills of reading and writing aren’t available. Is a blind individual illiterate unless they read Braille - even if they’ve listened to and dictated essays on most of the English canon? What about people with dyslexia? It becomes pretty clear pretty quick that “literacy” is a word with some very blurry edges and also one that’s talking about something a bit bigger than just whether or not you can decode words on a page or make them yourself with a typewriter or a writing implement like a pen or pencil.
So it’s much more than just reading and writing! And a bit slippery overall.
But when you come down to it, text is at the heart of our culture, and the heart of what makes society work. Reading and writing are really important skills - both just the mechanical part of being able to look at the word “apple” and know what it means, or make that word yourself, and in the more fiddly, complicated areas of fully understanding nuance in a written text, or fully communicating with other people using the same thing.
So don’t get me wrong: that kind of literacy, that core idea and skill, is definitely important. And the younger we learn it, the better we tent to be with it . . . up to a point.
Cognitive Development: The Fundamental Baseline for Just About Everything
Because reading and writing are also pretty unnatural.
Humans are born wired to communicate. I won’t get into it here, because we’ll be at it all day, but down at the bottom of this post I’ll toss you some links about that because it’s pretty interesting. The point is, given half a sliver of a chance, children will learn some way of talking with the people or even just the animals around them. But we’re not born wired to read. Reading is a really complicated skill that’s all about decoding abstract symbols, and it’s something we have to learn on purpose in a much more direct way.
“Early/emergent” literacy is all the things kids know about writing and reading before they get to the thing itself. It’s them knowing that somehow you, the adult, look at those squiggles on the page of the picture-book and get meaning from them, so that you can “read” the story. It’s them knowing that somehow you, the adult, can make squiggles on a paper or tap buttons that make squiggles on the screen, and someone completely different who’s never talked to you before can look at those squiggles and know what you meant.
Basically, it’s kids knowing that those squiggles mean something. That somehow grownups have a magical power to look at them and get meaning out of them.
Despite not being as natural as learning to speak a language (or sign a language, or otherwise communicate person to person), early literacy behaviours are very much tied to the process of learning to speak a language. Before a kid can learn that “apple” means that fruit she really likes (or maybe that fruit he refuses to eat no matter what), there has to be the idea that the noise we make when we say “apple” means that fruit. The text “apple” is a visual representation of a noise that we use to represent a real concrete thing - which is pretty complex! And before you can know that “A-P-P-L-E” means something, you have to be able to see that A is a different shape from P, and that both are a different shape than V. You have to understand that even though V and A are really close together in shape, the fact that one’s pointy-end goes one way and the other’s pointy-end goes the other way means something.
So first of all, a kid’s brain and senses have to be past a certain point of development for each kind of literacy behaviour or learning, whether it’s really early, or early and emergent, or even full on. A baby who’s still having trouble figuring out what shapes are beyond “hey that’s shaped like Mommy’s face” isn’t getting much out of the A is for Apple flashcard, though that might seem disappointing. Secondly, these things build on each other, and you need the bottom building block, metaphorically speaking, before you get the next ones.* So before your kid can actually write the grocery list, they’re going to need to understand that idea mentioned above, that somehow by making these markings on a paper (or a screen) you can get the idea that the house needs milk, diapers and blueberries to go from your mind to someone else’s mind without talking to them.
And before you can do that, the kid has to understand that you can make it happen by talking to them!
The Practical End of the Stick
Okay, you say, so that’s great, I get it: it’s a process, there’s lots of building blocks, everything builds on everything else, and so on. You say, but Meredith! you said these early literacy things are important: how do we support them? You say, Also, why is this supposed to help us relax?
I’m so glad you asked that. (If you didn’t, I’m going to tell you anyway, so don’t worry.)
1. Kids learn by imitation. We all know that, right? It’s a commonplace. Kids watch us and imitate what we do. They definitely watch other kids and imitate what they do. Sometimes that can be really embarrassing, as we suddenly see in a child’s play and make-believe stuff that we do or say. I will, for example, never forget the day one of my charges first put her My Little Pony on Time Out.
So one of the surprisingly easy things you can do for supporting early/emergent literacy is . . . have books - and magazines, and comics, and other print or text - around, and read them! When you read a book while your toddler chews on a Thomas the Tank Engine toy, or while your three-year-old plays on the bouncy horse at the playground, they’re watching you. You’re teaching them that reading is a skill, that something happens when you-the-adult stare at that strange printed page, and that’s a lot just by itself. And it doesn’t have to be Tolstoy - you could be reading your latest issue of Vogue, your favourite comic or graphic novel, or even the instruction manual for your fantastic new barbecue. You could even be reading this blog post! For the kid, the point is for them to see you read, and to see what books and text and writing look like and how they work.
This can also branch way out: pictures of other people reading, watching other people reading, even pointing out parts in visual media like movies or plays and talking about the people in them reading or writing - anything that models the behaviour helps! The best help is always going to be you in person, but the more that a child sees reading as part of a normal landscape of life, and as a valuable skill, the more it will mean to them.
