Parents and teachers often ask about realistic reading and writing expectations for young children. Learn about typical developmental timelines by age and find recommendations for what parents and family members can do to support emerging readers and writers.
National Head Start Association
Our shows on PBS
Professional development webcasts
- Make Reading Count: Effective Strategies for Teaching Comprehension
- From Babbling To Books
- Differentiated Reading Instruction
Learning the basic ABC song is an important milestone for a young child. The sing-song approach helps a child to learn and remember. Holding her book helps this young girl to make the connection between the sounds of letters and letters on the page.
In our blogs
Sound It Out
- On the cusp of reading
- Talking about talking, and more
- You had a lot to say about...
- Kindergarten "red-shirting:" What about summer birthdays?
- Report card comment redux
Page by Page
- Literacy Milestones: Age 6
- Literacy Milestones: Ages 3-4
- Literacy Milestones: Age 5
- Literacy Milestones: Birth to Age 3
Speech and language
Do you have concerns?
- Developmental Delay
- Clues to Dyslexia from Second Grade On
- Clues to Dyslexia in Early Childhood
- Suspect a Problem?
Download and print
- Beginning Readers: Look! I Can Read This!
- Emergent Readers: Look! That's My Letter!
- Reading Tips for Parents
- Recognizing Reading Problems
- Learning to Read and Write: A Longitudinal Study of 54 Children From First Through Fourth Grades
- Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print