Age Range and Characteristics
Some people may think that literacy development begins in a baby's first year after birth, but the reality of the situation is that the groundwork is laid for a child's literacy development before they exit the womb (Zero to Three, 2024). While in gestation, the fetus develops the necessary brain structures that will allow all future literacy development to occur (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019), and even before birth, the fetus can perceive sounds in their environment (Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation, 2023).
During an infant's first year after birth, the stage is set, at least partially, for developing all the literacy skills yet to come (Zero to Three, 2024).
From the time they are born, infants learn to "discriminate, encode, and manipulate the sound structures of language," which is referred to as phonological awareness (Maryville University, 2022, para. 6). Phonological awareness can also be described as a process by which the child starts to become aware of the individual sounds that make up words, such as syllables, rhymes, and phonemes (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2020). Phonemes are the smallest units of speech (sounds) that distinguish one word from another, such as when words rhyme and the beginning syllables are distinct, thus producing distinct words (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2020). Beginning to understand the distinct sound patterns that make up words and starting to babble and produce those sounds are both indications that an infant is beginning the long process of language and literacy development.
Also in the first year, children start to acquire phonemic awareness, which is to say that they start to recognize the basic meaning of a limited number of words due to their ability to isolate individual phonemes (units of sound) within words (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2020; Maryville University, 2022). Infants store the meaning of these words and their corresponding sounds in their memory for later retrieval when they start to speak and for use in understanding what others are saying to them, even before they can utter those words themselves (Maryville University, 2022).
This rapid development of the most basic literacy capabilities in infants can be attributed to the fact that over one million new nerve connections are developed within a baby's brain every second for the first year of their life (Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation, 2023). Aside from in the womb, there will never be a more rapid time in a child's brain development when so many brand new neural connections are being forged in such a limited amount of time (First Things First, 2024). Simply put, babies' brains are growing at exponential rates during their first year of life, and it's these changes and the changes in the development of the brain in utero that support and sustain all future literacy learning and growth.
The Reading Brain (The First Year)
(Canadian Children's Literacy Foundation, 2023)
Supports and Activities
Parents and caregivers can support infants' literacy development in a multitude of ways.
- Speaking to the baby frequently with natural intonation
- Reading to their baby (Zero to Three, 2024)
- Naming things associated with the baby's gaze
- Interacting with the infant (having a conversation) when they babble (Zero to Three, 2024)
- Having the baby listen to music (Zero to Three, 2024)
- Repeating words and phrases (such as the baby's name) (Zero to Three, 2024)
- Playing "patty cake" in sync with the natural rhythms of speech