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By age 6, a child will know thousands of words in oral language, but only know a few - if any - when read (Chall, 1996). In this case, the code is the interface between language and literacy, and this code requires that learners develop additional skills in order to coordinate and manipulate language-in-print.įrom an early age, a child is learning language, but this child will only slowly develop an awareness of print. phonological, lexical, morphological, grammatical, textual and pragmatic skills - then the learning of “the code” serves to facilitate the transference of the learner’s speech into print, which itself can serve as a platform upon which further literate language can be built.
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If one is developing the components of language - e.g. They may also give children activities to do at school to support their learning of these spellings, such as testing each other in pairs, writing words on a mini-whiteboard.The above schematic addresses this rough relationship between language and literacy. Teachers may encourage children to use the 'Look Cover Write Check' strategy, whereby they look at a word, cover it over, write the word from memory, then uncover it and check if they have got it right.
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This helps children to get an idea of how the letters are put together to make a word.
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