READING–What’s is this thing called reading all about? The goal of reading is comprehension, creating meaning from print! Sounds easy enough—wish it were so. The reading process is a challenge for the young brain. 

The brain is designed to understand and speak thousands of languages at birth. However, by the end of a baby’s sixth month the brain has narrowed its focus down to learning the native language spoken consistently within their environment. The baby brain thrives on learning language production as evidenced all throughout the first three years of a child’s growth and development. For a young toddler learning to speak and understand word meanings becomes one of their first priorities. It’s a natural process predesigned within the brain. Reading is not a natural preprogrammed process and must be taught, since its recent evolution began with tablets in Mesopotamia circa 3,400 BCE.

What is literacy in relationship to language and reading? Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write. Acquiring oral language in order to communicate and understand ones surrounding happens first and continues throughout a lifetime. As the young brain takes on the challenge of learning to speak and increase their listening skills, it gains an awareness of reading and writing. 

Reading and writing have a reciprocal relationship the two processes are deeply interconnected. One must have words in order to read anything written AND one writes words to have them read. The writing process will be discussed in more detail in future posts. First, let’s take a closer look at the various aspects which contribute to learning to read.

Road to Reading

Any long journey needs a map to get to ones’ destination successfully. The road to reading has four main stages of development starting at birth and continuing to age twelve and beyond. A child gains a variety of different skills within every stage, with each stage building and expanding upon the other. The learning reader has many challenges along the way in obtaining their end goal of becoming a fluent life-long reader, thereby, solving the mystery of reading.

Although this section of Reading Time will address the first stage – Emergent Readers – birth to five years of age (focusing on one to three), an overview of the other three stages are shown on the visuals that follow. The two visuals show the four stages with some of the key elements found within each stage. However, each individual item listed is not of equal difficulty. Learning to Read is the main goal for stages one and two, while Reading to Learn is the main focus for the third and fourth stages. This does not mean very young children are not working on understanding the content of what they are reading. No, it’s just the main priority is basic beginning reading skills to unlock the alphabetic code (phonemic code). Comprehension skills are introduced as the reader progresses.

A big shift in expectations does occur for the transitional reader, they are required to comprehend longer more complex print concepts or digital text found in multiple subject areas and literary genres. Also, vocabulary comprehension expectations are expanded to the study of morphology. Morphology is the study of the form and structure of words, for example: prefixes, root words, and suffixes.

A conceptual skill may be introduced in the emergent stage and continue to be targeted in the following stages. For example: a comprehension skill may be introduced in a simpler manner in kindergarten—”main idea” and be a part of the curriculum objectives for the following grades too. The content to be read by the child will increase in difficulty from grade to grade along with increasing the depth of  comprehension skills. Schools have a set continuum of reading skills or standards to be mastered by the end of each grade level which is usually shown on a child’s report card.

The reading stages provide a directional map, starting from one point and getting to the end point. Since no two children are the same, these concepts are acquired at their own rate. This means some children will need additional help to complete their general reading skills while other students may master them at a quicker pace.

What’s exciting is that all children start on the road to reading in the emergent stage of birth to five years of age. How they progress on the road to reading depends on so many factors. An overview of the four Developmental Stages of Reading is presented in the two visuals below. This information is a guide and shows the sequence of skills that are needed to become a successful reader. There are other educational resources that include additional stages, some have divided the first stage into two parts and others have added a fifth or sixth stage, some have renamed the stages. The progression of skills to be obtained starts off and ends basically the same, always with the goal of creating a life-long reader.

The road to reading is a metaphor for a readers’ journey. Children move through the four stages of reading to become successful readers. True, but remember it is fluid movement, a back and forth between the stages at times. Each child travels on the road to reading as an individual who is impacted by many variables.

When I taught reading skills to young children and was able to see a child’s confidence shine because they realized they had done it—read! My heart jumped for joy! Watching their first steps towards becoming fluent readers was and still is amazing.

