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Concept of print describes a child's comprehension of how print characteristics work, including things such as how to hold books, realizing that print has meaning, and being able to tell letters from words. Other print concept examples include reading a page top to bottom, left to right and front of book to back.

Children should begin learning print concepts at age 3 and mastered book concepts, reading concepts, directionality concepts and concepts of letter and word by end of Kindergarten.

By the end of First grade they should master the final couple skills of print concept which is punctuation marks.

The understanding of print concepts is foundational to further literacy progression.

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Use of one-on-one interactive read-aloud observations, teachers can ask their students questions to assess their understanding of print concepts.

Questions that can be asked:

"Can you show me a letter?", "Can you show me the front and back of the book?", "Can you show me a sentance?'

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Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize that the words that we say are made up of sounds. Students will also be able to manipulate spoken language to make different sounds for different words. An example of phonological awareness is a student being able to identify that "hat" and "bat" rhyme. Another example is a student being able to identify the number of syllables in a three-letter word.

(Reading Rockets, 2023)

The skills developed from this foundational skill include word awareness, rhyming, alliteration, syllables, onset and rime, and phonemic awareness.

By the end of Kindergarten, students should have mastered these skills (5-6 years old):

identify the phonemes in a word

produce and recognize rhyming words

blending and segmenting syllables

blending and segmenting onsets and rimes of single-syllable words

(Arizona Department of Education, 2016)

By the End of 1st grade, students should have mastered these skills (6-7 years old):

identify long and short sounds by verbally hearing single-syllable words

segment spoken words with 3-4 phonemes

be able to delete, substitute, and add phonemes to create new words from the initial word

(Arizona Department of Education, 2016)

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One research-based instructional strategy for teaching phoneme blending, is the "Say It and Move It" activity. This multisensory strategy helps students develop the ability to hear individual sounds and blend them into whole words, an essential skill for reading development.

Say It and Move It Strategy

Materials: Small tokens, counters, or buttons and a segmented board (with boxes or spaces for sounds).

Activity Steps:

The teacher orally pronounces a word slowly, stretching out each phoneme (e.g., /m/ /a/ /p/ for "map").

Students listen carefully and move a token into a box for each sound they hear.

After all sounds are placed, students blend them together and say the full word aloud.

The process is repeated with new words, gradually increasing difficulty as students master the skill.

This strategy is supported by research showing that explicit, hands-on phonemic awareness activities improve literacy outcomes, especially for English learners (ELs) and students with dyslexia. The visual and kinesthetic components help reinforce sound-symbol connections, making it easier for struggling learners to grasp phoneme blending.

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Letter naming is the ability to recognize the shape of a letter and associate it with it's name. Knowing the sounds of the letters is another big part of letter-naming because they need to be able to know the sounds and be able to identify them in either upper or lowercase form. In a video with a student in Kindergarten on Reading Rockets it says that the students should be able to know all of the alphabet names and the sounds and should have them memorized. (Farrell, L. (2025)).

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Students should be learning the letter names from K-1st grade. They should truly have it mastered by the First Grade and moving on to the next.

State Standards:

In the state standards in Kindergarten it says that students shall be able to recognize and be able to know all upper and lowercase letters and say the sounds of all of them.

In the state standards in First Grade it says that students shall be able to generate a series of words that rhyme using a variety of phonograms (e.g., -ed, -ake, -ant, ain) and consonant blends (e.g., /bl/, /st/, /tr/)

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One assessment that the teacher could use would be to run your finger under the letters either upper or lower and that they can read the sound to you of that letter.

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With this activity we are able to see how well the students know and can recognize the difference between uppercase and the lowercase. Being able to see if the students can match the uppercase and lowercase can truly show them how they make words. Having students learn the letters with the pictures of the animals can teach the students the animals and learning which words begin with the letter also.

Having an activity like this would help build the students ability and then can see which ones add up for them all. In an article it says that this learning helps children become acquainted with several identities for each letter, including its graphic shapes, namely in uppercase and lowercase forms, its name, and its sound (or sounds) (Foulin, 2005).

Having an activity like this will help them grow the ability to know upper and lowercase letters and knowing and growing the "a" sounds in a word including alligator, ant, and axe.

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The Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) assessment commonly used. This assessment measures a student’s ability to break apart words into individual phonemes, a critical skill for developing literacy. During the assessment, students are given a spoken word and asked to orally segment it into its component sounds within a set time. For example, when given the word "cat," a student should respond with /k/ /a/ /t/. This assessment helps determine whether students are making gains in phonemic awareness by providing quantifiable data on their ability to manipulate sounds.

