Emergent Literacy

Reference: Mkandaŵile Sitwe Benson (2010) Branches and Levels of Literacy Analysis – Extracted from the Paper presented at the Linguistics Association of Southern African Universities (LASU) in Zambia, hosted by the University of Zambia.

Emergent Literacy is a branch or level of literacy analysis that refer to the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are developmental precursors to conventional forms of reading and writing (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Sulzby and Teale (1996: 728) "Emergent literacy is concerned with the earliest phases of literacy development, the period between birth and the time when children read and write conventionally. The term emergent literacy signals a belief that, in a literate society, young children even one and two year olds, are in the process of becoming literate”.
“A Broader definition of emergent literacy refer to the skills, knowledge and behaviors exhibited before knowing the actual conventional skills as accredited by tradition, accepted by the general community and the wider society as expressing truth and genuine knowledge or skills for survival” Mkandaŵile, (2011).