© inlets 2001

While preschool knowledge about written language is typically developed at home, schools can play an important role. Print awareness, letter familiarity, and phonemic awareness can all be developed through classroom instruction in the preschool, kindergarten and first grade. Used as an adjunct to lesson plans reading connections uses decoding strategies to increase student success.

The emphasis of this reading program is on the relationship between sounds and symbols and how this relationship is used in reading. Students are taught the sound and symbol relationship of consonants and vowels. Speech sounds and their letter counterparts are taught so students experience this relationship on a conscious level. With this information, students are able to connect or blend together the sounds, and see the relationship between the sounds, their symbols, and words. Sounds and symbols are then manipulated in a process called tracking, to form new words.