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Phonemic awareness is having the capability to recognize/focus on and manipulate the sounds and phonemes of spoken words. It is a skill that is used as a pre-reading skill that supports reading and spelling later on in life. Also, it involves knowing and applying phonics and words analysis skills in decoding words and decode regular spelled closed-syllable words. Then, distinguishing between similar spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differs. (Scientific Studies of Reading, 2024).

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Identifying the author on a book!

1. Have students all grab a book of their choice

2. Show them how to find an author on a book

3. Have them point out the author of their chosen book

4. Share their finding with their shoulder partner

(Reading Rockets, 2025)

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This activity would be one that I would use for differentiation because it will allow students to just learn the lowercase letters rather than learning both the upper and lowercase at the same time. Having this activity will help all students with a disability because they can continue to learn the ones that they need to and will continue to teach them and allow them to learn more and more.

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For students with dyslexia: Pick out their book to use ahead of time and to make the author's name easier to find, highlight it with a colorful overlay or sticker. To help decrease visual strain, provide books with clear fonts and larger print.

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The use of multisensory instruction uses visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile elements to reinforce phonemic skills in a way that supports diverse learning needs. For example, teachers can have students tap out phonemes on their arms, trace letters in sand, or use colored blocks to represent different sounds in words. ELs benefit from this strategy as it provides concrete, interactive experiences that help bridge language barriers, while students with dyslexia gain from the explicit, structured, and repetitive nature of the activities that strengthen their phonological processing skills.

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Reading Rockets. (2025). Concepts of print assessment | Reading Rockets. Www.readingrockets.org. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/assessment-and-evaluation/articles/concepts-print-assessment

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Farrell, L. (2025). Letter names with Reese, Kindergartner. https://www.readingrockets.org/helping-all-readers/looking-reading-interventions/letter-names-reese-kindergartener

