Can 3 year olds read?
The reading process should begin around 3 years old, but does that mean 3 year olds read? Generally, no. Learning to read and write is a process that takes years to develop. Unfortunately, children get started on that process too late. At 3 years old a child should be exposed to the pre-reading skill called Phonemic Awareness.
Children at 3 years old have the developmental and neural capability to start to hear and pick out different sounds. Simply put, phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and repeat the beginning sounds of words. This is one of the first pre-reading skills that children will need to master before they can read.
Phonemic Awareness is a prerequisite to alphabetic phonics because a child cannot learn the sound associated to a letter if they cannot first differentiate one sound from another.
Developing phonemic awareness is pretty easy. One way to do it is to simply start saying the beginning sound of a word before you say it. For example: "It's /b/ bath time!" or "Please, pick up your /t/ toys." This is all sound work and does not yet include written letters or letter names.
Does this make sense? In my opinion this is definitely not too hard for a 3 year old to learn. What do you think?
