Research on the Development and

Promotion of Emergent Literacy Skills

in Young Children

Christopher J. Lonigan, Ph.D.

Florida State University
Florida Center for Reading Research
 Supported by

National Institute of Child Health and Human

Development (HD/MH38880, HD36067, HD36509)

Administration for Children and Families

(90YF0023)
What is Emergent Literacy?
 Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy involves the skills,

knowledge, and attitudes that are
developmental precursors to conventional
forms of reading and writing (Whitehurst
& Lonigan, 1998).
 Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy skills are the basic

building blocks for learning to read and
write.
 Emergent Literacy

Emergent literacy skills begin developing

in early infancy and early childhood
through participation with adults in
meaningful activities involving talking and
print.
 Emergent Literacy

There are three domains of emergent

literacy skills that are related to later
(conventional) reading and writing.
Oral Language
Print Knowledge
Phonological Processing
 Emergent Literacy

These three skills are the foundation for

how easily, quickly, and well children
learn to read and write once they begin
kindergarten and first grade.
 Emergent Literacy

Research shows that these three skills,

measured when children are in preschool,
predict how well the children will be
reading in the first grade.
Oral Language Skills
Oral Language Skills

Vocabulary Knowledge

Syntactic Knowledge

Narrative Understanding
 Oral Language Skills

Knowing words is key to learning to read.

Reading is a different way of

communicating.

Difficult to learn to read words if you

do not know words (i.e., what they
mean; what they represent).
 Oral Language Skills

More complex oral language skills are

most important later in the process of
learning to read. They help children
understand what is being read.
Print Knowledge
 Print Knowledge

Understanding that it is the print that

reflects the words and not other parts
of books, like the pictures or the spaces
between words.

Understanding that there are 26

different letters in English and that
letters can look different and still be
the same letter, as is the case for upper
and lower case letters (or different print
styles).
 Print Knowledge

Children need to learn that there are

different sounds associated with each
letter.

This task is difficult because sometimes

each letter can represent multiple sounds
(e.g., g and s), or the same sound can
be associated with different letters
(e.g., c and k)!
Phonological Processing Skills
 Phonological Processing Skills

Alphabetic languages represent language

at the phoneme level (i.e., letters
typically correspond to phonemes in
words).

Almost all poor readers have a problem

with phonological processing.
Phonological Processing Skills

Phonological Memory

Phonological Access

Phonological Sensitivity
 Phonological Processing Skills

Better phonological memory--the ability

to hold sound-based information in
immediate memory--may increase the
likelihood that the phonemes associated
with the letters of a word can be
maintained in memory while decoding,
freeing more cognitive resources for
decoding and comprehension.
 Phonological Processing Skills

Better phonological access--the retrieval

of sound-based codes from memory--
may increase the ease of retrieval of
phonological codes associated with
letters, word segments, and whole words
from memory, making it more likely that
they can be used in decoding.
 Phonological Processing Skills

Better phonological sensitivity (i.e., the

ability to apprehend and/or manipulate
smaller and smaller units of sound)
facilitates the connection between
letters and the sounds they represent in
words.
 Phonological Processing Skills

Almost all research on phonological

processing skills in preschool children has
examined phonological sensitivity.
Phonological Sensitivity
 Phonological Sensitivity

... involves understanding that words are

made up of smaller sounds, like...
syllables (i.e., the natural breaks in
spoken words, like but er fly in the
word butterfly)
phonemes (i.e., the smallest speech
sounds; sounds typically depicted by
letters; e.g., the sound of the letter B,
is the first phoneme in the word bat)
 Phonological Sensitivity

Understanding that words are made up of

smaller sounds helps children break the
code between written language (the
letters) and spoken language (the
sounds).
 Phonological Sensitivity

Developing phonological sensitivity is

hard!

Phonemes do not really exist!

We co-articulate the phonemes in

words when we speak.
Development of Phonological Sensitivity
Development of Phonological Sensitivity

Phonological sensitivity develops in a

progressive fashion with sensitivity to
smaller and smaller units of sound across
the preschool period
The significance of preschool
phonological sensitivity
 Significance of Preschool Phonological
Sensitivity
One-year longitudinal study of 100 4-
and 5-year-old children from higher SES
backgrounds (Lonigan et al., 2000).

All children completed phonological

sensitivity measures, tests of oral
language, tests of print awareness, and
other emergent literacy measures (e.g.,
concepts about print) in preschool and
12-months later.
Significance of Preschool Phonological
Sensitivity
Zero-order Correlations between Time 1 Emergent Literacy Skills and Time 2
Emergent Literacy and Reading Skills for Older Sample

Time 2 Variables

Phonological Letter Reading Concepts of

Sensitivity Knowledge Print

Phonological Sensitivity 1.00*** .48*** .60*** .44***

Environmental Print .59*** .42*** .51** .18

Letter Knowledge .64*** .80*** .51*** .37**

Concepts of Print .60*** .35*** .40*** .62***

Development of Phonological Sensitivity

Children at Risk for Reading Difficulties

Development of Phonological Sensitivity

SES Differences in Phonological Sensitivity

Cross-sectional study comparing the

performance of 250 children from higher
income families to 170 children from
lower income families.

