Preschool Children's Understanding of Written Language

HIEBERT, ELFRIEDA H. Preschool Children's Understanding of Written Language. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 1231-1234. Most preschoolers do not read, but they may have acquired some basic understandings about written language. The nature of this knowledge should be indicated their incorrect responses to written stimuli. 20 3-year-olds and 20 4-year-olds were shown a series of slides which 10 words or letter combinations were presented both and of the environmental context. Incorrect responses were coded as 1 of 4 error types: no response, meaning-related word, idiosyncratic word, and strings of words. A 4-way analysis of variance was carried to determine whether there were differences the types of errors made the 2 contexts, with the 2 tasks (letter and word) and by the 2 age groups. Significant differences were found types of errors made in context and out of context, as well as to the word and letter stimuli. However, younger and older groups did not differ significantly the types of errors made. The results were interpreted as indicating that young children have acquired knowledge about written language which could be considered part of the reading process and precursors to reading skills.