North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Language Development and Communication (LDC)

Subdomain: Foundations for Reading

Goal: Children develop book knowledge and print awareness.

Skill Progression: Develop book knowledge and print awareness

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List of Skills by Age

1-2 Months

No observable skills

2-4 Months

No observable skills

4-6 Months

No observable skills

6-8 Months

No observable skills

8-10 Months

No observable skills

10-12 Months

No observable skills

12-15 Months

No observable skills

15-18 Months

No observable skills

18-21 Months

Notices print rather than just pictures in a book; may point to labels under pictures

21-24 Months

Distinguishes print from non-print (e.g., picture or drawing)

24-27 Months

Points to and labels pictures on billboards, cereal boxes, etc. in the environment

27-30 Months

Recognizes some familiar environmental signs or symbols

30-33 Months

Moves finger or hand across a line of print in a favorite book and verbalizes text exactly or accurately paraphrased

33-36 Months

Notices print in the environment and asks what it “says”

36-42 Months

Understands what print is

Recognizes print in the local environment

42-48 Months

Asks what specific words are in text

48-54 Months

Mixes print-like letters, real letters, and drawings in “writings”

Asks about print conventions like spelling, spacing, and where to write

54-60 Months

Differentiates, identifies, and reproduces letters in the alphabet (at least in approximations)

Attempts to incorporate print conventions such as spacing, alignment, and punctuation (though inaccurately)

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.