This course focuses on the literacy development of children from three to eight years of age. It provides an examination of young children's emergent reading and writing skills: Phonological awareness, comprehension, print awareness, and alphabet knowledge (letter identification and letter-sound knowledge). Topics also include: Visual discrimination skills, environmental print knowledge, relationship between spoken and written language, fine motor skills, awareness of the purposes and functions of written words, letter and word writing, and the awareness of conventions of spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation. It explores the principles, methods, and materials for teaching literacy through a play-based, inclusive, and integrated curriculum. As a requirement, candidates participate in a four-hour clinical experience. They conduct a one-hour observation, and then prepare and implement lesson plans for four whole-group interactions with children in a preschool or lower division of a primary school setting.