Content Area IIC: Promoting Language Development and Literacy

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Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Level 5

Level 1

• Listens and responds to children’s verbal and non-verbal attempts to communicate.
• Encourages children to ask questions and actively listens to their responses.
• Talks with children and stimulates conversation among children.
• Demonstrates realistic expectations for children’s understanding and use of speech.
• Responds to children’s communication in home language.
• Shares books with children, re-reads favorite stories, and models reading behaviors.
• Asks children questions about stories read and told together.
• Encourages children to predict what will happen next in a story.
• Plays word and rhyming games.
• Models appropriate handling and selection of books.

Level 2

• Asks children relevant open-ended questions.
• Encourages play and acts as adult facilitator or partner in play.
• Encourages and supports children’s verbal and nonverbal communication with others.
• Uses conversations to enrich and expand vocabulary.
• Provides clear verbal and pictorial instructions that help children move from simple directions to a more complex sequence of directions.
• Encourages understanding of the relationship between spoken and printed words.
• Provides opportunities for children to chant familiar rhymes and experiment with beginning word sounds.
• Points out the names of things, signs, labels, etc. in learning environments.
• Talks about the meaning of words and writes down dictation of children.
• Encourages children to recognize own name in print and to practice writing letters of their name.
• Provides opportunities for children to draw and print using markers, crayons, etc. on a variety of surfaces.
• Uses a variety of music and sings frequently with children.
• Understands and implements the importance of reading out loud daily with children.
• Shares children’s progress and achievements in language development and literacy with families.

Level 3

• Responds to preverbal and English Language Learner children’s behaviors with understanding of their possible meanings, e.g., tries to comfort children and find causes for and solutions to their problems.
• Responds to preverbal and English Language Learner children’s attempts at language by extending their words without correcting them (e.g., when the child says “doggy”, say “Yes, the little black dog is wagging his tail”; when the child says “big truck”, say “Yes, here comes a big grey truck with a stripe on its side”).
• Applies a variety of infant and toddler teaching techniques, e.g., prompting, turn-taking, elaborating, using puppets to communicate and elicit language, and facilitating self-directed learning.
• Uses concrete experiences and play to enhance and extend young children’s language development and emerging literacy.
• Builds on children’s interests to introduce new vocabulary and ideas.
• Helps children learn about beginning concepts of literacy (e.g., print conveys a story; print is read from top to bottom; books have sequences such as beginning, middle, and end).
• Provides writing materials and models of writing throughout the learning environment.
• Encourages and offers simple parent-child language and literacy activities.

Level 4

• Communicates with children and families using home language with interpreters when necessary.
• Talks about a variety of topics and uses language to ask questions, give answers, make statements, share ideas, or use pretend, fantasy, or word play.
• Uses a variety of songs, books, stories, and games from many cultures.
• Facilitates language development by respectfully expanding, extending, and elaborating upon children’s communication attempts.
• Recognizes and responds to the general warning signs of communication/language delays or disorders for children of various ages, making referrals as needed.
• Provides materials such as puppets, flannel board sets, and other props to act out and tell stories.
• Provides many types of children’s books, references, pictures, and posters in the environment.
• Immerses children in a print-rich environment including languages represented in the community and facilitates the relationship between spoken and printed words.
• Promotes literacy-related play activities that encourage children’s attempts at writing and storytelling.
• Offers ongoing information to family and community members on simple ways to promote language development and early literacy at home.
• Responds to language differences and literacy abilities of families in printed materials sent home with children.

Level 5

• Analyzes and applies current theory and research on promoting language acquisition and early literacy.
• Designs curriculum consistent with current theories of language use and language acquisition, including English as a second language.
• Informs families and others about the importance of adult-child and child-child interactions in children’s English and home language development.
• Develops family and community awareness about importance of reading to young children.
• Works cooperatively with local public libraries to sponsor events such as book fairs and story hours that encourage children and families to use the library and to read and tell stories together.