I witnessed some fantastic emergent reading this weekend. I bought a book for my three-year-old little sister. She sat down with the book straight away and started “reading” the book. She began to say sentences and “read” describing the pictures that were on the pages of the book that she had been given. Obviously, since my sister has just turned three in the last few months she cannot read. However, she showed how she would read if she could. She was holding the book correctly and following the words with her finger as if she was reading it.

When I sat down with her to read it she was desperate to tell me what the words said and how that was different to what I was saying. This was my first time seeing the signs of emergent reading developing in a child. It was incredibly interesting to me and it It showed me what I had to look for when I am working in the early years in children.