The Importance of Literacy From Birth

Humans are born with a capacity for language. Babies listen to sounds, pitches, and tones, and begin experimenting with sounds of their own. But reading and writing are learned skills, and early experiences can help build the foundation for them. And no, I do not mean a child reading books independently before they are ready. I think that is a major problem in the United States educational system. We mistake exposure and inquiry for the expectation that a child should independently complete a skill. That difference matters when we talk about literacy.

From birth, children should be exposed to books and stories. Read to your baby daily. Let them hear words and sounds, and respond to the sounds they make. These moments together help build the foundation for language and literacy.

To me, language and literacy intertwine. Treating them as completely separate skills overlooks how they support one another. Imitating sounds is one way babies explore language, but it is not the same as phonological awareness. Phonological awareness involves recognizing and working with the sounds in spoken language. As children grow, this awareness, along with learning how letters represent sounds, supports decoding, an important skill for reading.

As your baby grows, let them touch, reach for, and eventually hold books. Help them explore how a book opens and how its pages turn. Let them explore board books, including putting them in their mouth. That is a normal part of development. Stay nearby and make sure the book is intact and safe to explore. Do not erase a step of their process simply because it does not look like what you think reading should look like.

As they get older, introduce words like title and author naturally while reading together. These can be familiar parts of sharing a book without becoming another set of questions they have to answer correctly.

Sing songs with them. Tell stories. If you use audiobooks, listen together and respond to what you hear. For older children, an occasional storytime video can be something you watch and discuss together. But these experiences should supplement the time you spend sharing books and talking with your child. Hearing a story and interacting with someone around that story are different experiences.

Let them see you with a book. Model for your children that reading happens throughout life and can be enjoyable. Do not force them to like it, but find ways to incorporate their interests into reading materials. If they are two years old and like fairies, find stories about fairies.

Read the same book over and over. Let them memorize it. Let them “read” it to you, even if they are retelling the story from memory rather than reading the actual words. Enjoy that with them while recognizing that remembering a story and decoding its print are different skills.

I want us to make room for all of these beginnings. The baby exploring a board book with their mouth. The toddler bringing you the same story again. The child telling you what happens next before you turn the page. We can value what they are doing now while helping them take the next step.

Literacy from birth means making books, stories, and language part of a child’s everyday life. Read with them, listen to them, and follow what catches their attention. Give them time to explore before asking them to perform. There is so much we can teach in those moments without rushing them past where they are.