Early literacy development and instruction: An overview

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to give an overview of what we know about literacy development in children up to age eight, as well as to introduce some topics for which more research is needed. We know that good readers have developed familiarity and automaticity with symbols used in their writing system and how those symbols represent sounds, as well as oral language skills strong enough to enable them to make sense of the words they are decoding. This full array of skills develops optimally when children have access to rich language and literacy experiences at home and in early education settings. Controversies persist about how early it is useful to introduce explicit literacy instruction, and the optimal balance in early literacy education between form-based and meaning-based instruction. The variety of approaches to literacy instruction implemented across different national education systems and different languages reveals both that a variety of approaches can work but also that some approaches, in particular those relying on rote memorization, generate a high risk of failure.