Original scientific paper
WHAT DO FIVE-YEAR-OLDS KNOW ABOUT LITERACY?
Marija Grginič
; Pedagoški fakultet, Ljubljana
Abstract
Early literacy has been of central interest for several decades. Theories on emerging literacy appeared in the 70s, while a sociological and culturological attitude on the development of literacy prevailed in the early 90s. Activities such as reading, writing and speech are strongly interconnected and are being developed along with the child’s participation in events related to literacy.
Research on pre-school literacy has shown that the children have a great knowledge of literacy even before they enter school; from the age of three to six years they gradually develop the concept of the press, then graphic and phonological awareness, the associative phoneme-grapheme correspondence and reading through decoding. Even before the formal teaching of literacy (at school), they are approaching the requirements of written language by inventive spelling in various forms of emerging writing.
The study presents the achievements of five-year-olds in early literacy. They have gained the greatest level of knowledge in the concept of the press and linguistic understanding, a smaller amount of graphic and phonologic awareness and the smallest amount of knowledge in analytical reading and writing. Further research presents the differences in the literacy achievements. Older five-year-olds (born in the first trimester) have gained an important advantage over younger ones (born in the last trimester) in graphic and phonologic awareness as well as in writing and reading skills.
Keywords
pre-learning of reading and writing; emerging literacy; concept of the press; graphic and phonologic awareness; associative phoneme-grapheme correspondence
Hrčak ID:
20503
URI
Publication date:
26.11.2007.
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