Word and print awareness in 4-year-old children

Word and print awareness comprise key elements of young children’s emergent literacy development. There are currently few assessment instruments for examining preschool children’s skills in these areas. This article describes two informal measures that may be used to examine word and print awareness in preschool children. Results of administering these measures, referred to as the Preschool Word and Print Awareness assessment, to 30 typically developing preschool children are presented. This protocol as well as the developmental observations presented may be useful to early childhood educators and speech-language pathologists who wish to examine young children’s emergent literacy knowledge.