Children were between two- and five-

years of age.
 SES Differences in Phonological
Sensitivity
Children completed tests of phonological
sensitivity that assessed their ability to
detect, blend, or elide words, syllables,
onset-rimes, or phonemes.

Children also completed several oral

language measures (e.g., PPVT,
EOWPVT).
 SES Differences in Phonological
Sensitivity

Because of significant differences on the

oral language measures, analyses
examined language-corrected scores on
the phonological sensitivity measures.
 SES Differences in Phonological
Sensitivity
Children from lower SES backgrounds
have significantly less well developed
phonological sensitivity.

Children from lower SES backgrounds

experience significantly less growth in
these skills during the preschool years
compared to their higher SES
counterparts.
Growth and Stability of Preschool
Emergent Literacy Skills in At-Risk
Children
 Growth and Stability of Emergent
Literacy in At-Risk Preschool Children
One-year longitudinal study of 325 3- to
5-year-olds attending Head Start.

Children completed assessments of

phonological processing skills (sensitivity,
access, memory), print awareness, and
oral language three times during the
Head Start year.
 Growth and Stability of Emergent
Literacy in At-Risk Preschool Children
.82

Phonological Phonological Phonological

.95 .90
Sensitivity Sensitivity Sensitivity
September January May

Stability of Phonological Sensitivity Across the Head Start Year

 Growth and Stability of Emergent
Literacy in At-Risk Preschool Children
Children from lower SES backgrounds are
at risk of later reading difficulties
because of overall slower development of
emergent literacy skills and the high
degree of stability of these skills.

In the absence of effective intervention,

children from lower SES backgrounds are
unlikely to arrive at school ready to
benefit from reading instruction.
Interventions for children at risk for
later reading problems

Dialogic Reading Studies

Phonological Sensitivity Interventions

Combined Intervention
 Dialogic Reading
Dialogic reading is a shared-reading
intervention designed to promote the
development of oral language skills.
Dialogic reading involves several changes
in the way adults typically read books to
children.
Central to these changes is a shift in
roles. During typical shared-reading, the
adult reads and the child listens...
 Dialogic Reading

...in dialogic reading the child learns to

become the storyteller. The adult
assumes the role of an active listener
Asking questions
Adding information
Prompting the child to increase the
sophistication of descriptions of the material
in the picture book
 Dialogic Reading

Children's responses to the book are

encouraged through praise and
repetition, and more sophisticated
responses are encouraged by expansions
of the child's utterances and by more
challenging questions from the adult
reading partner.
 Dialogic Reading

Studies conducted with children from

lower SES families demonstrate that
teachers, parents, or community
volunteers can produce substantial
positive changes in children's language.
 Dialogic Reading

A large scale longitudinal study of the

use of dialogic reading over a year of a
Head Start program for 4-year-olds
showed large effects on oral language
skills at the end of Head Start that
were maintained through the end of
kindergarten.
Phonological Sensitivity Interventions
Most phonological sensitivity
interventions have been conducted with
children at the beginning stages of
learning to read.

A small but growing body of research

suggests that preschool phonological
awareness interventions can increase
childrens skills in this area and improve
the childrens later reading skills.
 CAI in Head Start
45 children attending Head Start were
randomly assigned to receive either a CAI
phonological sensitivity intervention or nothing in
addition to the standard Head Start curriculum.
Children in the CAI group received daily 15
minute sessions for about 10 weeks.
All children pre- and posttested on measures of
phonological sensitivity, print awareness, and
oral language.
 CAI in Head Start
CAI activities provided instruction and practice
in rhyme, blending, and segmentation of sounds
in words.

CAI program used an adventure game context.

Research assistants worked with the children to

provide instructional and technical support.
Significant Pre- to Posttest Difference Scores for Head Start
CAI Study
 Comprehensive Pre-Literacy Intervention

Interventions targeting separate

emergent literacy skills (oral language,
phonological sensitivity) can be effective.
Data suggest, however, that emergent
literacy skills are relatively modular
long-term dialogic reading effects do not
extend to decoding.
phonological processing and print awareness
skills--and not oral language--predict early
decoding.
 Comprehensive Pre-Literacy Intervention

Preventative Intervention for Children

At-Risk for Reading Difficulties
Comparison to determine optimal
combinations of emergent literacy
intervention.
Examination of the additive effects of
combined interventions.
Using small group activities.
Comprehensive Pre-Literacy Intervention

Initial Outcomes in Three Emergent Literacy Domains

Summary
 Summary

Childrens emergent literacy skills are

strong predictors of how quickly, easily,
and well children will acquire conventional
literacy skills.

Childrens oral language, phonological

processing, and print knowledge skills are
important developmental domains for
reading.
 Summary

Childrens emergent literacy skills are

highly stable--indicating that children
who start behind are likely to stay
behind.

Many children from lower SES

backgrounds are at significant risk for
difficulties learning to read because of
their lower level of emergent literacy
skills.
 Summary

There are effective interventions for

improving childrens emergent literacy
skills.

Emergent literacy skills are modular. It

is likely that effective intervention will
need to address performance in all three
areas (oral language, phonological
processing, print awareness).
 Summary

Educational strategies using these

intervention techniques can be used to
help children at-risk for reading
problems become ready to read -- and
ready to learn.
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