Early Literacy, Ch. 1: Phonological Awareness

Some of you who come to the story times at the library may have noticed that we librarians like to talk about early literacy. As you have probably heard from me a time or two (or three or four), early literacy skills are skills that kids have BEFORE they learn how to read. It does not mean that your baby, toddler, or pre-schooler should already be reading.

We have a list of skills that we talk about, but what in the heck do those complicated names mean? I'm going to tell you about one of them, phonological awareness. Let's break that apart. Phonological has to do with the individual sounds in words, and awareness has to do with, you guessed it, being aware of something. So phonological awareness means being aware of individual sounds in words. How, you may ask, can I encourage phonological awareness in my child?

Here are some great ways to increase phonological awareness:

• Read books with simple, rhyming text
• Sing songs and emphasize the beat by clapping or tapping
• Chant nursery rhymes; the little nonsense ones that emphasize the rhyming of silly sounds are great

If you want some ideas for specific books that help with this skill, ask one of your faithful librarians at the children's reference desk.

Join me sometime in the next couple of weeks in my next installment of Early Literacy, Ch. 2: Narrative Skills