D669 Early Literacy Methods PROMOTING PRINT AWARENESS
AND SKILLS NEW UPDATE 2025 Western Governors University
Early Literacy Methods – D669
- Print awareness skills include:
o Understanding that print moves left to right
o Identifying letters on a page
o Locating the front cover of a book
o Identifying spaces in between words
Lesson 1.1: Print Awareness
- Print awareness builds early reading skills by introducing:
o Letters and words
o The function and purpose of books (e.g., how to handle and read them)
- Early assessment helps identify student readiness and guides instruction.
- Counting words in sentences teaches:
o Sentences are made of separate words
o Word segmentation skills
- Vowel and consonant knowledge is key to:
o Sounding out (decoding) unfamiliar words
o Building strong foundational reading skills
Promoting Print Awareness
- Print awareness helps with:
o Book awareness: understanding how books work
o Word awareness: understanding letters make words
, o Letter awareness: understanding sounds are represented by letters
- Print awareness falls under the Language Comprehension branch of Scarborough’s
Reading Rope.
Promoting Print Awareness: While Reading
- Teach students book organization skills:
o Reading left to right, top to bottom
o Understanding page numbers
o Connecting text to images.
- Emphasize that reading has a purpose – making meaning from text
- Read aloud using large print, predictable books, and point to words as you read to
connect spoken and written language.
- Use “big books” to highlight high-frequency words like “a,” “the,” “is,” “was,” and
“you.”
, - Model and practice print conventions and book handling skills, including directionality,
word spacing, punctuation, and proper use of books.
Promoting Print Awareness: In the Classroom
- Label classroom object to reinforce print recognition
- Reinforce print conventions seen in classroom materials like signs, labels, posters, and
calendars.
- Recognize letters in places outside of books.
- Ensure classroom décor is full of print.
- Incorporate books, letters, songs, or rhymes in different parts of the curriculum.
Promoting Print Awareness: At Play
- Encourage preschoolers to interact with print through pretend play (e.g., writing shopping
lists, making signs or cards.)
- Recognize letters in places outside of books
- Provide playful opportunities to explore alphabet letters during center or free play. Use
materials like letter magnets in role play areas.
- Include letters into art or sensory activities, like building letters with clay or finding
letters in a sensory bin.
Assess Print Awareness
- A Concepts About Print Assessment (CAP) allows students to demonstrate what they
know about print by pointing to or using a frame to identify these concepts as they are
prompted.
- When assessing students, they are given a book and asked questions like the following:
o Locate the front and back covers.
o Identify the title
o Determine where to start reading
o Determine the direction in which to read and where to go at the end of a line.
o Point out a letter.
o Recognize capital and lowercase letters.
o Identify a word
o Recognize the first and last words of a sentence
o Locate first and last words on a page
o Identify punctuation marks.
Lesson 1.2: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
- Learning to distinguish between consonants and vowels supports the skill of
manipulating sounds in words, which builds a story foundation to reading, writing, and
spelling.
, Making Sounds
- By understanding the articulation and phonetic properties of consonant sounds, teachers
can effectively guide students in decoding and encoding words, laying the groundwork
for reading and spelling skills.
- This knowledge also enables teachers to diagnose and address difficulties in phonemic
awareness, ensuring that students receive targeted support to overcome literacy
challenges.
- Sounds are categorized by where the sound is made in your mouth and how your mouth,
teeth, tongue, and voice work together to make the sounds.
- How those all work together are categorized into the following:
o Stops: Consonant sounds produced by momentarily stopping the airflow in the
vocal tract. Examples: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/.
o Nasals: Consonant sounds produced with the nasal passage open, allowing air to
escape through the nose. Examples: /m/, /n/, /ƞ/
o Fricatives: Consonant sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow opening
or passage in the vocal tract, creating friction. Examples: /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/.
o Affricatives: Consonant sounds that begin as stops but are released as fricatives.
They involve a brief stoppage of airflow followed by a slow release with friction.
Examples: /tʃ/ (as in ch)
o Glides: Consonant sounds produced with a smooth transition from one vowel
sound to another. Also known as semivowels. Examples: /j/ (as in “yes”) and /w/
(as in we).
o Liquids: Consonant sounds characterized by a partial closure of the vocal tract,
allowing for the relatively free flow of air. Examples: /l/ and /r/.
- Sounds are also either voiced or unvoiced, depending on whether you use your vocal
cords.
Blending Sounds in Syllables
- Phonological awareness falls under the Word Recognition strand of Scarborough’s
Reading Rope.
- Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken
language. It involves an individual’s awareness of the sounds structure of words:
o Syllables
o Rhymes
o Individual phonemes (smallest unit of language)
- Phonemic awareness involves the ability to identify, isolate, manipulate, and substitute
individual phonemes in spoken words.
