Which strategy supports emergent literacy in preschool?

• A. Use only phonics instruction
• B. Focus on silent reading
• C. Read-alouds, shared book experiences, and explicit early literacy activities like print awareness
• D. Use print-only worksheets

Answer: (C)

Emergent literacy grows from interactive experiences with books and print that connect spoken language to written symbols. Read-alouds and shared book experiences model fluent reading, expand vocabulary, and demonstrate story structure, while showing children how books are held, turned, and read from left to right. Explicit early literacy activities, like print awareness, help children notice letters, understand that print has meaning, and learn how print is organized (where a sentence begins, how words are spaced, and the concept of words vs. pictures). These experiences build the foundations for later decoding and comprehension by linking language to written symbols and by supporting prediction, recall, and storytelling skills. Focusing only on phonics, silent reading, or worksheets doesn’t provide the rich, interactive context that preschoolers need to develop these essential literacy behaviors, so they are less effective for fostering emergent literacy.