Happy days to you,

Kylene

Resources & References

Collins, Molly F., Schickedanz, Judith A., (2024), So Much More Than The ABCs, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)

ELT Buzz English,(2024), From ABCs to Fluency: Navigating the Stages of Reading Development,  A Guide to Student Literacy, https://youtu.be/KJck9BkCT2Q?si=mqcJqAMGvHxzMAEJ

Kharbach, Med,Phd(20240,The 5 Stages of Reading Development, Educators Technology, https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2023/04/the-5-stages-of-reading-development.html

Language on the Move, (2020), Who Invented Writing?, https://www.languageonthemove.com/who-invented-writing/

Reading Rockets, Stages of Reading Development, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/about-reading/articles/stages-reading-development

Otto Beverly, (2019), Literacy Development in Early Childhood, 2nd edition, Waveland Press, Inc.

The post The Reading Mystery appeared first on Early Literacy Learning.

Teaching reading is important that’s for sure. It is and will always be a concern for parents, caregivers and teachers. How best to help a child become a proficient reader is always a priority. Parents lay the underpinning by expansive oral language experiences and introducing their children to print and MORE! Once a young child attends school, reading instruction becomes a major emphasis. 

Here are some significant influential pieces to consider regarding reading:

In 2000 The National Reading Panel reported out their findings regarding how to teach children to learn to read. Within that report they identified five essential components for developing successful readers: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. These five concepts are sometimes called the five pillars of reading.  The panel further stated in their report, “Finally, it is important to emphasize that systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program. Phonics instruction is never a total reading program. In 1st grade, teachers can provide controlled vocabulary texts that allow students to practice decoding, and they can also read quality literature to students to build a sense of story and to develop vocabulary and comprehension. Phonics should not become the dominant component in a reading program, neither in the amount of time devoted to it nor in the significance attached. It is important to evaluate children’s reading competence in many ways, not only by their phonics skills but also by their interest in books and their ability to understand information that is read to them. By emphasizing all of the processes that contribute to growth in reading, teachers will have the best chance of making every child a reader.”

In 2001 The Reading Rope was created by Dr. Hollis Scarbough as a visualization of how these two key areas word recognition and language comprehension are woven together to create a skilled reader. There are five threads of focus in the language comprehension strand and three threads in the word recognition strand. Her visual shows how the various threads or subskills are intertwined together as the skills become increasingly strategic and automatic, thereby, producing a fluent reader. The Reading Rope includes the five pillars of reading and additional concepts. This is another way to expand on the developmental stages of reading. It presents how the reading process starts. Beginning on the left side with the individual cognitive skill threads and moving towards the center where the two key areas come together and become tightened over time into a strong rope equaling a skilled fluent reader.

Reading is an overwhelming process that the brain must acquire through the building of new pathways that connect many different areas within the brain. There isn’t a built-in neural system connecting vison and speech at birth. There are three main parts of the brain that work together to acquire the ability to read and comprehend words as a child experiences language in the written form.

What is truly interesting is that the young brain realizes it does not have an established  process to learn how to read, causing it to utilize and adapt other regions located within its lobes. This process is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain adapts and changes in response to experience. For example, the temporal and occipital lobes which are used for facial and object recognition now develop new pathways. They are repurposed and become the place used for letter & word recognition called the the “letter box” area or visual word form area. The brain of a non-reader has not fully reshaped this area. Facial and object recognition are not hindered with the formation of the ”letter box”. Instead, the brain-facial recognition function relocates to the right side of the brain. The well-known neuroscientist Professor Dehaene Stanislas explained, “The brain circuitry inherited from our primate evolution is co-opted to the task of recognizing printed words – the brain’s existing neural networks are “recycled” for reading. Because of something called brain plasticity, during brain development a range of brain circuits can adapt for new uses. When we learn a new skill such as reading, we recycle some of our old brain circuits.”  Each brain physically makes changes in order to develop the ability to read and make meaning of print.

The Brain and Reading visual shows the primary regions of the brain that are involved in the reading process. Network pathways do link them together and are not shown on this visual. There are additional areas within these regions that have been identified through brain mapping by neuroscientists which also contribute to the complex process of reading. Neuroscientists are continuing to discover other aspects of how the brain functions when reading. Stay tuned!