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Transcript

Letter Names with Reese, Kindergartner
Linda Farrell: What do you like to eat? Reese: Ice cream. Linda Farrell: What kind of ice cream? Reese: Vanilla ... and chocolate. Reese is in kindergarten at Windy Hill Elementary in Calvert County, Maryland. Before he can learn how to read, he'll need to master all 26 letters of the alphabet. Reese knows most of them, and reading expert Linda Farrell is going to help him with the last few that he needs to learn.
Linda Farrell: Letters have to be absolutely automatic, all 26, because when you're reading, so many different things are going on. You cannot be struggling with which letter, is this a 'v' or a 'y'? It's going to slow ... even those two confusions will slow up reading forever.
Linda Farrell: I would like you to sing the alphabet song. Reese: 'A - b - c - d - e - f - g - h - i - j - k - lmnop - q - r - s - t - u- v' - [mumbles] - 'x - y' and 'z.' Now I know my ABCs. Next time won't you sing with me. Linda Farrell: You know the song. Reese: I can go quicker. Linda Farrell: Oh, that was quick enough. I could hardly keep up.
Linda Farrell: Reese could sing the alphabet song, sort of. He would be what many teachers would say, oh, yeah, he can sing the song. But if you listened really carefully, you would hear that Reese had difficulty when he sang the song articulating 'l-m-n-o-p,' which is also - many children have that. And he had difficulty articulating the 'w.' When we got to letter naming, it was very interesting. 'W' was one of the letters that he didn't know. We find this often ... is that the source of the confusion for a letter name will often go back to you find that same confusion in singing the song. So when children have difficulty with letter names, it isn't as easy for them as it is for other children to learn this shape, this abstract shape has this abstract name. And some kids learn that easily, and some kids need more practice. And Reese is one who needs practice.
Linda Farrell: What we're going to do is we are going to sing the alphabet song and touch the letters as we sing. Okay? So get your finger. Now. Sing the first row. Reese: 'A - b - c - d' ... Linda Farrell: Stop. Okay. So you sang the first row. Now go and sing the whole thing to here. Reese: 'A - b - c - d' ... Asking Reese to touch the letters ensures that he'll look at the letters as he sings. Reese: ... 'lmnop' ... Linda Farrell: Okay. Now this row is a little bit hard. So let's do this. Let's go 'l - m - n - o - p.' Say them again. Linda Farrell: Wait. What was that? Reese: I mean ... 'l - o.' I mean ... 'm - n - p Linda Farrell: Let's try that again. What's that letter? Linda Farrell: What's that letter?
Linda Farrell: Reese has difficulty with 'l-m-n-o-p.' Now he can do that. He can say that's an 'l,' that's an 'm,' that's an 'n,' that's an 'o,' that's a 'p,' but he can't say 'l-m-n-o-p.' He can't sing it and say it at the same time. I don't know why this happens, but I see it all the time. When children can coordinate a movement with a visual, a letter, they can coordinate and say and touch the letter at the same time, they will know it better. So we do that with the letter song, with the alphabet song, and we make sure that our children can touch and say each letter. And we do it over and over and over again, because we always teach to mastery. And the thing that we worked with the most with Reese was the 'l-m-n-o-p' line. We are getting him to look at the letter as he says its name or sings its name. That's going to be a really critical skill when he learns to read, because we need him to look at the letter when he's reading.
Reese: 'X - y' and 'z.'
Linda Farrell: Is there an and there?
Reese: I said 'n.'
Linda Farrell: The song says and. So you're going to go 'y' and ... Do it like this: 'y' and ... So take your hand and go 'y' and 'z.' Do that one again.
Reese: 'Y' and 'z.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Do you think you can do them all without making any mistakes? I think you can. Reese: Without pointing? Linda Farrell: You have to point. That's part of the trick, okay? So do it. I think you can do it. Reese: 'A - b - c - d - e - f - g - h - i - j - k - l - m - n - o - p - q' ... By looking at the letters as he names them, Reese is developing an image in his mind that is linked with the letter's name. Being able to easily recognize letters is critical to becoming a fluent reader. Reese: Now I know my ABCs. Next time won't you sing with me. Linda Farrell: That was pretty darn good.
Linda Farrell: We teach the names of the letters before we teach the sounds of the letters. The logical reason is that an 'a' is always an 'a.' An 's' is always an 's.' The name is a constant. The sound changes. I look at it as the 'a' is the big category, just like this is a flower. These are all flowers. This is a rose. Okay, we have an 'a.' This is a peony. I have an 'a,' and in this word with this spelling pattern, it's an /a/. In this word with this spelling pattern, it's an /ay/. So we're teaching the category first. We are then - go to the sounds. And most of the letters if you know the name, the sound is easy to learn: 'b,' /b/, 's,' /s/, 'z,' /z/, 'd,' /d/. There are some letters that don't match their sounds - 'y' and 'w' - and we have to teach those specially. Those don't come naturally. But most of the sounds come easily. Also, the song gives you an anchor for the names. I can sing this song. I have a chant, even though I don't know what an 'a' is. When I'm two years old, I learn the alphabet song.
Linda Farrell: What's that letter? Linda Farrell: This is a 'y.' That's a 'v.' Can you say 'v'? Linda Farrell: Okay. Look down at the letter and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: Point to it and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: What's that letter? Linda Farrell: Point to it and say 'v.' Linda Farrell: And what's that letter? Linda Farrell: Okay. Reese: They kind of, so when you put this, this way, kind of looks like an 'n.' Linda Farrell: It does kind of look like an 'n.' Yeah.
Linda Farrell: It was very interesting working with Reese, because he pointed out to me very articulately how 'v' and 'z' looks like an 'n' and 'v' and 'y,' and they all ... it was exactly the letters that he was getting confused about. And he could even tell us as a kindergartener why they were confusing.
