## North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Language Development and Communication (LDC)

#### Subdomain: Foundations for Reading

#### Goal: Children develop phonological awareness.

#### Skill Progression: Develop phonological awareness

#### Age: 21-24 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 21-24 Months.

### Imitates rhyming words (loo-loo, goo-goo) and makes up nonsense words

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the adult and child playing silly sound games with a baby doll.

Elicitation Strategy

The adult starts the silly sounds by saying my baby is making funny sounds. He says, “Boo-boo! Loo-loo! What does your baby say?” Laugh at the silly sounds and make up new ones.

Behavior Observed

The child begins to make up his own silly sounds and rhymes.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Early childhood educators and parents often think the child is being too silly when he makes up words or says silly sound sequences. Reassure them that this sound and rhyming play is actually a good thing! The child is learning to combine sounds in different patterns and make rhymes. These are important pre-reading skills.

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.