There are many language components required to read fluently and an awareness of print is one. Fluent readers incorporate print conventions into the way they read but we know from the research conducted by people such as Laura Justice, that explicit teaching with regard to print
There are many language components required to read fluently and an awareness of print is one. Fluent readers incorporate print conventions into the way they read but we know from the research conducted by people such as Laura Justice, that explicit teaching with regard to print conventions enables children to have better literacy outcomes.
What does an awareness of print involve? In its most basic form it is teaching a child where to start reading a book, that a book has a cover, we turn the pages from front to back, we read from top to bottom and left to right across the pages of the story. You can point this out by scrolling your finger along the words as you read. Print awareness also involves talking about what a letter is, what a word is, and that words make up sentences.
When talking about words, you can encourage your children to put their fingers at the beginning and end of a word e.g. "Oh look, here is the word "school", can you put a fence around the word school?" "That is right, put one finger at the start of the word and another finger at the end, now you have a fence around the word school".
You can point out individual letters in words and show the similarities between words by commenting on whether they might have the same beginning, middle or end. For example "Look there is the word "Saturday" and her is "Sarah". "Sarah and Saturday both begin with a capital "S". "Look at these words: "walking" and "climbing". " These words tell us what the children are doing and they both have the same three letters at the end of the word which