Linda Farrell: Okay. Here we go. Linda Farrell: You're telling me that's a 'y,' and I'm going to tell you that's a 'v.' Linda Farrell: So can you say 'v'? Linda Farrell: What's at the bottom of the 'v'? A point. What's at the bottom of the 'v'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: Okay, so ... Reese: It's kind of ... if you turn it this way, and there's a line, you kind of, it looks like, it would look like an 'a.' Linda Farrell: It would. Reese: And it looks like a triangle when you put it this way. Linda Farrell: Okay. But what letter is that? Is that ... Linda Farrell: Okay. Is this 'a' or 'v'? Linda Farrell: 'Y'? Oh my gosh. I have to show you something. 'Y' looks like this. Okay?
Linda Farrell: When I first started working with Reese, I was just trying to get him to know 'v,' because my assessment had told me 'v' was confusing. I don't work on all of the confusing letters. I work on one or two confusing letters at a time. I work on one letter if he just can't remember the name. And I ... when I first started working with Reese, I thought that he could not remember the name of 'v.' So I have, I get a stack of index cards. Maybe I get 12. Maybe I get 14. Maybe I get eight. Half of those will be the letter that we're working on, one letter. The other half will be letters that he is very confident with, so he doesn't have to think about those, so that I go ... what's the name of this letter? What's the name of this letter? As I did that, it was real easy for him to say 'v, v, v.'
Linda Farrell: Let's do 'v.' Linda Farrell: What's the name of that letter? Linda Farrell: What's at the bottom of the 'V'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: You got it. Say 'v.' Linda Farrell: Okay. What's that letter? Reese: 'S. V. E. V. C. V. T. V. X.' Linda Farrell: Let's try these one more time. Think you can go through them again? Reese: There's a lot of 'v's. Linda Farrell: [laughs] Once Ms. Farrell saw that Reese knew the name of the letter 'v,' then she worked on helping Reese discriminate between the letters 'v' and 'y.'
Linda Farrell: My job is to figure out a way to make them not confusing. For him, they all looked like they were the same shape. So I have to think, okay, as I was working with him, I saw that he confused 'v' and 'y.' He'd already told me, oh, they both have these and they look, this has a point here and a point here. So my job is to get him to look at the letter and give him a way to verbalize the difference between the shapes of the letters. And I had never done this before with 'v' and 'y,' but I looked and I said well, 'v' has a point at the bottom, and 'y' doesn't have a point at the bottom. This goes through my mind: 'y' doesn't have a point at the bottom. What's at the bottom is a line. Okay, so I'll make that difference.
Linda Farrell: This is a 'v.' Reese: And 'y.' Linda Farrell: You got it. Now, there's a line at the bottom of a 'y.' What's at the bottom of a 'y'? Linda Farrell: A line. What's at the bottom of 'v'? Reese: Point. Linda Farrell: Okay. Say 'v' has a point, 'v.' Reese: 'V' has a point. Linda Farrell: 'V' Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line. Reese: 'Y' has a line. Linda Farrell: 'Y' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now, point to the point and say 'v' has a point, 'v.' Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'Y' has a line, line. Linda Farrell: Say 'y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Linda Farrell: Gotta point to the line. Reese: 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now we're gonna ... every time I show you a letter you have to say that. And then you have to say it. Okay, you ready? Okay, here we go. Reese: 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now I want you to try saying them without saying, 'v' has a point, 'v.' Just say the name of the letter. Go slow. Okay? Reese: Okay. I might go quicker and quicker. 'Y.' Linda Farrell: Okay. Now. You have to look down and point and tell me ... Linda Farrell: What does 'y' have? Linda Farrell: A line. What does 'v' ... Linda Farrell: It is.
Linda Farrell: I started in this lesson by just getting him to know 'v.' But that wasn't going to work because he still wanted to call it a 'y' sometimes. So I needed to set up the contrast. And you saw that it worked as long as he said, 'v' has a point, 'y' has a line. 'V' has a point, 'v.' 'Y' has a line, 'y.' I stopped the scaffolding too quickly, because I went back, and he looked at it and he just saw two lines and he went 'y.' We need to get, whenever we do a scaffold where we're comparing two letters that look similar and we're saying this one has a point at the bottom and this one has a line, he has to do that enough where it is automatic for him to say it and know that letter. And he has to look at it, because what we want him to do is subliminally when he stops saying it, being looking at that and thinking it, and then eventually he doesn't have to go through the thinking 'v' has a point. It just automatically becomes 'v.'
Linda Farrell: Two high fives! Reese: Ha! I missed one. Linda Farrell: Let's do another one then!
Linda Farrell: Once he got good at 'y' and "v," just those two contrasting, then I would put three 'y's, three 'v's and six letters that he already knows, so that he would have to think. We're making it just incrementally more difficult for him to have to remember, until he just automatically looks at that letter and it's a 'v.' And that one's a 'y.' And it does happen. Sometimes it happens with practice 25 times. Sometimes it happens with practice 250 times. And sometimes it's a thousand times. But it will happen.
Linda Farrell: Two high fives. That was really, really good. We'd like to thank the wonderful students and families at Windy Hill Elementary School in Calvert County, Maryland. We hope that sharing these experiences will help other children who are learning to read. Special thanks also to Kelly Cleland, Julie Donovan, Joanne Harbaugh, and their outstanding colleagues at Windy Hill Elementary ... and to Leanne Meisinger at Calvert County Public Schools. We are deeply grateful to Linda Farrell, Michael Hunter, and Nicole Lubar of Readsters for their invaluable contributions to this project.
Produced by Noel Gunther

