Cognitive skills allow us to think, learn, problem-solve, persevere, understand, remember, reason, and pay attention. Language skills allow us to communicate with others using verbal and non-verbal language. Children learn language through hearing it spoken and used around them. Social skills allow us to interact with others, build relationships, understand and respond to the feelings of others, and function appropriately in social settings. The learning journey that all children embark on from the day they are born is the foundation for learning throughout their lives. A lack of opportunities to develop and practice these skills can have ripple effects that affect later learning opportunities. A child who has not mastered control of gross motor skills for example, will not have control of fine motor skills. Activities like cutting with scissors and writing with a pencil will be difficult or impossible. A child who has not been exposed to language-rich environments will not have the confidence to communicate verbally. The opportunities, experiences, and learning environments we provide children at home and in early childhood education build the foundations for everything. The Foundations for Literacy To be successful with literacy learning children need specific skills and knowledge which conventional literacy instruction builds upon. There is a lot we can do to ensure that these precursors for literacy are in place before children receive formal literacy instruction. How Written English Works Written English is an alphabetic language. This simply means that we use letters to represent the sounds that make up in words. We produce spoken words by putting sounds together in a particular sequence. Putting /k/ /a/ /t/ together makes cat, /g/ /ō/ /t/ makes goat, /h/ /or/ /s/ makes horse. The way we use letters to represent these sounds creates an alphabetic code. We use letters on their own or in combinations to write the sounds in words. We use c, a, t to write the /k/ /a/ /t/ sounds in cat; g, o-a, t to write the /g/ /ō/ /t/ sounds in goat; h, o-r, s-e to write the /h/ /or/ /s/ sounds in horse. Letters do not ‘make sounds’ - they write or represent sounds. Learning to read and write in English starts with understanding words, sounds, and letters. Understanding Words The foundation for literacy is language. Written English is simply a map of spoken words. Children’s understanding of written words is limited to or by their knowledge of spoken words. They need to hear words spoken and repeated millions of times (vocabulary breadth). They need to understand the meaning and use of thousands of words (vocabulary depth, receptive language). They need to be able to use thousands of words to communicate (expressive language), understand vocabulary (semantics; the meaning of words), use grammar (syntax; the way words are ordered and used), and grasp the social use of language (pragmatics; knowing when and how to use certain kinds of language). The sophistication of a child’s oral language skills determines the sophistication of their literacy skills. Building oral language skills has the greatest impact on future literacy success. In early childhood this means helping children develop vocabulary knowledge and language skills so they can become confident using language to describe and compare things, explain things, ask and answer questions and share their ideas and feelings. We can help children develop language through conversation, listening to stories, singing songs, and playing language games. Understanding Sounds Because the alphabetic code is a map of the sounds in words, learning to hear and pronounce sounds and sound patterns in words (phonological awareness) is a critical skill for learning to read and write in English. In early childhood this means helping children hear and clap syllables in words, identify and produce rhyming words, hear the same sound in different words and in different positions in words, and put sound chunks and sounds together to make words. We can help children develop phonological awareness through listening to rhyming stories and poetry, singing songs, and playing sound games. Understanding Letters Understanding how letters are used to write words means learning that words are made of sounds and that sounds are written with letters (understanding the alphabetic principle). In early childhood this means helping children recognise and name the letters of the alphabet, and link letters and letter patterns to sounds. We can do this by linking letters to sounds in words children know, like their names. We can show them that the same sound can be written with July 2025 { 25 }
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