The Brain Reading visual below shows the main sequence used when reading a word. This process in a fluent reader takes milliseconds! One must consider the brain is doing this process very rapidly as it’s reading complete sentences containing numerous words while constructing their meaning.

The operation of the brain for each child is unique to them. There are always life influencers that impact how an individual brain will succeed at the challenge of learning to read. Basic information on how the brain functions and where those regions are located in the brain helps to understand the complexity of taking the natural skill of speaking and connecting it to the unnatural process of reading and writing. The brain is in the construction business, reshaping and linking its networks to develop early literacy learning.

It’s so amazing how the young brain begins changing itself to create a process for changing speech sounds in an oral language to learn the literacy skills of reading and writing. More information to follow on how to help your toddler develop those pre-reading readiness skills!

Happy days to you,

Kylene

Resources & References

Dehaene, Stanislas, Dr.,( 2017), The Brain Prize Presents: Stanislas Dehaene, https://youtu.be/wlYZBi_07vk?si=80gZMTiUFfj-Ctrd

Dehaene, Stanislas, Dr., (2010), Reading In The Brain: The New Science of How We Read, PenguinBooks 

Eden, Guinevere, D., (2019), What do we know about what’s different in the brain of a person with dyslexia, Reading Rockets, https://youtu.be/yRuHT0QUlJg?si=poSR5n5SNQ3R9ORp

Francois, Dr., Stella, (2022), Anatomical and neurophysiological basis of face recognition, Science Direct, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0035378721007645#:~:

Harvard Medical School, (2024), How We Learn to Read, https://youtu.be/LhILoStzOTM?si=Of3We3UpDF3Mm_r3

Hill Learning Center, (2022), The Reading Brain and How We Learn to Read, https://youtu.be/A2HHrKpjlYM?si=S1ABoCbnADeAKKgW

Hollowell, Malia, (2023), The Science of Reading in Action, TeacherGoals Publishing, LLC  

National Reading Panel, (2000), TEACHING CHILDREN TO READ, An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction, (page 2-97) https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/default/files/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf

RELAY/GSE, (2025), Science of Teaching Reading Resource, The Reading Brain, https://relay.libguides.com/science-of-teaching-reading-resource-guide/reading-brain

Sedia, Joan, ( 2020), How  the Brain Learns to Read, https://keystoliteracy.com/blog/how-the-brain-learns-to-read/

Wani, Pinaki D., PD, (2024), From Sound to Meaning: Navigating Wernicke’s Area in Language Processing, National Library of Medicine, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11491986/

Wallden, Krista, Creative Clips, clipart, https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Krista-Wallden-Creative-Clips

The post Reading Pieces appeared first on Early Literacy Learning.

The Getting Ready stage to read comes first, sometimes called pre-reading readiness in the Emergent Stage. Toddlers are non-readers who are “wanabees”. In other words, each young toddlers’ brain has a huge want to investigate and learn how this reading thing works.

The visual below shows the key areas that contribute to their literacy transformation, changing a non-reader/writer to a pre-reader/writer. The purple oval within the teal circle contains the elements that a toddler is beginning to internalize within the process of making language connections. These oral language elements lead to their absorbing information about written print. Specific details will follow about each of the areas along with ways parents, caregivers and teachers may work together with toddlers to acquire these essential pre-literacy skills. 

The whole visual circle is called EMERGENT LITERACY all the pieces are interconnected. The larger sunburst component extends out to the other three key factors shown that are combined together to create a toddlers literacy foundation.

Emergent Literacy

The following four key elements shown in the visual are integrated throughout a toddler’s first years of language learning. The groundwork is being built for acquiring reading and writing skills through the use of listening & speaking, phonological awareness, vocabulary development, book & story concepts.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in a spoken language, without PRINT. These are all auditory processing skills related to language development. It’s usually broken down into four main parts.

rhyming & alliteration, syllables, onset & rime AND phonemic awareness These skills are essential for “tuning the ear” to sounds, before starting the intensive phonics work of letter-print, or sound-phoneme correspondence.

