Print Concepts and Book Handling Skills
Young children develop ideas about print and how it works over time through interactions with others that involve print. For example, children lucky enough to be read to frequently will not only learn about stories, ideas, and words from the text but will notice that print is different than pictures.
Print Concepts & Book Handling Skills
What Are Print Concepts?
As young literacy learners have more experiences with print, they may begin to notice several things such as print runs from left to right and top to bottom on a page. They may recognize there is something called words and that there are spaces between words. Even if they are not yet able to read the words by themselves, they begin to recognize that the print is what is telling the story.
What are Book Handling Skills?
Likewise, during this "pre-literacy" phase, early learners learn "how books work" such as books have titles, are read from front to back, need to be oriented so they are upside up, and their pages should be turned one at a time. They also discover that stories are created by people and that we call the person who wrote the story the author. Of course, it is a great idea to point out the special qualities of books and print even to the youngest of literacy learners.
How Can I Support the Development of Print Concepts and Book Handling Skills?
Parents and educators can support the development of print concepts and book handling skills by encouraging children to interact with print. During a read aloud be sure to bring attention to the text by pointing to each word as you read, for example. Likewise, when you read aloud, invite the child to hold the book, turn the pages, and point to what you need to read, what direction to go and what to do at the end of the line of text.
