Expose children to texts regularly. Books with words or pictures, magazines, newspapers and even paper with your own writing on it all demonstrate the features of a text to a young child, such as the titles, the direction of words on a page and subtitles under pictures.
Read aloud to children frequently. Point to what you are reading, such as the title, or the characters or objects in pictures the text refers to; point to a picture of a ball when you read the word "ball."
Ask the child to repeat stories back to you after you read them. Have the child tell you what happened and who the characters were. Repeat character names and other key words from the book in your discussion.
Provide the children with paper and writing utensils to encourage them to practice writing, even if they can't form actual letters. Teach them the first letter of their name and praise them when they attempt to write it themselves.
Play word games with your young learners. Sing a familiar song but leave out a word that they can fill in, or use an incorrect word that they can correct.
Write two commonly-appearing words on a piece of paper, such as "I" and "the" and teach them to the child. Have the child repeat after you. Say one of the words and then have the child point to which word you are saying. Open a book and ask the child to find all occurrences of "I" and "the" on the pages.