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 begin to develop knowledge of the alphabet and the alphabetic principle.

Skill Progression: Develop knowledge of the alphabet and the alphabetic principle

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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

No observable skills

21-24 Months

No observable skills

24-27 Months

No observable skills

27-30 Months

No observable skills

30-33 Months

No observable skills

33-36 Months

Recognizes the A-B-C song and sings it, but without knowing what letters are

36-42 Months

Knows some letters in own name

Points out words that rhyme in songs, poems, and predictable books

Comments about words that have the same sounds

42-48 Months

Recognizes own name in print

Identifies 5-10 alphabet letters, especially those in own name

Matches uppercase letters

Knows that alphabet letters make words

Makes letter-sound matches of a few letters

48-54 Months

Identifies initial letters and sounds of familiar names and some words

Identifies parts of words that rhyme

Segments words into syllables

54-60 Months

Recognizes a few sight words (e.g., words in familiar books, stores, etc.)

 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/.