Foundational Skills

What are these and why are they important?

Foundational skills are very important when learning to read and spell. Foundational skills include:

• learning what books are, how books work, and what books are used for. These skills are known as print concepts .
• being able to notice rhyming sounds, being able to count out syllables, and being able to hear the beginning, middle, and end sounds in words said out loud. These skills with sounds are known as phonological awareness.
• knowing that letters (and groups of letters) represent sounds, and using letter sounds to read words. This is called phonics and decoding. Strong readers look at each letter in a word and use phonic decoding to read the words on the page.

These skills all work together when learning how to read and are necessary for reading smoothly and understanding print. In the early grades, all children should have clear, direct teaching and lots of practice in foundational skills every day.

Teaching foundational skills starts with simple letters and patterns and becomes more and more difficult (advanced) as a child's skills get stronger and as they go on to higher grades. When learning sounds and letters in English, multilingual learners may apply knowledge about sounds from their native language because it is helpful to see what is similar and different between the languages.

The table below shows what is included in foundational skills by grade. Please note that there are many very important parts of literacy instruction, including engaging with complex text, writing, and oral language development.

What can I do to learn more and to support foundational skills at home? Check out some of these resources as a starting point.

What are some questions I can ask my child's school or teacher to learn more about foundational skills at school?

• What letters and sounds has my child learned so far? What can we practice at home?

• What are my child's strengths in foundational skills? What can we support at home?

• What are some ways I can praise and encourage my child when they are demonstrating mastery of letters and sounds? (i.e. "I noticed you read the "ch" sound in "chew" and that helped you read the word.)

• How does my child practice reading using the new foundational skills they are learning?

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Last Updated: September 25, 2024