Phonemic Awareness (a harder subskill of Phonological Awareness) Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds or phonemes, without PRINT being involved at all. This is an advanced auditory processing skill and is broken down into four sub skills:

isolation, blending, segmentation, manipulation Phonemic awareness is the more difficult skill of phonological awareness. Researchers have discovered that, “It is essential for learning to read in an alphabetic writing system and is a strong predictor of early reading success. In other words, if a child can complete phonemic awareness tasks, they are more likely to be a good reader.” as stated by the National Center on Improving Literacy.

These oral language concepts tend to be more difficult for toddlers and will be targeted throughout pre-school, kindergarten and first grade.

Gaining these skills on the road to reading may seem to be over-whelming and challenging for all involved. This is the beginning stage that’s transpiring for the young toddler over these early years. Be sure to make it a fun and magical learning connection. Start slow and select a few items to work together on. Many of these items listed continue to be attained during ages three to five. 

It’s exciting to realize that multiple oral language elements may be addressed during one shared reading experience, for example: 

       …unknown words are introduced within the story—vocabulary development discussion

       …rhyming words are present throughout the book–phonological awareness interaction

       …turning the pages together—book handling practice 

All of this occurs when snuggled up close together during reading time. Jointly an enjoyable relationship is being created while the words flow during a read aloud or shared reading. The colorful pictures/photos that are viewed and or discussed contribute to their learning experience. What a fantastic way to develop those oral language connections!

Parts One, Two and Three of Reading Time posts have provided essential details—”the back story”—for beginning literacy learning. The Blog posts to follow will focus on what one can do to help their toddler learn these skills. Just remember attaining reading is a complicated process, consisting of many interconnecting pieces. Working and playing together throughout the day with language is what it’s all about.

Happy days to you,

Kylene

Resources & References

Bretz, Christina ,Dr., (2025), Emergent writing: 3 ways to plant seeds for lifelong literacy , eSchool News, https://www.eschoolnews.com/innovative-teaching/2025/08/04/emergent-writing-3-ways-to-plant-seeds-for-lifelong-literacy/#

Collins, Molly F., Schickedanz, Judith A., (2024), So Much More Than The ABCs, National Association for the Education of Young Children, (NAEYC)

Hannon, Claudina, Reinforcing Language Skills for Our Youngest Learners, NAEYC, National Association for Education of Young Children, https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/families/reinforcing-language-skills

National Center on Improving Literacy, Phonemic Awareness: What It Is and Why Is It Important?, https://www.improvingliteracy.org/resource/phonemic-awareness-what-is-it-and-why-is-it-important

Reading Rockets, Stages of Writing, https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/looking-writing/stages-writing

Zero to Three, (2016), Storytelling in the First Three Years, https://www.zerotothree.org/resource/storytelling-in-the-first-three-years/#: 

The post Getting Ready, Set, Go! appeared first on Early Literacy Learning.

Listening & Speaking

Listening & speaking are the first language skills that are introduced to a child on their quest for communication. In the middle of listening and speaking is understanding. A listener responds in words and non-verbal cues to the spoken language heard. 

Listening skills do begin in the womb and start to be “fine tuned” after birth. A babys’ brain works hard to produce the sounds that lead to speaking their first words around the age of one. Toddlers enjoy manipulating sounds throughout their day as new sounds and words are introduced. Their brain is learning how to follow conversations and join in the exchange the best they can depending on age and skill level. It’s important to consider that before a child can read or write print there is an abundance of pre-readiness skills that need to be tackled by the brain that require auditory processing skills. 

What is auditory processing? It’s a cognitive skill that occurs when the ears detect and transmit environmental and speech sounds heard by the brain. The brain identifies, interprets and organizes what is heard, decides what’s to be stored and/or provides a response. It’s a meaning making sound machine!