- Onset: beginning syllables and sounds
- Rime: ending syllables and sounds
AND SKILLS NEW UPDATE 2025 Western Governors University
Early Literacy Methods – D669
- Print awareness skills include:
o Understanding that print moves left to right
o Identifying letters on a page
o Locating the front cover of a book
o Identifying spaces in between words
Lesson 1.1: Print Awareness
- Print awareness builds early reading skills by introducing:
o Letters and words
o The function and purpose of books (e.g., how to handle and read them)
- Early assessment helps identify student readiness and guides instruction.
- Counting words in sentences teaches:
o Sentences are made of separate words
o Word segmentation skills
- Vowel and consonant knowledge is key to:
o Sounding out (decoding) unfamiliar words
o Building strong foundational reading skills
Promoting Print Awareness
- Print awareness helps with:
o Book awareness: understanding how books work
o Word awareness: understanding letters make words
, o Letter awareness: understanding sounds are represented by letters
- Print awareness falls under the Language Comprehension branch of Scarborough’s
Reading Rope.
Promoting Print Awareness: While Reading
- Teach students book organization skills:
o Reading left to right, top to bottom
o Understanding page numbers
o Connecting text to images.
- Emphasize that reading has a purpose – making meaning from text
- Read aloud using large print, predictable books, and point to words as you read to
connect spoken and written language.
- Use “big books” to highlight high-frequency words like “a,” “the,” “is,” “was,” and
“you.”
, - Model and practice print conventions and book handling skills, including directionality,
word spacing, punctuation, and proper use of books.
Promoting Print Awareness: In the Classroom
- Label classroom object to reinforce print recognition
- Reinforce print conventions seen in classroom materials like signs, labels, posters, and
calendars.
- Recognize letters in places outside of books.
- Ensure classroom décor is full of print.
- Incorporate books, letters, songs, or rhymes in different parts of the curriculum.
Promoting Print Awareness: At Play
- Encourage preschoolers to interact with print through pretend play (e.g., writing shopping
lists, making signs or cards.)
- Recognize letters in places outside of books
- Provide playful opportunities to explore alphabet letters during center or free play. Use
materials like letter magnets in role play areas.
- Include letters into art or sensory activities, like building letters with clay or finding
letters in a sensory bin.
Assess Print Awareness
- A Concepts About Print Assessment (CAP) allows students to demonstrate what they
know about print by pointing to or using a frame to identify these concepts as they are
prompted.
- When assessing students, they are given a book and asked questions like the following:
o Locate the front and back covers.
o Identify the title
o Determine where to start reading
o Determine the direction in which to read and where to go at the end of a line.
o Point out a letter.
o Recognize capital and lowercase letters.
o Identify a word
o Recognize the first and last words of a sentence
o Locate first and last words on a page
o Identify punctuation marks.
Lesson 1.2: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
- Learning to distinguish between consonants and vowels supports the skill of
manipulating sounds in words, which builds a story foundation to reading, writing, and
spelling.
, Making Sounds
- By understanding the articulation and phonetic properties of consonant sounds, teachers
can effectively guide students in decoding and encoding words, laying the groundwork
for reading and spelling skills.
- This knowledge also enables teachers to diagnose and address difficulties in phonemic
awareness, ensuring that students receive targeted support to overcome literacy
challenges.
- Sounds are categorized by where the sound is made in your mouth and how your mouth,
teeth, tongue, and voice work together to make the sounds.
- How those all work together are categorized into the following:
o Stops: Consonant sounds produced by momentarily stopping the airflow in the
vocal tract. Examples: /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/.
o Nasals: Consonant sounds produced with the nasal passage open, allowing air to
escape through the nose. Examples: /m/, /n/, /ƞ/
o Fricatives: Consonant sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow opening
or passage in the vocal tract, creating friction. Examples: /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/.
o Affricatives: Consonant sounds that begin as stops but are released as fricatives.
They involve a brief stoppage of airflow followed by a slow release with friction.
Examples: /tʃ/ (as in ch)
o Glides: Consonant sounds produced with a smooth transition from one vowel
sound to another. Also known as semivowels. Examples: /j/ (as in “yes”) and /w/
(as in we).
o Liquids: Consonant sounds characterized by a partial closure of the vocal tract,
allowing for the relatively free flow of air. Examples: /l/ and /r/.
- Sounds are also either voiced or unvoiced, depending on whether you use your vocal
cords.
Blending Sounds in Syllables
- Phonological awareness falls under the Word Recognition strand of Scarborough’s
Reading Rope.
- Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken
language. It involves an individual’s awareness of the sounds structure of words:
o Syllables
o Rhymes
o Individual phonemes (smallest unit of language)
- Phonemic awareness involves the ability to identify, isolate, manipulate, and substitute
individual phonemes in spoken words.
- Onset: beginning syllables and sounds
- Rime: ending syllables and sounds