Extra tip: it doesn’t have to be in any one language. If it’s easier for you to read in something other than English, that’s totally fine, even if English is what you want your kid to read first. Remember, this isn’t about the actual decoding, the mechanical skill: it’s about the idea of reading, of how reading works and how we use it. And the idea of Mandarin or Hebrew is the same as the idea of our Latin-based script for English: it’s the idea that these shapes mean those words, and those words mean these other thoughts.
2. The better kids are at any language, the better they’ll be at reading. Supporting language acquisition - learning to talk - is a cornerstone of learning to read, and the very best way to help your kid practice language skills is to let them practice those skills with you. You can read more about this at some of the links in my further-reading list or you can just take my word for it, but kids learn language best by talking with other human beings in real time, with real reaction and interaction, and they are absolutely wired to pay closest attention to their primary caregiver (ie parent, but sometimes grandparents, aunts, uncles, foster-parents - there’s room for lots in this world). (Note: as anyone who looks after three year olds knows, that doesn’t mean they’ll do what you say, or stop doing what you don’t say - but they are paying attention!)
So the more you talk to your kids, the more you’re supporting their language acquisition, and the more you’re supporting their early literacy skills. Talk to them about the world around them, or things inside their heads, talk to them about toys, or pets, or what you did at work today. They don’t have to understand everything you say, but the more you talk and interact with them, the better it is for language and literacy.
Extra tip: Just like #1, even if you want your kid to go to school in English and to learn English, it’s way less important that this kind of thing be in English than it be something that feels comfortable and natural. English permeates Canadian life and there are lots and lots of opportunities for English words and language to get to be habitual; if English is not the language most comfortable for you, as the parent or caregiver, then please do not hesitate to use whatever language is most comfortable, natural and fluent for you. You’re still covering everything your child needs, because just like in #1 with reading, the point is about how language, communication and interaction works, and much less about anything else.
3. Play with your kids. You were expecting this to be “read to your kids”, weren’t you? That’s the next one. First, let’s talk about play.
This goes back to point number one: kids learn by imitation. A lot of kids’ play is honestly imitation itself. That’s why we have a million-dollar toy industry that does things like produce small plastic facsimiles of modern kitchens. It’s also why you can get a kid a beautiful handmade dollhouse with intricate handmade furniture and dolls, and they’ll break your heart by preferring to play with Barbie’s pink plastic Dream House full of stickers on moulded lumps to imitate the appliances: the Dream House looks like their house, in that it has a fridge and a normal stove and a microwave oven and a TV and so on and so forth, so it has what they want to use to play.
Kids also learn best when they’re happy and relaxed. Actually, everyone learns best when they’re happy and relaxed! This is another one that’s in further reading, but I promise it’s true. Stress, fear and fatigue all reduce the brain’s ability to function properly and to record memory, especially the ability to take short-term memory and turn it into long-term memory, or to turn things into the kind of habitual pattern that we call “muscle memory” or similar. If a kid is bored or upset, or thinks you’re upset with them, all of their focus is on their emotions and on your emotions as they understand them through your behaviour, with nothing left for learning.
So playing with your kids does a lot of things, including letting you model language and those literacy behaviours we’ve already talked about for them, all the while associating it all with fun and enjoyment, and making it more likely that it’ll “stick”, so to speak.
Great modes of play that help support early/emergent literacy are rhyming games and songs, storytelling games, treasure-hunts (a map is another form of symbolic representation - you “read” a map just as much as you read a printed page!), role-play, just about anything that involves language. If it works for you, that can include making a “game” out of tasks you need to do, like packing a suitcase or cleaning a room. (This works great with some kids! Others, not so much. You know your own kids best.)
And that does lead us to the expected:
4. Read with your kids. But I bet you’re going to be surprised when I tell you that when it comes down to it, what you read with them is way less important than how you read with them.
A lot of people phrase it “read to your kids” but for supporting early/emergent literacy development, it’s really better to think of it as “read with your kids”. The best way to help them develop isn’t for them to passively sit there and absorb the story as you read it out, but actually for them to interact with you and your reading of the story as it happens. You want them to ask questions, or to point out something happening in the pictures that the narrative doesn’t talk about, and you want to maybe talk with them about how the dog in the picture looks like Gramma’s old dog. You can ask them what they think is going to happen next, or what they think about what’s happened already. You can even do that if they’re two and just stare at you, not sure what your mouth-noises mean - remember the bit back at #2 about talking to your kids?
The key is the interaction.
There are definitely lots of books for young kids out there that are actually designed to help with that, and a librarian at an actual library should be able to help you find the ones made that way by design. I love a lot of these books, most of these books, and I can vouch for a lot of them not only being good for getting kids into books but also fun to read aloud and to interact with. A lot of the ideas and theories that drive how those books are done are based on empirical studies.
