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Literacy Development

Family
Developmental Milestones Infants & Toddlers Preschool Age Children

Practicing literacy skills through play

Play is critical to literacy development in young children. It allows them to use their curiosity and creativity, develop critical thinking skills, experiment with language, engage with different styles of text, and strengthen focused attention. In the resources below, you’ll learn about the lasting impact of play-based learning on literacy development, and how you can best support your child’s growth through play. Covered in this guide:

  • Play-based learning
  • Literacy skills by age
  • Language development
  • Scribbling
  • ABCs
  • Handwriting
  • Kindergarten readiness
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Additional Resources

Play-Based Learning

Every child has their own unique interests. Find ways that spark your child’s interests and engage your child in literacy play.

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Literacy and Art

Connect to books and their characters using art to recreate illustrations or retell stories.
Read More
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Sensory Play

Get messy and engage your senses to learn literacy concepts!
Sensory Bin Ideas
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Online ABC Games

Use technology with familiar characters to practice literacy skills.
Online Games
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31 Days of Playdough

A month of sensory fun that promotes fine motor, early writing, and sensory development.
Download
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Infant-Toddler Art Ideas

Exploring with art and sensory materials supports early literacy development. Check out these hands-on activities to do with your little one.
Art Ideas
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Preschool Play Ideas

Integrate literacy in all areas of development through these amazing play-based learning activities.
Read More

Read together.

Reading together provides space to model literacy skills, like responding to text and asking questions. Try making "I wonder..." statements next time you read together (e.g. "I wonder what the dog will do next.").

Pretend together.

Young children create stories every day as they use their imagination in play. Try creating a story together using dolls, action figures, or stuffed animals. What will your characters do?

Move together.

Young children learn best when they can move their bodies. Practice comprehension skills by playing a game of charades and acting out your child's favorite books.

Play together.

Play "I Spy" together in the car or during dinner. Practice literacy skills by spying for letters or objects that start with a specific sound (e.g. "I spy with my little eye something that starts with a "d" sound!").
Literacy Benchmarks

Literacy skills by age

Young children develop oral language and pre-literacy skills everyday that will help them become readers. Learn more about how literacy development unfolds and your role in supporting these early skills.

Infant

  • Looks at books
  • Discriminates sounds in environment (e.g. mom’s voice)
  • Shows interest in hearing familiar books and songs
  • Uses crayon to make marks

Toddler

  • Recognizes some reoccurring letters
  • Begins to recognize rhyming words (e.g. pig-wig)
  • Recites favorite songs and stories
  • Can scribble and make lines and circles to convey meaning

Preschool

  • Recognizes most uppercase and some lowercase letters
  • Learning to identify, put together, and take apart syllables in spoken word (e.g. sounds of cat are c-a-t)
  • Answers questions about a story and retell familiar stories

Young Preschoolers: Can copy simple lines and shapes

Older Preschoolers: Can create letter-like shapes, letters, and words with adult help

Kindergarten

  • Recognizes and names all uppercase and lowercase letters
  • Able to identify similarities and differences in words (e.g. word endings)
  • Answers questions about the main topic and key details in a book with adult help
  • Uses words and pictures to tell a story or communicate an idea
Featured Resource

Supporting Literacy at Home

Play is the best way to support your child's literacy! It engages them and develops important learning approaches. Play-based learning promotes curiosity, encourages problem solving and strategy building, requires focus and attention and builds interest in learning.
Read More Download
Diving Deeper

Language Development

A foundational part of literacy in early childhood is language development. Starting in infancy, one of the best ways to support language development is talking and listening to your child.

Try:

Labeling and describing things in your child’s environment. (e.g. “I see the big, blue garbage truck.”)

Read More
Early Writing

Scribbling

Give your child a crayon or pencil with some paper and let them start scribbling away. Teach your child how to hold the pencil properly and practice together. This will help their fine motor skills and strengthen their hand and finger muscles so they can really start to write and draw. Here are some other tools and activities to support fine motor development and early writing skills.

  • Paintbrush, water, and the back fence or side of the house

  • Using crayons, markers, and colored pencils on blank paper

  • Using child-safe scissors

  • Sidewalk chalk on a concrete space outside or on black paper

  • Legos or other small building materials (children over 3 years)

  • Self-feeding and picking up foods, like puffs, cereal, etc.

  • Playdough, sand, and other sensory items that allow for scooping and dumping

  • Cooking – kneading, stirring, whisking, and rolling

Diving Deeper

ABCs

Learning the ABCs is just one part of literacy development. Children are motivated to learn letters in their name first. They will find pride in recognizing and identifying their letters. Remember, young children learn best not with flash cards but through play.

Try:

Hiding pieces of an ABC puzzle around the house and play “ABC Hide and Seek”

Learn More
Diving Deeper

Handwriting

Writing skills begin when infants use the small muscles in their hands to pinch and grab. Toddler scribbling is the beginning of emergent writing which continues to develop into lines, circles, and eventually letter-like shapes. By preschool, young children are forming letters or words with adult help.

Try:

Drawing, writing, then mailing letters to family and friends.

Stages of Early Writing
child on adult's lap reading a book

Upcoming Workshop - Book Swap Make-and-Take

January 19, 10:30 - 12:30 a.m. Join us at the Jewish Community Center with your child and bring a book! No need to register ahead of time.
Learn More
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Featured Video

Supporting Literacy Skills at Home: Play-based Learning for your Preschooler (3-5)

Preschoolers can learn important literacy skills when they are playing! As the adult, you can support their literacy by modeling reading and letter recognition, creating problems to solve, and providing toys that encourage story-telling. Join us to discover how you can create fun, play-based literacy activities at home.

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The range of classes that you offer has been really beneficial to those families that are just learning what are the appropriate developmental steps for their toddlers or their newborns - just kind of understanding what that looks like and being able to advocate for them if they feel like they might be behind in something... It’s a great tool to build up their confidence and their advocacy toolkit to be able to find the best for their children.
Brittany Bayles
Education Director, Brightane Learning
Diving Deeper

Kindergarten Readiness

The most important skills a child can develop prior to kindergarten are their social and emotional skills. It is with a strong foundation in these skills that children best learn.

Try:

Reading books about feelings and how to manage those feelings!

Watch to Learn More
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November 14, 2017
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June 27, 2016
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