Literacy

By 9 months, most children:

• Respond to visual stimuli in their environment
• Demonstrate an increasing awareness of and interest in the sounds of spoken language by focusing on the speaker

By 18 months, most children:

• Point to pictures in a book

By 24 months, most children:

• Point to pictures and groupings of words (e.g., paragraphs) in books
• Recognize simple environmental print (e.g., McDonalds’ “M” and Wal-Mart “W,” although they may not say the letter)
• Imitate the sounds of animals and people pointed to in books (e.g., making the sound of a squawking duck or a crying baby)

By 36 months, most children:

• Recognize more symbols and logos in the environment
• Recognize letters as a special form of symbol that can be individually named
• Recognize and identify a few letters in their own name

By 48 months, most children:

• Recognize and name some letters of the alphabet, especially those in their own name as well as letters that occur frequently in environmental print
• Produce the sound for some of the letters they recognize
• Recognize, with modeling and support, their own name or other common words in print
• Recognize words that start with the same letter as their name

By 60 months, most children:

• Recognize and name at least half of the letters in the alphabet, including letters in their own name (first name and last name) as well as letters that occur frequently in environmental print
• Produce the sound for many of the letters the recognize
• Correctly sort letters and find words that contain specified letters
• Demonstrate an understanding that strings of letters represent a sequence of spoken sounds