As children physically grow…

…so do their desire and ability to read and write. Their eager little minds jump at any chance to develop the skills that will allow them to discover this new and exciting world they’ve found themselves in. The more their literacy skills develop, the more information there is to know, and more and more rungs of possibility are added to the literacy ladder. At 5 years old, kindergarten age, children happily boost off the foundation of literacy skills they’ve made since birth and climb higher and higher towards literacy mastery and new knowledge. 

   Kids of kindergarten age experiment with skills they’ve developed in earlier years of literacy development. By kindergarten age, children know what sound each letter makes. They also know how to split up words into their beginning, middle, and end sounds. They use these pieces of foundational knowledge to sound out unfamiliar words and match words they hear out loud to the words they read on paper. They can even use this information to write out words and letters they’ve heard often or even create new words that rhyme by swapping out different sounds in the beginning position. They happily stretch their reading and writing muscles and grow a little more confident in their abilities, lifting them further up the ladder and closer to new growth and discovery. 

   Kindergartners enjoy being read to and trying to read by themselves, anxious to challenge themselves for fun or for the sake of finding out new information about the world. They ask adults to read to them and pretend to read themselves; only now their pretend reading sounds like actual reading, and they may be able to identify and sound out some words on the page. As they read and listen to more and more stories, they become more skilled at storytelling and inferring what will happen next in a story. By kindergarten, kids can predict what happens next in a story and ask the typical who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about the story too. 5-year-olds can also retell a story in the proper order, with the main ideas, some detail, and words like “I said” to indicate dialogue. They can even begin to write stories with readable parts by this age. Their literacy skills just continue to soar up and up! 

   By 5 years old, kids work diligently to learn more about the world around them. When given the chance and encouragement, they create and reinforce new skills that allow them to explore new possibilities and information to their curious hearts’ content. Creating a solid foundation of reading and writing skills allows children to continue their gradual ascent to new discovery, personal growth, and success, one step at a time.

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