Figure 1: Language & literacy develops as a continuum
boards, books, smart phones, pen and paper. Adults engineer learning opportunities for young children by providing access to the tools of reading and writing with storybooks and crayons. Preschoolers learn the routines of listening to and responding to storybooks. They proudly contribute to the text around them, sharing their drawings and scribbles. By the time most children begin school, they know the letters of the alphabet and the role of books, writing tools, words and speech. They may not know how to spell legible text or decode words, but they are ready for conventional instruction that will allow them to communicate, read and write with anyone who knows their language. Emergent literacy development is the accumulation of all those rich experiences with words and texts, from infancy to school age. These emergent experiences prepare and motivate children for the rigours of conventional instruction. But many of our students with significant disabilities missed these rich experiences. If they could not speak, they may have
never engaged in joyful back-and-forth exchanges with a care- giver. They may have never seen others use language in a way the student could participate, such as by modelling an AAC sys- tem. Their attention to storybooks may have appeared fleeting, and their exploration of books may have seemed random or de- structive. They may have physically struggled to handle books or writing tools. If their vision or visual processing was impaired, they may have never witnessed the reading and writing occur- ring all around them. Our students with significant disabilities need the most explicit and intensive experiences with language and literacy, but they may arrive at school with the least. Our literacy and language instruction must build access to the foun- dational experiences and opportunities these students have missed. Comprehensive emergent literacy instruction fills in these gaps. How do you know if your students are still emergent in their understandings of literacy? Just watch them. What a student
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