Building Foundational Literacy Skills through Students’ Learning Journeys

“Early childhood is a critical period of language development when neurological development is at its peak. Children at this age are typically highly responsive to the sound components of language development. They are able to begin to recognize sounds as syllables, and then identify written syllables and rhyming words.

“Preparing children for pre-primary with a strong focus on literacy is directly related to their exposure to reading in their environment – in the classroom or home. Indeed, by regularly listening to stories read aloud by an adult, children discover new words and gradually enrich their vocabulary. They learn to find their way around a storybook and discover the alphabet. These skills are fundamental in learning to read. The more they hear stories read aloud, the more they begin to understand that a story is a sequence of words transcribed on a series of pages. At this young age, they therefore develop an awareness of the relationship between reading and writing that will help them develop a solid foundation for learning to read over time.”

“Foundational literacy in education is basic to all other academic knowledge and skills. Building it effectively in early primary grades is vital since it enhances phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension skills. To ensure all students develop these skills, differentiated support from teachers is often needed. Fortunately, fundamental literacy can be fostered through direct and interactive teaching/learning methodologies, UDL [Universal Design for Learning] strategies, as well as parental/guardian engagement in education.

“In our country, for example, teachers can consider implementing techniques and approaches that encourage children to sing, talk, read, write, tell stories, draw, and play to effectively promote foundational literacy. Effective literacy development improves children’s school readiness, promotes lifelong learning, empowers individuals, and lays a solid foundation for growth.”

“Our interventions are built on the understanding that, in adolescence, learning to read, reading to learn, and developing socio-emotional skills go hand-in-hand. When we support teachers to teach higher-level comprehension in grades 6-9 and encourage their students to read fiction geared towards their ages, we allow young people to explore the emotions and motivations of the characters. By doing so, we are promoting the critical skill of empathy, since students become emotionally involved with the characters and relate to them without judging.

“Likewise, reading allows adolescents to develop a sense of personal identity. By engaging with text, they can learn to identify with skills such as solving problems and overcoming challenges, thus achieving emotional awareness, self-knowledge, and self-efficacy. Moreover, by strengthening skills such as self-regulation and instilling a culture of safely, taking risks and making mistakes, we are also helping adolescents strengthen executive functions such as self-control and cognitive flexibility, important components both for improving higher-level literacy skills and for ensuring a successful transition to adulthood.”

“Excellent teachers of literacy are teachers who teach literacy to students using relevant contextual tools. As a teacher educator, I recommend to colleague educators that in preparing teacher aspirants to teach literacy, let us champion contextual and locally relevant instructional aids and teaching and learning tools. Within my local context, I encourage the use of storytelling in the training of literacy in colleges of education. Also, I promote the use of local dialect or language that promote literacy and comprehension.”