Dr. Norman Erber developed these four main levels of auditory processing called Auditory Hierarchy, sometimes referred to as the listening ladder : detection, discrimination, identification, and comprehension. The visual below shows how these levels are connected to each other and ascend in difficulty with each level providing some examples. 

Besides the auditory skills mentioned by Dr. Erber there are two other ones to reference which are important for toddlers. 

• Auditory attention figure-ground –the ability to focus on a specific sound called the “figure” while filtering out the background noises called the “ground”. For instance, a child learns to ignore surrounding background sounds of music when listening to what’s being said to them. 

• Auditory attention — closely connected to attention figure-ground except that this is how well one sustains their focus.  A two-year old average attention span is 4 to 6 minutes and a three-year old has a range 6 to 8 minutes. It does depend on the activity that the toddler is engaged with, as some toddlers may have an increased time span due to their prolonged involvement.

There are numerous activities that assist the development of a child’s auditory processing skills. Many were shared in previous sections on this website within Talking Time and Music Time. Also, other ideas and articles are listed below in the reference and resource section at the end of this blog post. 

Toddlers have been using auditory processing already every day all throughout their day, true. Since they are now in the emergent stage of literacy there are specific auditory processing skills that are essential for literacy development. These first auditory skills are learned without the emphasis on print. It’s the “sharping of hearing speech sounds” that will support their future intensive phonics work of learning how speech sounds-phonemes are connected to print-graphemes. One key element that the brain depends on is its complex auditory processing skills for phonological awareness development.

Phonological Awareness (phonological sensitivity)

Phonological awareness is one of the main concepts for a beginning literacy learner.  It’s the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in a spoken language, without PRINT. The auditory processing skills are usually broken down into four main parts: rhyming & alliteration, syllables, onset & rime AND phonemic awareness. It’s all about the ears!

Rhyming & Alliteration (Sounds only-no print)

Rhyming activities help a young child learn to use their listening skills to hear matching ending sounds of words. These three rhyming words– bed   said   fed–visually do not have matching spelling parts, their ending sounds heard do match. The goal is to focus on hearing the ending sounds.

Alliteration activities assist children to learn about beginning sounds. It uses a series of words or a sentence containing multiple words that start with the same sound, for example: friendly frog,  teeny tiny turtles, A colorful cow cuddles. or Silly sheep sleep silently. The goal is to focus on the hearing the same beginning sounds.

Rhyming is an easier phonological skill to use when helping a young child focus on matching ending sounds. What’s exciting is rhyming words may be either real or nonsense words, samples of a few pairings are as follows: big wig OR big lig. FIRST the concept of rhyming needs to be introduced and practiced continuously in an engaging playful manner with the young toddler. Here are some ideas that are related to word play and reading & singing. The role of the parent-teacher is to begin first by being the sole reader who models how reading works called Modeled Reading. Other readings with the toddler may be a Shared Reading experience where the parent may say the words and the toddler may join in on memorized phrases or whole sentences.  Along with the back and forth discussions during reading time between the reader and the toddler, a copy cat-toddler appears and is ready for word play.

After lots of WORD PLAY and SHARED READING & SINGING experiences  and other rhyming activities, AND if the toddler shows an understanding of the concept “rhyming”– these learning games may be used with an older child. These games are at a higher level of rhyming knowledge, and a toddler may or may not be ready for them until after the age of three. No worries, just return later to these auditory skills when the child has a deeper understanding of rhyming and could successfully complete these tasks. Remember there are many more rhyming activities for older children that assist in readying them for reading as they become pre-schoolers.

Alliteration

Alliteration is a listening skill targeting initial sounds (beginning sounds) in a string of two or more words or even a complete sentence. This phonological skill helps ready a child to hear the same beginning sounds over and over that are presented in a sequential manner. Hearing stories and poems with silly phrases is a delightful addition to a toddlers’ sound learning. Toddlers enjoy hearing alliteration at reading time and throughout the day. Expect delightful giggling as they hear the spoken words/sentences shared. 

Alliteration is preparing toddlers’ for future reading and writing skills through sound discovery. Their role is to experience and enjoy the alliteration of repetitive sounds spoken. There are no expectations for them to reproduce alliteration examples at this age.

