The preschool years represent a critical period during which young children (ages 3–5) develop a broad array of foundational emergent literacy skills. Deepen your understanding of the developmental precursors to fluent reading and writing that children develop before formal reading instruction begins.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• discuss the need for speech-language pathologists to work closely with preschool educators to ensure high-quality language-learning environments
• assess emergent name-writing abilities of children with language impairment
• discuss cumulative reading trajectory and compensatory trajectory of development in terms of children’s initial reading skills, rate of growth, and patterns of growth
• describe the predictive validity of teacher report for assessing emergent literacy skills
• integrate culturally based stories into language and literacy intervention, to encourage American Indian and Alaska Native children
• describe the effectiveness of a tier 2 intervention designed to increase the phonemic awareness skills of preschoolers from low-income families

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