IST 605: The Stages of Literacy: Emergent through Advanced

The Beginning stage of literacy development can start as early as kindergarten or as late as the beginning of second grade (Carver, 2023; IMSE, 2015). This stage lasts until late first grade for those students who have entered the Beginning stage precociously, or it can last until the third grade when children are transitioning into the Developing Literacy stage (Carver, 2023; IMSE, 2015).  Just like every other stage of literacy development, children don't enter or exit the Beginning stage in unison, nor do they develop the skills and competencies associated with the stage at the same rate of development, either.  Factors such as learning disabilities, lack of exposure to rich language learning environments, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and limited English language proficiency all affect how rapidly (or not) children reach this stage and how long it takes them to progress through it (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019).  

The Beginning Literacy stage can be described as the initial stage where children learn how to read and write (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019).  Using the skills and competencies acquired in earlier stages sets the stage for the essential learning that occurs in this stage when children first learn how to decode written words on the page and to produce writing that adheres to the alphabetic principle (The Literacy Bug, 2017a).  Indicators that a child has entered this stage include having an understanding of the concepts of words (The Literacy Bug, 2017a), including that they have beginnings and endings as restricted by the white space between words in a text (Carver, 2023).  Other indicators include learning and becoming more fluent with sight words; eventually reading these words will become automatic when they are recognized and read without needing to be decoded (Carver, 2023; The Literacy Bug, 2017a).  Children in this stage of development also become aware of the structures of stories (that they have a beginning, middle, and end) and the ways informational texts are organized (Carver, 2023). Their vocabulary in this stage blossoms to thousands of words (The Literacy Bug, n.d.), and this is supported by their ability to read simple texts without assistance and their improved comprehension by the end of the Beginning Literacy phase (Maryville University, 2022).  

Writing at this stage of development is very slow and deliberate, and contains many errors in spelling (Carver, 2023).  Children in the Beginning stage will grasp simple punctuation marks like periods, question marks, and exclamation points, and they will incorporate these into their writing, in addition to understanding simple grammar rules like the first letter of a word at the beginning of a sentence is always capitalized (Carver, 2023).  

There are a number of ways that parents, caregivers, and teachers can support children in their literacy growth in the Beginning Literacy stage.

• Tell children the difference between fiction and nonfiction writing (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022).
  • Fiction = imaginary
  • Nonfiction = factual
• Ask children questions about what they're reading to deepen their understanding of the text (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022)
• Introduce books with more complex narratives (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022) 
  • A beginning, series of episodes or events, then an ending.
  • Have children recall what happened in a story sequentially.
• Have children talk about the characters in books (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022)
  • What could the character be thinking/feeling that makes them act the way they do?
  • What details do you notice about the character?  What are they like?
• Help children build their vocabulary by reading aloud to them more complex books than what they can read on their own (Richardson, 2016).
• Set up children for success when learning to read (Richardson, 2016).  
  • Repetition is key
  • Build sight word fluency
  • Onset/rime schemes
  • Choose books that meet young children exactly where they are in their literacy development
• Encourage children to draw out what happened in a story (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022)
• Practice handwriting skills (Richardson, 2016)
• Foster writing skills by asking children to write a simple sentence that summarizes a text (Fountas & Pinnell, 2022)