Which statement best demonstrates understanding of concepts of print?

• A. Children know how to turn pages in a book and identify the front cover.
• B. Children memorize a few high-frequency words.
• C. Children recognize that print follows left-to-right, top-to-bottom, and pages are ordered.
• D. Children can retell a story after hearing it without reading print.

Answer: (C)

Understanding how printed text is organized is essential for beginning readers. This shows print concepts: print has a fixed direction (you read across a line from left to right and then move down to the next line) and a defined order of pages in a book. When a child demonstrates this, they can navigate a page, track moving text, and know where to start and how to continue. That foundation supports decoding and fluency because the child isn’t guessing where to go next—they follow the visual rules of print. The other choices relate to vocabulary, listening comprehension, or basic book handling, but they don’t show knowledge of how print is arranged and read on the page.