Literacy Development in Children

What Is Literacy Development?

Literacy development is the process of learning words, sounds, and language. The acquisition of early literacy begins in a child’s first year, when infants begin to discriminate, encode, and manipulate the sound structures of language, an ability called phonological awareness.

1. Before their first birthday, children begin to store phonemes, or basic units of meaning in a language, in their memory.
2. In subsequent years, they learn how to manipulate and combine phonemes into meaningful language units by applying morphology (words) and syntax (grammar).
3. They’re able to retrieve and produce words in ways that express ideas, and they can coordinate visual and motor processes (speaking written words).

It’s important to assess a child’s language skills at an early age because delays in literacy development could indicate a language or reading disorder. Research has shown that languages with consistent sound-to-letter correspondences, or orthographic consistency, are easier for children to learn.

• Languages with regular orthographies, such as Spanish and Czech, tend to be easier for young children to learn than languages with inconsistent orthographies, such as English, Danish, and French.
• Primary school children acquiring languages with opaque orthographies tend to make more errors than children learning a language with transparent orthographies.
• A language’s orthographic transparency affects the ability to diagnose dyslexia. For example, in languages with transparent orthographies, the inability to quickly retrieve and produce words, or rapid automatic naming, is more predictive of dyslexia than in languages with opaque orthographies, in which lack of phonological awareness is a better indicator of potential dyslexia.

Encouraging Communication and Reading Skills

Reading-related activities in the child’s home are key to early literacy development. These activities include joint reading, drawing, singing, storytelling, game playing, and rhyming.

1. Joint reading entails children and their parents or caregivers taking turns reading parts of the book. The children are asked to describe what they’re thinking as they read.
2. Drawing not only helps develop a child’s motor skills but also encourages creative thinking and lays the foundation for early writing. It also helps children gain cognitive understanding of complex concepts and builds their attention span.
3. Singing makes it easier for children to identify small sounds in words and build their vocabulary. A song’s rhyme structure teaches similarities between words, and singing helps develop a child’s listening skills.
4. Storytelling sparks a child’s imagination in addition to teaching sounds, words, and grammar. Children learn to focus and concentrate while also picking up social and communication skills.
5. Game playing presents an opportunity for children to learn language and reading skills while engaged in favourite activities, such as using props and objects to act out scenarios, role-playing, and imagining new experiences.
6. Rhyming is both enjoyable and memorable for young children while also teaching phonemic awareness and fluency in reading and speaking. In addition to helping children learn the fundamental patterns in language, rhyming helps build their confidence and instils in them a joy of reading.

Work Cited“Literacy Development in Children | Maryville Online.” Maryville University Online, 6 April 2022, https://online.maryville.edu/blog/literacy-development-in-children/. Accessed 4 June 2025.