Component 1: Phonological Awareness

By 9 months, most children:

By 18 months, most children:

By 24 months, most children:

Repeat words in rhymes and chants with prompting
Identify familiar melodies and rhythms in music (in the way that early readers listen for sound-alike words and patterns)
Recognize combinations of words
Use two- to three-word sentences (e.g., “Go bye-bye,” “Mommy’s car”)
Repeat new words adults say

By 36 months, most children:

Engage in word and sound play with adults (e.g., rhymes, nonsense words)
Distinguish between words that contain similar-sounding phonemes (“cat-mat,” “pig-jig”)
Fill in repeating phrases of familiar songs, stories, and finger plays
Sing simple songs and lullabies (such as those with repeating initial sounds)

By 48 months, most children:

Demonstrate an awareness of words as separate units
Identify whether two words rhyme
Engage in rhyming games and songs; can complete a familiar rhyme
Orally blend and segment familiar compound words, with modeling and support
Comprehend and use new words introduced within thematic units, stories, and daily activities

By 60 months, most children:

Match beginning sounds of some words; are able to name several words that begin with the letter sound of their name
Produce words (real or nonsense) that rhyme with other common words (e.g., “dance, prance, krance”)
Identity whether or not two words begin with the same sound (i.e., when an adult gives three or four oral words, children can select those that begin with same sound, although they may not be able to identify the letter)
Blend and delete compound words without the support of pictures or objects (e.g., “butterfly, butter crunch, butter sandwich, butter bear”
With modeling and support, identify, blend, and segment syllables in spoken words
With modeling and support, delete the onsets of words (e.g., “pair-air, fruit-root”)
With modeling and support, blend onsets and rimes in single-syllable words (e.g., the hard “c” sound with “-ook” to make “cook”)

Literacy