Literacy Standards
The following indicators outline the developmental benchmarks and literacy behaviors that most children display at a particular age/grade. All are aligned with guidelines and standards established by the Arizona Department of Education. Seen together, they show the progression of development over time, but it is important to remember that all children develop at a different pace and follow varied patterns of development.
For very young children, key components of language and communication development include modeling conversations, book handling, and picture/story comprehension. For preschool and K-3 students, indicators of developing language and emergent literacy provide a clear overview of the learning goals to be achieved by the end of each year. Across the higher grades, indicators may have similar wording, but they are to be applied with increased focus to progressively more challenging texts and tasks.
Listening and Understanding
- Child shows interest in listening to sounds; may:
- Turn head in the direction of family voices.
- Be startled by loud or surprising sounds.
- Be comforted by voice of family caregivers.
- Attend to or be comforted by music.
- Child listens with interest to language of others; may:
- Observe caregiver’s face when being spoken to and shape mouth in a similar manner.
- Distinguish other languages from native language, with greater interest paid to nouns.
- Listen to the sounds of the language(s) they routinely hear. (At this age, infants are universal listeners who are capable of hearing and distinguishing the sounds of all human languages.)
Communication and Speaking
- Child uses sounds, gestures, or actions to communicate for a variety of purposes; may:
- Cry to express a variety of needs (e.g., hunger, discomfort) and a variety of emotions.
- Begin to make a range of sounds to solicit attention from caregivers, such as cooling and raspberry sounds.
- Use varying tones, pitch, and volume to play with their voice and learn about their vocal apparatus.
- Child imitates sounds, signs, gestures, or words for a variety of purposes; may:
- Imitate a range of facial expressions (e.g., smiles, frowns, excitement, fear).
- Make cooing sounds and other sounds of home language .
- Imitate vowel sounds such as “ah,” “oh” or “oo.”
- Cry to express a variety of needs (e.g., hunger, discomfort) and a variety of emotions.
- Child shows reciprocity in using language in simple conversations; may:
- Imitate facial expressions and sounds of caregivers.
- Take turns by making sounds in response to adults.
- Smile or vocalize to initiate contact with familiar caregivers.
Emergent Literacy
- Child shows interest in songs, rhymes, and stories; may:
- Respond physically to music or songs, such as smiling, kicking feet, or calming to a lullaby.
- Listen and attend to repetitions of familiar songs or rhymes.
- Recognize and respond to enjoyable, familiar music or songs.
- Child shows interest in photos, pictures, and drawings; may:
- Look at and attend to pictures of other children or faces.
- Child develops interest in and involvement with books and other print materials; may:
- Look at books, pat the pictures, or bring books to mouth.
Source: Arizona Department of Education, Arizona’s Infant and Toddler Developmental Guidelines
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