Literacy is a fundamental component of schooling with early literacy skills being developed even before school starts. It is important to monitor this development as reading plays an important role in your child’s ability to learn in all subjects. Here are some of the key literacy milestones to help keep track of your child’s literacy development during their first couple of years at school.
Kindergarten
Throughout the initial year or Kindergarten, children should be taught to recognize letters and letter-sound matches on an alphabet board. They understands that print is read left to right and top to bottom and are able to retell simple stories. Children start to write letters and are able to spell high frequency words such as ‘to’ or ‘and’. They begin to write stories with some readable parts with assistance and attempt to spell unknown words when writing.
End of Kindergarten
At this stage, children understand that our spoken words are made up of sounds. They should be able to recognise some words by sight and Identify and writes uppercase and lowercase letters. Children at this age can recite a few picture books from memory and write their own first and last name.
Beginning of Year 1
At the start of year one, children are Identifying an increasing number of words by sight. They begin to decode new words independently and use a variety of reading strategies such as rereading, predicting what will happen, asking questions and using visual cues or pictures. Children at this age are able to read and retell familiar stories and are able to read aloud with ease.
They can decide independently to use reading and writing for different purpose a attempt to use some punctuation and capitalization. They can also sound out and represents major sounds in words when trying to spell.
End of Year 1
Towards the end of their first year at school, children should be able to identify all letters and some words, and sentences. They should be able to identify 100 words by sight and understand what they have read. Children at this stage can create rhyming words, reads grade-level material fluently, expresses ideas through writing in a variety of stories, journal entries, or notes. Their print should be clear at this stage and spell high frequency words correctly the majority of the time. They will also often begin sentences with capital letters and attempts to use punctuation.
Contact us for results focused speech therapy
This article was written by our Speech Pathologist Ashleigh Fattah who is a Speech Pathology Australia member. If you have questions about school age literacy milestones or speech and language development, make an appointment. We‘ll provide you with simple and effective therapy targeted to your concerns. Contact us today.
More information
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