ABSTRACT
There are many skills which children need to learn to become ‘reading ready’. Before children start to read, they already bring a lot of skills to the reading process and recognise print through experience of signs and symbols in their environment. They may recognise some letters and sounds or words through sharing story books and following the text. However, some children may never acquire these skills if they have significant speech and language delay, and alternative approaches to the teaching of reading may need to be explored. Some of these pre-requisite skills can continue to be practised alongside more formal teaching of phonics and reading. Matching objects to pictures requires an understanding that the picture is a symbol of the real object and is an important pre-reading skill. This helps develop early visual discrimination and prepares children for later finer skills of recognising letters and print on the page.
