What is Early Literacy
Early literacy refers to the things children know about writing and reading before they go to school and actually start learning how to read and write. So this means that early literacy starts before children reach 7 years old, the age when they are enrolled in an educational institution.A sign of early literacy is when a child asks his parents to read him the same book over and over or when children start reciting the story they’ve heard from memory. Early literacy starts in the first 5 years of life. That is why it is very important for kids to have an early contact with books and reading before they enter school. A child’s early experiences with reading may lay the foundations for his future literacy interests.
There is a common word of mouth going around that a parent is his child’s first and best teacher. While the first affirmation that a parent is his kid’s first teacher can be true, the second one raises questions. The job of a parent isn’t to teach his child how to read. He will learn that in school. This means that early literacy isn’t about teaching children how to read, but about developing their appetite for knowledge by verbal stimulating them in a fun and familiar atmosphere.
The goal of early literacy is to create a familiar background in which the child feels safe and comfortable and to give him the opportunity to talk, be listened to, read, sing and be heard and encouraged. Kids who are exposed from an early each to fun and interactive environments that are full of books and literacy-rich will develop their literacy skills easier and faster. When a parent is reading to a child, talking to him or playing verbal games, he is actually stimulating certain parts of the brain that are responsible for learning how to read. He is helping him make the connections that will later be the building blocks for reading and writing.