Literacy Instruction is important for kids because it helps with broadening their vocabulary and making it extensive. With literacy children’s creativity skills begin to develop, better concentration, as well as their cognitive development is improved. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Development, there are five areas that are important for students’ effective literacy instruction, those five skills are phonics, fluency, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and comprehension. Phonics/Word recognition both deals with students being able to identify the relationship between words and decode/sound out those words, as well as being able to recognize words that are written down. Print concepts involve students knowing that print can be read and tell a story, knowing what the front and back of a book is knowledge of what direction they should be reading in, and more. Phonological Awareness is when students can understand and recognize words that are made up of different sound units, recognize patterns, and build on that prerequisite knowledge to read words on their own. Phonemic Awareness is known as the foundation of literacy development. It provides the foundation that students need in order to understand phonics which is the first step towards teaching students literacy. Lastly, fluency is when students are using their oral language, this allows students to be able to comprehend their readings as well as have effective communication skills. Students must be able to understand different print concepts, phonological awareness, fluency, and word recognition. In order for students to be successful with literacy, teachers need to make sure they are meeting the individual needs of each student. Without having proper foundation skills it will result in poor performance in many students. Learning how to read is a process that continues to build on a range of developing skills. Each child goes through each stage of literacy development at their own pace and that should be taken into consideration by their teachers.

Reference:

Brown, C. (2014). Language and Literacy Development in the Early Years: Foundational Skills that Support Emergent Readers. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1034914.pdf

Hyperlink https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1034914.pdf

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