Print Awareness and Alphabet Knowledge

Concepts of Print

What comes to mind when you think about how children learn to read? For many, this question evokes memories of learning letter names and sounds, like c is for cat, and sounding out individual words.

However, there are many concepts young children must learn prior to learning letter names and sounds. First, they must understand the basics of how print works. These understandings are called concepts of print, and they refer to the understanding of how any typed or handwritten texts are structured and read for meaning.

In this video, we will describe the components of concepts of print. We will also explain how teachers can use modeling to help students develop an awareness of how print works.

How Print Works

The term “concepts of print” was first used by Marie Clay, a researcher in the field of early literacy, to describe an awareness of how print works. This awareness is essential to learning to read and write and occurs during the emergent stage of reading development.

There are several components of concepts of print. Let’s look at each one now.

1. Print Contains Meaning

A key concept of print is the understanding that print contains meaning.

Children learn that the stories in books stay the same each time they are read. Readers do not make up the story as they go along; instead they read the exact words the author intended and recorded in print. Children also learn that the print, not the pictures, tells the story.

Teachers can assist children with developing this understanding by rereading favorite books, showing that the words do not change with each reading. They can also point to the words as they are reading, showing that each spoken word is matched with a printed word on the page.

Children also learn this concept through environmental print, or print encountered throughout daily life. For example, a child may ask to stop at a favorite restaurant after spotting a sign on the side of the road, relating the word on the sign to the restaurant name. They may also recognize familiar print on food labels, street signs, and billboards. Teachers can also encourage the understanding that print contains meaning by incorporating environmental print in classrooms, such as labeling exits and classroom materials.

2. Parts of a Book and Book Orientation

Learning how books work is also important for reading development. This includes holding books right side up, beginning the story on the first page, and turning the pages in order from front to back.

Children must also learn to identify common book components, including the front and back covers, the title, and the names of the author and illustrator.

During read-alouds, teachers should model and call attention to how to hold a book correctly and how to turn the pages in order from front to back. They should also point out the covers, title, author, and illustrator, gradually asking students to help locate this information.

3. Directionality

Directionality is another concept of print. It includes the awareness that readers start at the top of a page, read words and sentences from left to right, and do a return sweep at the end of each line, moving down to the left side of the line below.

This directionality should be modeled during read-alouds. Teachers should demonstrate how they start with the first word at the top of each page, and they should point to each word with their finger as they read, showing how they move from left to right, and top to bottom.

4. One-to-One Correspondence

Children must also learn that each printed word on a page corresponds to one spoken word. This is called one-to-one correspondence. Pointing to each word as it is read aloud helps children with this understanding.

5. Reading Vocabulary

Children must also learn literacy-related vocabulary as a foundation for reading development. This includes knowing the differences between letters, words, sentences, and pages.

Teachers should use these words frequently during classroom activities and show examples of each during read-alouds.

For example, a teacher may point to the word car in a book and say, “I notice that this word, car, is made up of three letters. The letters are c-a-r.”

Later, he may underline a whole sentence and ask students to count how many words are in the sentence before reading it aloud, noting that the individual words combine to form one sentence.

6. Mechanics

Children must also learn the mechanics of print. This includes separating words with spaces, beginning sentences with capital letters, and ending sentences with punctuation marks. They must also learn that periods, question marks, and exclamation points indicate different types of sentences, and these types of sentences are read with different types of expression.

During read-alouds, teachers should draw attention to the spaces between words, and they should model appropriate word spacing when writing. Teachers should also point out capital letters and ending punctuation marks when reading and model how their voice sounds different when reading different types of sentences. They should also model how to include capital letters and punctuation marks in their own writing.

7. Alphabetic Knowledge

Children must also learn the names of each letter and be able to recognize both uppercase and lowercase forms. Additionally, they must learn the differences between letters and numbers.

Alphabetic knowledge is a precursory step to understanding that letters make predictable sounds, which is known as the alphabetic principle.

Review

Let’s review what we learned about concepts of print.

Concepts of print refers to an awareness of how print works. It is an important foundation for the development of reading and writing skills.

This print awareness includes many components.

1. Print contains meaning.
2. Books contain predictable components, and they are held right side up and read from front to back.
3. Print is read from the top of the page to the bottom. Words and sentences are read from left to right.
4. When reading, each spoken word has a corresponding printed word.
5. Letters, words, sentences, and pages mean different things.
6. There are predictable mechanics used in print. This includes putting spaces between words, starting a sentence with a capital letter, and ending a sentence with a punctuation mark.
7. Letters are written in a predictable way each time, and they have specific names. There are also notable differences between letters and numbers.

Questions

Let’s go over a few application questions before we go:

1. How can an early childhood teacher support students’ understanding that print contains meaning?

2. What are some types of environmental print that can be included in an early childhood classroom?

That is all for this video, thanks for watching, and happy studying!