Listening and Reading Comprehension:
As children develop comprehension of books read aloud or independently, they explore the uses and functions of written language. They begin to construct meaning, eventually applying critical skills to make inferences and draw conclusions.

Listening and Speaking:
Children learn the intonations and speech patterns in language by listening. Learning to read also requires careful listening, because good listening skills help children break down words into their individual sounds.

Phonics Skills:
Before they can read independently, children must learn the relationship of letters to their sounds and be able to distinguish individual sounds, or phonemes, within words. Phonics skills help children sounds out new words (If I can read "pot", then I can read "hot" and "spot").

Rhyming:
Rhyming songs and stories help children recognize the different sounds in words. Rhymes direct a child's attention to the similarities in words (hat sounds like cat), which helps them learn to read.

Sorting and Classifying:
Children actively arrange their blocks, cars and dolls, using visual discrimination to sort objects around them. Essential for math and science, classification is the logical reasoning ability to identify and group objects by attributes such as colour, size, number, function, length, volume, weight, area, time and other familiar characteristics.