From the development of emergent literacy skills in very young children, to the refinement of accurate and fluent decoding, concrete and abstract comprehension, and effective writing skills in later elementary and secondary school, the importance of literacy cannot be underemphasized.  Nothing is more predictive of later success, both in and out of school. 
 

As literacy skills emerge, oral and written language are closely intertwined.  School-based therapy to address oral language delays and disorders is often conducted in conjunction with reading and writing activities, as the interaction between the two forms of communication is well-documented.  For example, increased awareness and understanding of how sounds and letters relate to one another can have reciprocal effects on a child's articulation skills.  As children develop awareness of print and begin to read and write, much of their new vocabulary is acquired through reading.  Written language is more complex than spoken language, so that children who read more develop more sophisticated language skills in all domains.
 

Phonological Awareness includes the awareness that sentences are made up of words, words are comprised of syllables, syllables can be broken down into component sounds, and those sounds can be manipulated in a variety of ways.  Rhyming, saying words that begin with the same sound, changing one sound in a word to make a new word, and blending parts of words to make a whole word are all phonological awareness skills.  Although phonological awareness is not the only ingredient necessary for early reading and spelling, it is highly related to early success in these areas; a lack of ability to manipulate phonemes in words makes it difficult to learn the correspondence between letters and speech sounds, to blend sounds into words, and to perform other critical language-related tasks. 
 

Animated Literacy, a program developed by Jim Stone (see link below), includes as one component the use of gross motor gestures in helping children learning sound/symbol correspondence to bridge the gap between the abstract sound and the visual representation of the letter.  With a few minor changes and additions to the original set, gestures have been developed at Tamarac Elementary School for every sound in the language, from the basic consonants and short vowels to r-controlled vowels, vowel teams, long vowels, and so on.  We have found these gestures extremely effective in helping students make the leap from speech to print and employ them in selected classrooms from kindergarten through middle school.  A list of the gestures and the corresponding sounds and spellings is provided for your practice at home. 
 

An informational sheet (in pdf format) that outlines strategies all good readers use and includes visual cues for students is provided for use by parents and educators who are interested in helping children become more effective and efficient readers.
 

A second informational sheet (in pdf format) that defines a number of comprehension strategies and includes questions to ask students in order to facilitate the use of these strategies is provided here for use by parents and teachers