Guide
Teaching listening, speaking, reading and writing
A complete lesson touches all four skills — but for young learners the balance shifts with age and literacy. Get the order right and each skill supports the next.
The four skills — listening, speaking, reading and writing — are the ways a learner uses a language. Teaching them to young learners means weighting them to the class's age and literacy: a lot of listening and speaking first, with reading and writing emerging gradually. For pre-literate children, the “reading” and “writing” skills take pre-literacy forms.
Key takeaways
- The four skills develop in order — listening, speaking, then reading and writing.
- Front-load comprehensible input; scaffold speaking before open production.
- Reading and writing emerge from word recognition and tracing, gradually.
- For pre-literate classes, reading/writing become pointing, tracing and colouring.
The four skills for young learners
Listening, speaking, reading and writing don't arrive together or equally. For young learners they develop roughly in that order, mirroring a first language: a lot of listening, then speaking, and only later reading and writing. A good lesson weights the skills to match where the class actually is.
Listening and speaking first
Front-load listening and speaking. Fill the room with comprehensible input — the teacher's voice, songs, simple stories the class can follow with pictures and actions — before asking for much output. When you do ask children to speak, scaffold it: whole-class chants, call-and-response, sentence frames they can slot a word into, well before open conversation.
Emergent reading and writing
Reading and writing emerge gradually. First comes recognising a whole written word by its shape and matching it to a picture; then tracing and copying single words; only later reading short sentences and writing a few of their own. Push text too early and children decode letters instead of understanding meaning.
Adapting for pre-literate classes
For a pre-literate class the “reading” and “writing” slots become pre-reading and pre-writing: point to the matching picture, trace a shape, colour the flashcard. That's not a watered-down version of the four skills — it's the honest form of them at that age.
Weighting the four skills by stage
The four skills are always present, but the balance moves as children grow into literacy. Pitch the emphasis to where the class actually is.
| Stage | Where to put the emphasis |
|---|---|
| Pre-literate (~3–4) | Almost all listening and speaking. “Reading” is matching a spoken word to a picture; “writing” is tracing and colouring. No text to read yet. |
| Emergent (~5–6) | Listening and speaking lead; recognising and copying single written words begins. No sentence writing yet. |
| Literate (~7+) | All four skills, still input-heavy: short reading texts, single-word or short-sentence writing, and plenty of speaking practice. |
One target sentence, all four skills
Target sentence: “I like apples.”
| Skill | Pre-literate → literate |
|---|---|
| Listening | Pre-literate: point to the apple when the sentence comes in a chant. Literate: the same, now also following the written line. |
| Speaking | Pre-literate: join a call-and-response — “I like ___” + a fruit. Literate: say the whole sentence and swap the fruit. |
| Reading | Pre-literate: match the spoken sentence to the apple picture. Literate: read “I like apples.” and match it to the picture. |
| Writing | Pre-literate: trace the word “apple” and colour it. Literate: copy or complete “I like ______.” |
The same sentence runs through every skill — but each skill is pitched to what the class can already do, so a four-year-old and a nine-year-old both practise it honestly.
Frequently asked questions
- Which skill should young learners develop first?
- Listening, then speaking. Children need a lot of comprehensible input before much output, mirroring how they learned their first language.
- When should reading and writing start?
- Gradually, and after listening and speaking are established. Begin with recognising whole written words and tracing — not decoding letters or writing sentences.
- How do I teach the four skills to a class that can't read?
- The “reading” slot becomes pre-reading — point to the matching picture — and “writing” becomes pre-writing — trace and colour. That's the honest form of the four skills at that age.
- How do I get shy young learners to speak?
- Scaffold it: whole-class chants, call-and-response, and sentence frames they can slot a single word into, long before any open conversation.
Sources & further reading
- Teaching the four skills to young learners — British Council — TeachingEnglish
- Young Learners English (Starters, Movers, Flyers) — Cambridge English
- Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) — Council of Europe
See it in a lesson
My Daily Routine — a complete sample lesson (A2 · ages 9–11) that puts this into practice.
Related features
Related guides
LingoChorus composes complete young-learner lessons on exactly these principles — see the lesson generator or its methodology.