How Pediatric Speech Therapy Helps Children Develop Their Literacy Skills
If your child is having trouble learning their letter-sound pairings, or has difficulty producing clear speech, then read on.
What are Pre-Literacy Skills?
Pre-literacy skills are the often overlooked powerhouse behind reading and writing. Contrary to common belief, reading and writing does not begin with the process of matching printed letters to their sounds. It begins much earlier with the pre-literacy activities of late toddlerhood, including:
Creating and identifying rhymes
Counting and segmenting syllables in words
Recognizing the sounds at the beginning and end of spoken words
Pre-literacy skills develop and solidify, so that by age five children have the tools to get to the next step, the main event if you will.
What are Literacy Skills?
In short: Being able to read and write. Reading and writing are forms of language, but unlike spoken language that develops naturally, we need to be explicitly taught how to read and write. Equipped with the pre-literacy skills gained in the preschool years, children embark on their literacy journey by learning:
Letter and sound pairings (the letter B says /b/)
Blending letters and sounds together (the letters BE say “bee”, /bi/ if you want to go there)
How to sound out whole words (B-E-E-T says “beet”, /bit/- I see you nerds)
How to write letters
How to combine letters to make sounds aka spell (when I write the letter B and E next to each other, it says /bi/)
How to read and write sentences
The goal is for the mechanics of reading and writing described above to be mastered, so that children are able to read and write to learn and convey their knowledge.
What will a speech therapist do to help children with pre-literacy & literacy skills?
Due to our training in phonetics and early childhood language development, speech-language pathologists are uniquely equipped to teach pre-literacy and literacy skills the way science proves effective: through systematic and phonics-based methods. Learning to read and internalize early literacy concepts can be tricky for any child, but even more so for children with language learning difficulties or histories of speech delay.
In therapy, we combine science-backed phonics curricula with play, movement, and sensory activities to give children a holistic experience with literacy. Our sensory and movement based approaches break with traditional classroom teaching methodologies and open up new ways for students to explore sounds and letters. Because of its importance for communication development, literacy elements are also incorporated into all of our therapy sessions as secondary or reinforcement goals.
Want to discuss your child’s literacy development with an expert? Click here to book a 30 minute complimentary call.
