Print Awareness

If I were to hand you a book and ask you to tell me who the author is, you would immediately turn to the front cover of the book and look for the author’s name. This skill has a name—print awareness. It is one of the earliest pre-reading skills that children develop. In fact, it is important for children to develop print awareness, preferably before they enter kindergarten.

Children often develop this skill with the help of a caregiver who spends time reading books to them and pointing to the pictures and words on each page. However, if a child has not been exposed to books, they may not have developed this important skill. If a child lacks print awareness upon entering school, it is the educator’s job to foster this skill.

Print awareness encompasses all the things you may read in a day. Examples would be the morning newspaper, a roadside sign, an advertisement on the side of a metro bus, an email from your boss, a lunch menu, food labels at the grocery store, and a birthday card from a friend. All of these examples use print to convey their messages. Each has a different purpose, but understanding that purpose requires print awareness.

Print awareness is also understanding that you read the title of the book going from left to right. You read a word going from left to right. You read a sentence going from left to right. You read a paragraph starting at the top of the page, going left to right until you reach the bottom of the page. What may seem simple to you and I, may not be evident to a child without print awareness. It is important to note that print awareness is seen as a “predictor of future reading achievement” (Reading Rockets).

Some children lack strong print awareness skills when they enter kindergarten. When a child tests poorly on print awareness tasks, it can be a red flag for future reading difficulties. Effective early literacy instruction becomes even more critical to help that child catch up.

Here are some of the skills a child needs to possess:

· Able to identify the front and back covers of a book

· Able to identify the author of a book (even if they cannot read the author’s name)

· Able to identify the title of the book (even if they cannot read the title)

· Able to identify where one starts reading the book

· Able to identify the first and last words on a page