Edited by Christian Lindstrom

Graphic Design: Tina Chovanec

Camera: Richard Chisolm

Audio: Dwayne Dell
For more information about teaching reading, please visit www.ReadingRockets.org
Reading Rockets is a service of WETA, Washington, D.C.

© 2019, WETA, Washington, D.C.

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Reading expert Linda Farrell works with Reese to master the name of every letter. She helps Reese sing the alphabet song clearly and with no mistakes. She teaches him to look carefully at letters as he names them.

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Erbeli, F., Rice, M., Xu, Y., Bishop, M. E., & Goodrich, J. M. (2024). A Meta-Analysis on the Optimal Cumulative Dosage of Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Scientific Studies of Reading). A Meta-Analysis on the Optimal Cumulative Dosage of Early Phonemic Awareness Instruction

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Reading Rockets. (2023). Phonological and phonemic awareness: Introduction. Www.readingrockets.org. https://www.readingrockets.org/reading-101/reading-101-learning-modules/course-modules/phonological-and-phonemic-awareness

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Arizona Department of Education. (2016). Arizona's English Language Arts Standards Kindergarten https://www.azed.gov/sites/default/files/2021/07/Kinder%20ELA%20Standards%20Placemat.pdf

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‌Arizona Department of Education. (2016). Arizona's English Language Arts Standards 1st grade. https://www.azed.gov/sites/default/files/2021/07/1st%20grade%20ELA%20Placemat.pdf

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Assesses identifying alliteration, onset, and rime

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This assessment utilizes visuals for the student to recognize the word. They are then required to check which picture starts or ends with the same sound, depending on the section. This showcases their development skills for alliteration, onset, and rime by allowing them to identify what the word is and go through the options to choose the correct answer.

Assesses their sound recognition, sound matching, and visual/auditory connection. The pictures make it less intimidating and can help engage the students. It also shows their ability to identify without a verbal response.

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Onset and Rime

Musical Mnemonics

This activity would utilize a song the students and teacher could create together. It would be called the Eye Spy Song. The song's melody would be similar to "If You're Happy and You Know It" song. It would go something like this...

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now

I spy a pencil (teacher)

I spy a paper (student)

I spy a puzzle (teacher)

I spy a park (student)

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now

I spy a book (teacher)

I spy a backpack (student)

I spy a bus (teacher)

I spy a bird (student)

If you see it and you know it clap your hands.

If it starts with the same sound, clap your hands.

If you see it and you know it then your voice will surely show it,

if you see it, and you know it, say it now!

*This is a great way to get your student engaged and to look at the things that are commonly used or seen in their everyday classroom. Learning commonly used vocab is the first start to helping your students recognize that certain words can have the same sound. Utilizing songs helps students remember things more easily and adds meaning to recall examples later on (Gardiner & Thaut, 2014). You can vary this exercise to fit the needs of what you are trying the student to find. Whether that is teaching them to rhyme or find the beginning sound, or the end sound of a word.

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To differentiate for an ELL student, I would break the song down. The entire song might be a bit intimidating for a student who is still learning the words to commonly used items in a classroom. I would still use the eye spy strategy with the song, but I would give them manipulatives to be able to hold and touch. This way, the student can play the eye spy song game but can focus on the selected group of manipulatives that you show them. They can then group different manipulatives together. This also allows them to ask you clarifying questions on how a certain word might be pronounced. The use of manipulatives is crucial to use concrete objects to help students match what they see to what they are thinking. This goes along with the concrete operational stage from Piaget's theory of child development (Willingham, 2017).

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Ghoneim, N. & Elghotmy, H. (2015). The Effect of a Suggested Multisensory Phonics Program on Developing Kindergarten Pre-Service Teachers' EFL Reading Accuracy and Phonemic Awareness. English Language Teaching. EJ1084302.pdf

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Wood, C., Mustian, A., & Lo, Y. (2013). Effects of Supplemental Computer-Assisted Reciprocal Peer Tutoring on Kindergarteners' Phoneme Segmentation Fluency. Education and Treatment of Children.

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Gardiner, J. C., & Thaut, M. H. (2014). Musical mnemonics training (MMT). In M. H. Thaut & V. Hoemberg (Eds.), Handbook of neurologic music therapy (pp. 294–310). Oxford University Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-42500-024

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Willingham, D. (2017, September 18). Ask the Cognitive Scientist: Do Manipulatives Help Students Learn? American Federation of Teachers. https://www.aft.org/ae/fall2017/willingham

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Foulin, J. N. (2005). Why is letter-name knowledge such a good predictor of learning to read. https://eds-s-ebscohost-com.lopes.idm.oclc.org/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=2d49f678-2e6b-40f4-9ce3-6dd5c6538c21%40redis