Literacy has long been aimed at older children, but recent studies have shown that it’s the early literacy skills gained before age five that truly set the path to sustained achievement in later years. 

Establishing a child’s early literacy skills when they’re still developing their language abilities may seem like a challenge, but it helps to recognize that language and literacy start and develop in the same way – through communication and interaction. This e-Seminar introduces the key components of emergent literacy and provides educators with evidence-based strategies that build both language and literacy during shared book reading. Each component includes discussion questions to summarize the core practices and help you identify how to apply each one to your daily work. 

After completing this e-Seminar, you will be able to:

• Identify building blocks that pave the way to literacy success.
• Describe the reciprocal relationship between early language development and literacy development.
• Formulate developmentally appropriate literacy goals for children at different developmental and language stages.
• Implement interactive shared reading practices to foster language and literacy development.
• Use evidence-based strategies specific to fostering emergent literacy skills (ie. vocabulary, narrative comprehension, inferencing, print knowledge and phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge).
• Share effective literacy facilitating strategies with parents and educators.