But here’s the thing: the best book? Is the book you read with your kid in an interactive, responsive way. If that book is something award-winning like Mr Got-to-Go, great! If it’s a Toy Story tie-in board-book that your kid likes better because Woody is their favourite thing since chocolate milk? Also great! If it’s your mountain-biking magazine that you look at together while making up stories to go with the photos, or paraphrasing the articles into something a four year old would find interesting? Still great. (We all know four year olds are good at letting us know when they’re bored, after all - you won’t have to guess!)
But What About Results?
There’s an awful lot of pressure out there to get your kids a “head start” on their education. It’s a million-dollar industry - just like weight-loss, makeup, and nutritional supplements. Just like flash-cards and Baby Mozart, though, the evidence isn’t really there; instead, the evidence says it’s time to take a deep breath and a step back.
Kids develop at different speeds, and with different strengths. Just like I noted above, you can’t skip developmental steps, and things have to come then a child’s body and brain are physiologically ready for it. The brain is part of their body, just like the muscles and bones in their legs and arms! Some kids are walking at eight months, and some don’t walk until they’re a year and a half - or later!
The same applies to both early literacy behaviours and actual literacy. But just like most kids catch up when it comes to walking by the time they’re about two, most kids catch up with literacy by the time they’re about six, especially in Canada where reading and writing is well supported by the school system.
Maybe your kid will have their alphabet memorized and will have started learning how the phonemes - that is, the sounds that make up our language - are represented by those letters by the time they’re three! Maybe they’ve already done that. Or maybe they just sort of mumble along to the alphabet song. The point is that within the overall range of “normal” it doesn’t make much difference when it comes to exactly when these things cement themselves.
What does make a difference is whether the child feels good about books, reading, and everything related to literacy. Kids are pretty simple that way: when something feels good, is fun, is associated with success and enjoyment, they usually want to do it more! When it’s associated with stress, with their parents being unhappy, with negative outcomes, with failure, they really don’t want anything to do with it.
This is where that cognitive development part comes in again: later on, kids do have to face learning the hard skill of continuing to practice stuff even when it’s not a lot of fun. But the fact is that for pre-school age kids, this is asking more of them than their brains are up to pulling off. That means at this age, the most important way we can support their early/emergent literacy is to make books, reading, writing, all of those, a happy, fun, rewarding place. A child transitioning to kindergarten and elementary school beyond who’s shaky on her decoding skills - things like the alphabet or sounding out words - but who’s excited about reading and listening to books and the whole idea is in a much better place than a child who can perhaps sound out a page, but thinks of reading as an unwanted chore.
To Sum Up
The period before your kid actually formally learns to read is important, and support can make a big difference to how things go. But mostly, supporting early literacy involves things that you’re already doing, or things that are either relatively easy to do or important for other reasons (like your kid’s mental and emotional health!), and overall is mostly about exposing your child to the ideas of language, writing, reading, how they work, what they’re for, and why they’re important.
Games, rhymes, songs, poems, conversation, imitative play: all of these things support early literacy. That’s why children’s librarians do them at our Storytimes or related programs! Storybooks and kids books are designed to help, but looking at the pictures in an issue of Vogue and making up princess stories about it with your kid is also going to help! If there’s a language that’s easier to use, that’s more comfortable for you, use that! The most important thing is the time and the interaction shared between you and your kid and the whole idea; the most important thing for your kid is you.
So that’s the part that hopefully means you can take a deep breath and concentrate on enjoying that time and interaction, and less about whether or not your child has ticked the right boxes.
*Some of you may have just gone “hey, I know kids who jumped all the way from not talking to reading novels!” Maybe even some of you went “hey, I was a kid who was reading by 18 months!” You’re right! Sometimes that happens. That’s a whole other blog post! But the short version is: both kind of kids are still going through all of the steps, they’re just going through them faster and in the case of the kid who seemed to jump from one state to the other, going through them inside their own heads where nobody else can see. Moreover, whether or not a kid is going to be like them isn’t something that can or should be drummed in from the outside, but rather something based in their own brain and cognitive development, and extremely Gifted kids often have their own challenges. So if your neighbour’s two-year-old is already reading the paper, that doesn’t say anything about the three year old who still thinks the letter after K is “elemenopee”, and the parents of that three year old have nothing to worry about.
RESOURCES and FURTHER READING!
Language Development in Children: If it’s a new area, this is a good summary article on how humans are wired to learn to communicate and how that works.
Power of Play: Their layout is a bit drab, but the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador actually has a great collection of links and sources on the power of play that I discuss above and its benefits to learning!
The Horn Book Board Book Roundup: a really excellent roundup of books specifically in the board-book format, great for engaging children.
JBrary YouTube Channel: a fantastic resource for all kinds of early/emergent literacy supportive activities - songs, stories, fingerplays, rhymes, everything you could think of!
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