Yoga for Emergent Literacy 129This knowledge includes the notion that letters or combinations
of letters of the alphabet represent specific sounds and that
some sounds are consonants, whereas others are vowels. When
children transition from learning to read to reading to learn, more
advanced levels of alphabet knowledge are required (Whitehurst
and Lonigan 1998).
Alphabet knowledge is the single best predictor of elementary-
grade achievement in word recognition (Adams 1990). In the
early school-age years, children learn about the relationship
between letters or combinations of letters (graphemes) and
sounds (phonemes). Learning this alphabetic principle (Pence
Turnbull and Justice 2017) is the beginning of true reading.
Print awareness
The third aspect of metalinguistic awareness, written language
awareness, refers to children’s knowledge of the purpose and
organization of print ( Justice and Pence 2005). Given adequate
exposure to the written word, children learn during the emergent
literacy period that print deserves special attention. They begin to
understand that print gives meaning to events and details beyond
other types of visual information, such as pictures. Children’s
knowledge of the names of the letters, words, and other print units
increases throughout language literacy development. Eventually,
children learn the characteristic ways in which print is organized
for different types of writing ( Justice and Pence 2005), such as
shopping lists, and eventually for different genres, such as fiction
and nonfiction.
Strategies for shared book reading
As mentioned earlier in this chapter, shared book reading is a
powerful literacy event for facilitating emergent reading and