The role of environmental print in emergent literacy

Abstract

Young children are surrounded by environmental print on a daily basis. Through their visual exploration of environmental print, coupled with sociocultural experiences, children gain valuable semantic and symbolic knowledge as they make sense of their world. The aim of this review is to examine the question of whether environmental print has value as a literacy learning resource, and if so, the mechanisms by which it promotes literacy development. It is shown that interactions with environmental print in the child's sociocultural context can develop their logographic reading skills. These skills, in turn, promote the development of emergent literacy skills that are the precursors to conventional reading skills. Environmental print may also be used more directly when parents and childhood educators use it to scaffold the learning of emergent literacy skills. It is recommended that parents and early childhood educators capitalize on children's natural attraction to environmental print by using it to promote their literacy development.