Syllables

Syllables are parts of a word that contain one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants. Word recognition skills may be introduced to an older toddler in a playful manner with physical movements of clapping, tapping or stomping. Familiar words are said or sung as the toddler produces movements to acknowledge each syllable—the rhythm of the words. 

Onset & Rime

Onset & rime refers to the two parts within a word. The onset is the initial consonant or the consonant blend at the beginning of first syllable, while rime is the vowel and any consonants following it. For example:

                           cat             c=onset   at=rime

                           stamp       st=onset  amp=rime

Phonemic Awareness (Phoneme Awareness)

Phonemic awareness is the hardest skill to learn within phonological awareness. It is the ability to identify and manipulate sounds or phonemes, without PRINT. The four main aspects are as follows: isolation, blending, segmentation & manipulation. The manipulation skills are the most complex sound/word work of the four. Making sound placement changes is always an auditory processing challenge for the cognitive brain. The brains’ working memory is essential for acquiring these skills.

Phonemic awareness helps a child to know that words are made up of sound parts. This knowledge leads to understanding how word coding (phonics), spelling, writing and reading are related. 

Note: Speech sounds or phonemes are bracketed by diagonal lines (  /  /  ) .

The oral language concepts highlighted in teal are too difficult for the majority of toddlers and will be targeted for mastery throughout pre-school, kindergarten and first grade. However, phonological awareness is part of the key components needed for emergent literacy development and age-appropriate phonological skills start in those very beginning years.

Further research regarding the idea to ONLY teach phonemic awareness orally before phonics has been studied. Many leading authorities in the field of reading are suggesting that phonemic awareness may be taught within phonics instruction—adding print (letter knowledge-graphemes) with phonemic awareness (sounds) to assist in the teaching of reading. “When a child demonstrates awareness of a phoneme (for example, being able to isolate and pronounce an initial phoneme), this can be followed by introducing the letter or combination of letters that represents that phoneme. This sequence builds an understanding of the alphabetic principle, as noted earlier. The value of incorporating graphemes when building phoneme awareness (for example, in a spelling activity) has been verified both for beginning readers in kindergarten and students who have deficits in reading at any age who have phoneme awareness weaknesses. Further, this sequential pairing facilitates the links between phonemes and letters needed for orthographic mapping of words (storing the spellings of words in memory).” as stated in an article by International Dyslexia Association.

I purposely added within this post information on skills that are too hard for toddlers. I believe it’s important to know the other elements that will be needed for a literacy learner. Additionally, always remember that a toddler moves at their own pace AND may need less or more time to acquire the important skills targeted between the age of one and three. At this age one is introducing an abundance of skills which contribute to their future literacy skills. Have fun with sounds—start early and enjoy these learning experiences!

Happy days to you,

Kylene

Resources & References

Bassard, Sydney, MSP,CCC-SLP,(2024), Erber’s Auditory Hierarchy, https://youtu.be/mgjK5CmPwf4?si=xNEUv9-mBIOFUHYt

CNLD Neuropsychology, How Long Should a Child’s Attention Span Be?, https://www.cnld.org/how-long-should-a-childs-attention-span-be

Cognitive Development Learning Centre, (2019), The Benefits of Nursery Rhymes for Children, https://cognitive.com.sg/the-benefits-of-nursery-rhymes-for-children

Collins, Molly F., Schickedanz, Judith A., (2024), So Much More Than The ABCs, National Association for the Education of Young Children, (NAEYC)

International Dyslexia Association, (2022), Building Phoneme Awareness: Know What Matters, https://dyslexiaida.org/building-phoneme-awareness-know-what-matters/

National Association for Child Development,  Auditory Processing- What Is It?, NACD Journal, https://www.nacd.org/auditory-processing-what-is-it-hearing-vs-processing/

Noyce, Abigail L., Kwasa, Jasmine A C, Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G.,(2022), Defining attention from an auditory perspective, National Library of Medicine, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9712589/

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