California Preschool Learning Foundations - ECEZero2Three ...

eaders” (learning words by sight and
using salient contextual cues for word
recognition), to “partial alphabetic”
(applying some phonetic information,
such as the sound corresponding to
the first letter in a word, to recognizing
the word), to “full alphabetic” (reading
a word using the alphabetic principle).
The word recognition skills of
preschool-age children are primarily of
a prealphabetic type, so that they can
recognize some words, but rarely can
they examine the alphabetic or phonetic
structures of the word to arrive
at its meaning. This is why young
children are able to recognize some
words in the environment (e.g., Stop,
Exit, and some brand names), but they
require contextual information from
the environment to aid their recognition
of these words. Some children
who have well-developed knowledge
of the alphabet and letter-sound correspondences,
coupled with relatively
good phonological awareness, may
read at partial alphabetic levels during
the preschool years. These children
are able to look at some unknown
words and use letters (and their corresponding
sounds) to unlock the word’s
meaning. For instance, a child may see
the word Thomas in a book and use
some alphabetic information (e.g., the
first letter T and its corresponding letter
sound) to make a good guess as to
what it says.
Comprehension and Analysis of
Age-Appropriate Text. Reading comprehension
is influenced greatly by
language comprehension, and in large
part they draw on the same developmental
processes (Perfetti, Van Dyke,
and Hart 2001). Just as children move
from understanding simple phrases
and directions to comprehending
more detailed information, they also
California Department of Education • Preschool Learning Foundations, Volume 1
83
progress from remembering isolated
aspects of simple stories to understanding
parts of more complex
literacy events. As children become
better able to respond to complex
literacy events that feature causal or
temporal sequences or descriptions
of nonfiction, real events, they draw
on their narrative skills in particular.
“Narrative” is a term that describes
production and comprehension of
discourse (including both written and
spoken). A defining feature of narrative
is its organizational cohesion, so that
information is threaded over a series
of utterances or sentences.
Preschool children’s development
of narrative thinking goes through a
series of stages that ultimately help
them to make sense of stories and the
world around them (Paris and Paris
2003). At the early stages preschool
children construct narrative scripts,
which involve primitive accounts of
story plots. These scripts usually focus
on the description of familiar events
and routine activities, such as going to
a birthday party or visiting the doctor.
Over time, children construct narrative
schemas, which include knowledge
about the main elements of stories
(such as characters and settings) and
about the sequence of events (such as
time, order, and causal progression).
In the last, and perhaps most difficult
stage, preschool children come
to understand and relate to characters’
internal responses, such as their
mental processes and experiences.
This ability to understand characters’
internal thinking also helps children
to develop a sense of perspective by
which they can empathize with the
experiences and reactions of characters
in a story, and it helps children
develop the ability to recognize both
LANGUAGE AND LITERACY