Topic: Beginning Reading

Help your child practice language skills and understand ideas during everyday life.

Reading skills provide the foundation for academic success. From the beginning of school, students should be taught different ways of using language to help them learn and communicate about academic content. This brief discusses two areas of literacy development that students must learn so that they can do well in school: foundational reading skills and academic language.

Taking part in literacy experiences at home can develop your child’s reading ability, comprehension, and language skills. Activities that you can engage in at home include: joint reading, drawing, singing, storytelling, reciting, game playing, and rhyming. You can tailor activities to your child’s age and ability level, and can incorporate technology into your learning opportunities.

Effective reading instruction incorporates five components including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. These five components of reading are all linked. Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency and vocabulary all build up to reading comprehension, which is the goal of reading.

The alphabetic principle is a critical skill that involves connecting letters with their sounds to read and write. Learning and applying the alphabetic principle takes time and is difficult for most children. Explicit phonics instruction and extensive practice are important when teaching children to learn the alphabetic principle.

In this tutorial, you will learn evidence-based information about your child’s reading development from preschool through adolescence, all in an interactive online experience.

Expert: Louisa Moats, Ph.D.

Expert: Jeanne Waznek, Ph.D

Expert: Mark Seidenberg Ph.D.

Expert: Jess Surles
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The research reported here is funded by awards to the National Center on Improving Literacy from the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, in partnership with the Office of Special Education Programs (Award #: S283D160003). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of OESE, OSEP, or the U.S. Department of Education. Copyright © 2023 National Center on Improving Literacy. https://improvingliterarcy.org