THE FOUNDATION FOR LITERACY BEGINS IN INFANCY. SUPPORTING A CHILD’S EMERGENT LITERACY SKILLS FROM INFANCY BENEFITS THE CHILD IN FUTURE READING AND LEARNING ABILITIES

The foundation for literacy begins in infancy. Emergent literacy is the term used to describe young children’s developing literacy skills before formal schooling. These “literacy-like” behaviours are acquired prior to formal instruction in reading and writing. Some of those behaviours are developed during the first 3 years of life, such as book handling, labelling pictures, and listening to stories.

Through these activities, children understand that written words make sense and have a meaning.

Building literacy and language skills help children be kindergarten-ready, so they enter school with a love of books and are ready to learn. This is important for school success because eventually children move from learning to read, to reading to learn. Studies have found that children who acquire successful initial reading skills tend to remain good readers while children who experience difficulties learning to read tend to have difficulties throughout their school years and beyond.

Considerable research has shown building children's emergent literacy skills – the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are necessary for the development of reading and writing – are important for later reading success.

Researchers carried out a five-year longitudinal study with 168 middle and upper middle-class children in which the complex relations among early home literacy experiences, receptive language and emergent literacy skills, and reading achievement were examined.

Results showed that children's exposure to books was related to the development of vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, and that these language skills were directly related to children's reading in third grade. The study found that parent involvement in teaching children about reading and writing words was related to the development of early literacy skills. Early literacy skills directly predicted word reading at the end of first grade. Word reading at the end of grade one predicted reading comprehension in Grade 3. Thus, the various pathways that lead to fluent reading have their roots in different aspects of children's early experiences.

In a Singapore study involving families of 525 children in the Growing Up Towards Healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort studies, it was found that if parents started to read to children and expose them to literacy-related activities (e.g. read to them, talked about books and took them to the library) before they were 12 months old, children more predisposed to be interested to engage in literacy-related activities after they were 12 months old. The study found that in households where families are non-English speaking and the mothers only completed primary education and with a poor home literacy environment (i.e. parents do not read to children nor expose them to literacy related activities), there is a higher likelihood that children’s level of engagement in literacy related activities will be lower.

Reading to children has been advocated to enhance language and literacy skills.

A meta-analysis of 41 studies supports the hypothesis that parent-preschooler book reading is related to outcome measures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement. The effect of the frequency of parent-preschooler book reading is not dependent on the socioeconomic status of the families. Even in lower-class families with (on average) low levels of literacy, book reading frequency affects children's literacy skills.

This result is in accordance with the assumption that book reading is not just a part of a literacy-rich environment but rather a main condition for developing the knowledge necessary for eventual success in reading acquisition. Even in families with few other incentives to become literate, the frequency of book reading has an effect. This result supports the movement in several countries to start family literacy programmes that aim to stimulate parent-preschooler reading, particularly in low-socioeconomic status families.

A UK study found that “mathematical and reading ability at age 7 are substantially and positively correlated with socioeconomic status (SES) at age 42”. In other words, the children’s reading and math abilities at age 7 – not just their socioeconomic status, their IQ, or other factors – had lasting impacts on their lives. Researchers noted that early reading and math skills had a larger impact on future socioeconomic status than intelligence, education level, and social status in childhood.

The age at which parents begin reading to their children was correlated with children’s language development. Children who are read to from an early age tend to have higher scores on language measures.

For example, in a study of 515 families in the Family Life Project which covered four major geographical regions of the U.S. with the highest child poverty rates, it was found that fathers’ picture book reading sessions with their children at six-months old were significantly related to better communication at 15 months and language development at 36 months of age. Another study showed that the positive effects of being read to from an early age continue to be evident in the elementary school years.

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12. Snow, C. E., Burns, S., & Griffin, P. (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Another study showed similar outcomes. A study examined paternal and maternal book reading frequency among 430 low-income families and investigated whether paternal book reading and maternal book reading predicted children's early language and cognitive development and emergent literacy skills. Results demonstrated that mothers read more frequently to their toddlers than fathers. Approximately 55% of fathers reported reading at least weekly to their children. Paternal book reading at 24 and 36 months significantly predicted children's language and cognitive skills at age 36 months as well as their book knowledge at pre-kindergarden. Maternal book reading was a significant predictor of child cognitive skills at 36 months.