CHAPTER 11

EMERGENT LITERACY

*Emergent literacy refers to the behaviors of very young children which reflected an understanding of reading and writing when children
were not yet reading and writing in a conventional sense ( Rhyner, Haebig, & West, 2009). Emergent literacy knowledge refers to what the
children learn about reading and writing before they are considered as readers and writers while emergent literacy skills are the ways that
children demonstrate knowledge.

EMERGENT LITERACY KNOWLEDGE AS A CONTINUUM OF DEVELOPMENT

Emergent literacy represents the beginning of a continuum of literacy development in the children.

1.) Literacy development begins early in life and long before formal literacy instruction in school.

2.) There is an interrelationship between oral language skills and written skills such that the skills develop concurrently and interrelatedly rather
than in some sequence. In addition, children’s cognitive development during early childhood is important to their literacy stage, there are three
main perspective: a developmental perspective, and a child and environmental influences perspective ( Rhyn,, et al,, 2009)

3. The functions of literacy are as important as the forms of literacy to the child’s literacy development in early childhood.

4.) Children’s active exploration of print within their environment and their social interactions with adults

(especially with their parents ) within reading and writing contexts provide important opportunities for adults to model literacy behaviors for
children to learn.

5). There is variability for typically developing children in the age and sequence of acquisition of emergent literacy knowledge and skills across
the continuum of literacy development.

-The continuum suggests that as teachers, there is a need for early exposure to printed materials and to constantly communicate with children
to advance their literacy development. When children are read to and the materials are presented before them, they begin to understand the
process of reading, what letters look like and when letter sounds are combined, they form words.

Perspective on the Emergent Literacy stage.

In categorizing frameworks for Emergent Literacy.

- The earliest frameworks offered more of a developmental perspectives wherein the description of changes in children 's conceptual
understanding about the reading process and/or emergent literacy skills were more general. With increasing knowledge comes a shift in the
perspective wherein emphasis was on perspectives identifying components knowledge and skills associated with emergent literacy. Recent
frameworks reflect the growing beliefs that growth results from a complex interaction of child and environmental values that is evident on the
acknowledgement of the influence of child and environmental factors on development during the emergent literacy stage.

DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE

The Goodman (1986) Framework

This framework describes five areas in which children’s knowledge and skills progress in developing the roots of literacy. These areas are:

a.) Print Awareness in Situational Context

Can be observed when the child begins to learn and recognize his / her environment.

b.) Print Awareness in Discourse

Occurs when the child is beginning to be exposed to print in books, magazines, tabloids, and in electronic sources in which the child learns
that each symbol that he / she sees in print serve a particular purpose. Child then learners to manipulate media that they are being exposed to like
turning the pages of a book from left to right.

c.) Functions and Forms of Writing

 Begins when the child writes by scribbling or drawing lines that represent letters.

d.) Oral Language to Talk About Written Language

This occurs when the child begins to understand that print has functions and he / she may begin to talk about it. A child may say that books
convey stories through the use of word and pictures.

e.) Metacognitive and Metalinguistic Awareness about Written Language.

This is when the child understands literacy terms and uses words to describe what he / she is reading.

The McCormick and Mason (1986) Framework

The framework devised by McCormick and Mason suggests that there is a hierarchy of knowledge and skills when learning to read that
children progress through.

a.) Functions of Print

Children’s understanding of literacy starts as being context-dependent wherein children may start to read environmental print but are not able
to read same exact environmental print in other situations.

b.) Form of Print

Since the child is now centered on the forms of print rather than the functions of print which enable them to apply phonetic analysis in
which they learn about the structures of print rather than being context-dependent. They now learn about grapheme-phoneme and experiment
through the use of their increased reading exposure.

c.) Coordination of the Form of Print and Function of Print.

children learn print form and early form-meaning correspondence while learning about print meaning. They learn how to write letters and match
these according to their sounds, create detailed stories, and be able to predict events in stories even if it is orally read to them.

Strommen and Mates (2000) Framework

1.) Reading is one aspect of an interpersonal routine. Book reading is viewed as a social routine in which the book itself has a minor role.

2.) Readers focus on the book. Book reading is viewed as a social routine in which the book is the focus of the routine.

3.) Readers construct a sequenced account. They rely on the illustrations rather than the print to construct a meaning story.

4.) Readers reconstruct a specific amount. They recognize that the content of a story is unique to each book; in reconstructing a story, the
words can change or stay the same.

5.) Readers refer to print to reconstruct texts. Printed text is needed to reconstruct a story; however the relationship between decoding print
and reading is not always understood.

6.) Readers reconstruct texts by using multiple strategies to interpret the language decoded by print-there is the understanding that they must
accurately interpret written language using variety of language and decoding strategies in addition to illustrations in order to be able to read.

