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As children’s cognitive development progresses, they start to be able to enjoy symbolic play, as they can understand that what they see is representing something else. Although it might not seem closely linked to learning about the alphabet, developing an understanding of symbolism is in fact an important step towards being able to read and write in the future. Here’s why.  

Your child might have started out understanding symbols using physical items which can be held and moved, perhaps by holding a toy brick to their ear as a phone. As their understanding of symbolism grows, they will be able to make more abstract links like realising that the numbers on a clock are showing adults what the time is and that the squiggles on a page which we call letters represent sounds, and even words.  

Did you know that watching a moving toy helps your toddler develop the essential skills needed to read and write? It's true! In order to read and write, your toddler’s eyes must be able to follow the flow of written text or watch a pen move. This is called visual tracking and it’s a skill they’ll use in everyday life. 

We often think about how to focus our child’s attention, often believing we need to direct their gaze to one item or another, and make sure that they are looking at what they need to see in order to learn. But did you know that a big part of learning to focus on something involves learning to ignore everything else?  

This is called figure-ground perception – the ability to tune out what is not important to focus on the thing you’re interested in. When thinking about what we see, it’s visual figure-ground perception. 

Although learning to read is still a way off for your toddler, they are already mastering skills that lay the foundation for reading. Find out how visual skills, like finding a lost toy, will help when it comes to learning to read. 

Developing control over their visual skills is an important part of your toddler's journey to being a confident and fluent reader in the future.  

The first skills that may come to mind when you think about your child learning to read are likely those that are related to letter recognition or understanding letter sounds. However, reading involves many skills including visual ones, and that’s why picking out details in pictures now will help them as they learn to read.  

When your child identifies specific details in a complex picture, they combine visual and cognitive skills.