The Van Kleeck Framework

In this framework, Van Kleeck identifies two stage of emergent literacy wherein children acquire knowledge and skills.

a.) First stage ( infancy: 3 to 4 years): During the first stage, children get exposed to print and therefore they discover that print is meaningful.
During shared book readings, print-meaning relationship can both observed in the behavior of the adult and the child. Children also learn to
rhyme and name letters as well as retell stories upon looking at pictures in books.

b.) Second stage: During the second stage, children learn print form and early form-meaning correspondence while learning about print meaning.
They learn how to write letters and match these according to their sounds, create detailed stories, and be able to predict events in stories even if it
is orally read to them

COMPONENTS PERSPECTIVE
 In contrast to developmental framework, the primary focus of the components perspective is on the specific knowledge and skills that
characterize the emergent literacy stage. In other words, the components frameworks attempt to address the questions (1) What do children learn
about reading and writing (Knowledge) before they are readers and writers in the conventional sense? and (2) How do they demonstrate that
knowledge ( skills)?

The Storch and Whitehurts (2002) Framework

This framework is based on the perspective that children gain literacy knowledge and skills throughout the stage that influence literacy
development later on. This framework categorizes children’s emergent literacy skill and knowledge into two

Code-related Skills Components

a.) Conventions of print ( directionality of reading)

b.) Beginning forms of writing ( e.g. writing one’s name)

c.) Grapheme knowledge ( e.g. identifying letters of the alphabet)

d.) Grapheme-phoneme correspondence ( e.g. knowledge that the letter m makes the / m/ sound)

e.) Phonological awareness (e.g. knowledge that the word “book” begins with a / b / sound).Processor skills include syllable segmentation,
rhyming and phoneme segmentation.

Oral Language Skills

a.) Semantic knowledge ( work knowledge, expressive and receptive vocabulary)

b.) Syntactic knowledge ( knowledge of word order and grammatical rules)

c.) Narrative discourse ( telling a story)

d.) Conceptual knowledge ( knowledge of the world)

The Van Kleeck ( 1998, 2003)

This framework demonstrates the interrelationship among four components which are:

a. The context processor: Enables children to comprehend and interpret text that is being read to them before they can read and that they will
read themselves later on in their literacy development. Context processor skills include world knowledge, syntactic knowledge, narrative
development, book conventions, abstract language and functions of print.

b. The meaning processor: Important to children’s ability to apply lexical knowledge to the meaning of individual words. Meaning processor
skills include word awareness and vocabulary development.

c. The orthographic processor: Involves the ability to recognize individual letter units that enable the child to identify individual letters and
consequences of letters. Orthographic skills include print convention and letter knowledge.

d. The phonological processor: Enables the child to use phonological awareness skills to convert printed letter into sounds and sound sequences.
Phonological a variety of setting.

CHILD AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES PERSPECTIVE

The most recent frameworks for the emergent literacy reflect the growing acknowledgement of child development studies across
various disciplines that a child’s progression through different stages results from the influence of child and environmental factors either acting
separately or in some complex interaction.

The McNaughton (1955)

There are four distinct and identifiable components of family literacy practices which results to the child’s learning and development.
These are:
a. Family practices: Are how children are socialized, thus creating ways of thinking, acting, and using language that are considered appropriate
by variours cultural and social communities with which the family identifies. This results to children being exposed to written language within
different context.

b. Activities: Literacy activities can also be observed in reading and writing activities done by the family. Said activities can have rules and goals
and can be accomplished alone, with members of the family or the whole family.

c. Systems for learning and development: These occur within the family and interact with the activities that provide learning contexts. There
are two systems of learning and development, the first is when the family is involved in activities with the child and the second is when the child
explores writing and reading alone. Through these systems the child develops expertise.

d. Relationships between setting: This influences how child learns and develops different areas of expertise when participating in similar
activities within and across.

The Wasik and Herdrickson (2004) Framework

In this framework, there are four major variables that influence literacy development in young children.

a.) Parental Characteristics

Culture and ethnicity: affect areas such as expectations for education, patterns preferences for types of literacy activities, and the structures of
tasks.

Parental beliefs: these include family’s beliefs about the role of the educational system in the literacy development of their children.

Socioeconomic status of the family: can affect how much time spent in literacy development of children, financial resources and underlying
purpose of these activities.

b.) Child Characteristics : This includes the child’s level of engagement and interaction in literacy related activities, language proficiency,
cognitive abilities developmental achievements, motivation, attention and health conditions that can affect language and literacy development.

c.) Home Literacy Environment: This includes book sharing between parents and children, parents reading aloud with their children, print
materials being available to the children, and positive events. Activities where the child engages fall under direct literacy-related activities while
child learning through observation of others as they engage in activities fall under indirect literacy related activities.

d.) Parent-Child Relationships: The literacy-interaction between the child and his / her parents nurture the child’s emergent literacy skills and
the absence of such is detrimental to the child’s emergent literacy development.