"[In] a developmental theory, literacy is non a single skill that simply gets ameliorate ... Being literate is very dissimilar for the skilled first grader, quaternary grader, high school student, and adult, and the effects of schoolhouse experiences can be quite different at different points in a child's development."
— Catherine Snow, et al, 1991, pg 9

Literacy is not something that just happens. I does not wake up literate nor does one get literate in the same fashion that 1 learns to walk. It is not intuited from the surround nor is it simply a matter of physical maturation. Literacy learning requires teaching and practice,  and this learning occurs across discrete stages. The following notes explore the five stages of reading development every bit proposed by Maryanne Wolf (2008) in her volume Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain.These v stages are:

  • the emerging pre-reader (typically between 6 months to six years old);

  • the novice reader (typically between 6 to seven years erstwhile);

  • the decoding reader (typically between 7 - 9 years old);

  • the fluent, comprehending reader (typically betwixt nine - 15 years one-time); and

  • the expert reader (typically from 16 years and older).

Delight explore, and also visit the Stages of Literacy Development folio for a more than detailed word. Before nosotros begin with the stages, there are 2 preliminary notes to make.

Preliminary Note #1: "Every bit every teacher knows, emotional engagement is the tipping indicate betwixt leaping into the reading life ... An enormously of import influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what happens later on we remember, predict, and infer: we feel, we place, and in the the process we sympathise more than fully and can't await to plow the page. The child ... ofttimes needs heartfelt encouragement from teachers, tutors and parents to make a stab at more difficult reading textile." (Wolf, 2008, p 132)

"Without an affective investment and commitment, our words become unintelligible and empty; with that delivery words begin to show other manners of signification beyond the realm of literal meaning and correspondence." (Krebs, 2010, pg 138)

Preliminary Note #ii:Beyond this lengthy period of development, leaners are required to consolidate certain skills only to come across new challenges. The one rule that applies every bit is as follows: "Experts [agree] that readers, no thing which reading philosophy is followed, accept to practice, practice, do." (You Demand /r/ /ee/ /d/ to Read). There is no better way to exemplify this than in the following chestnut from Maryanne Wolf'south book Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain.

"I do non think that first moment of knowing I could read, but some of my memories - of a tiny, two-room school with viii grades and 2 teachers - evokes many pieces of what the language expect Anthony Bashir calls the 'natural history' of the reading life. The natural history of reading begins with simple exercises, practices, and accurateness, and ends, if one is lucky, with the tools and the capacity to 'leap into transcendence.'" (Wolf, 2008, p 109)

"My other vivid retention of those days centres on Sister Salesia, trying her utmost to teach the children who couldn't seem to learn to read. I watched her listening patiently to these children's torturous attempts during the school day, and so all over once more later on school, 1 child at a fourth dimension ... My best friend, Jim, ... looked like a stake version of himself, haltingly coming up with the alphabetic character sounds Sis Salesia asked for. It turned my world topsy-turvy to encounter this indomitable boy so unsure of himself. For at to the lowest degree a yr they worked quietly and determinedly afterwards school concluded." (Wolf, 2008, p 111 - 112)

Stage 1: The Emergent Pre-reader (typically between 6 months to vi years quondam)(dorsum to acme)

"The emergent pre-reader sits on 'beloved laps,' samples and learns from a total range of multiple sounds, words, concepts, images, stories, exposure to print, literacy materials, and just plain talk during the first five years of life. The major insight in this flow is that reading never just happens to anyone. Emerging reading arises out of years of perceptions, increasing conceptual and social development, and cumulative exposures to oral and written language." (Wolf, 2008, p 115)

"Although each of the sensory and motor regions is myelinated and functions independently before a person is five years of historic period, the principal regions of the encephalon that underlie our ability to integrate visual, exact, and auditory information rapidly -- like the angular gyrus -- are not fully myelinated in most humans until five years of historic period and later on ...What nosotros conclude from this research is that the many efforts to teach a child to read before 4 or v years of age are biologically precipitate and potentially counterproductive for many children." (Wolf, 2008, p 94 - 96)

By the cease of this stage, the child "pretends" to read, tin can - over time - retell a story when looking at pages of book previously read to him/her, can names letters of alphabet; can recognises some signs; can prints own proper noun; and plays with books, pencils and paper. The child acquires skills by being dialogically read to past an adult (or older child) who responds to the child'southward questions and who warmly appreciates the kid's involvement in books and reading. The child empathise thousands of words they hear past historic period 6 but can read few if any of them.

(see Stages of Literacy Development for further give-and-take.)

Stage ii: The Novice Reader (typically betwixt 6 to vii years old)(back to top)

In this stage, the child is learning the relationships between letters and sounds and betwixt printed and spoken words. The child starts to read simple text containing high frequency words and phonically regular words, and uses emerging skills and insights to "audio out" new ane-syllable words.  At that place is straight didactics in alphabetic character-sound relations (phonics). The child is being read to on a level above what a child tin can read independently to develop more avant-garde language patterns, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage two, near children can understand upward to 4000 or more than words when heard but tin read about 600.

"Any her literacy environment, whatever her methods of instruction ... the tasks for ... every novice reader begins with learning to decode print and to understand the significant of what has been decoded. To get there, every kid must figure out the alphabetic principle that took our ancestors thousands of years to discover." (Wolf, pg 116)

"The major discovery for a novice reader is ... [the] increasingly consolidated concept that letters connect to sounds of the linguistic communication." (Wolf, pp 117)

"Learning all the grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in decoding comes side by side for her, and this involves one office discovery and many parts hard work. Aiding both are 3 code-cracking capacities: the phonological, orthographic, and the semantic areas of language learning." (Wolf, pp 117)

"Gradually they learn to hear and manipulate the smaller phonemes in syllables and words, and this ability is one of the all-time predictors of a child'south success in learning to read." (Wolf, pp117)

"A useful method for helping novice readers with phoneme awareness and blending involves 'phonological recording.' This may seem to be simply a pretentious term for reading aloud, but 'reading aloud' would be too simple a term for what is really a ii-part dynamic process. Reading aloud underscores for children the relationship between their oral language and their written ane. Information technology provides novice readers with their ain form of self teaching." (Wolf, pp 118)

"Reading out loud too exposes for the teacher and whatsoever listener the strategies and mutual errors typical for a particular child." (Wolf, pp 119)

"In every domain of learning - from riding a bicycle to understanding the concept of death - children develop along a continuum of knowledge, moving from a fractional concept to an established concept." (Wolf, pp 116)

Orthography

"Orthographic development consists of learning the entirety of these visual conventions for depicting a particular language, with its repertoire of common letter patterns and of seemingly irregular usages ... Children learn orthographic conventions one step at a time." (Wolf, pp 120)

"Withal 1 labels it, orthographic development for novice readers requires multiple exposures to impress - practise by any other proper name." (Wolf, pp 120 - 121)

"Explicit learning of common vowel patterns, morpheme units, and varied spelling patterns in English (e.thou. the prickly clusters of consonants that precede many a discussion) aids the work of the visual system." (Wolf, pp 121)

Semantics (vocabulary)

"For some children, knowledge of a word's significant pushes their halting decoding into the real matter." (Wolf, pp 122)

"For thousands of code-swell novice readers ... semantic development plays much more of a role than many advocates of phonics recognise, but far less of a role than advocates of whole language assume." (Wolf, pp 122)

"If the significant of the child'south awkwardly decoded discussion is readily available, his or her utterance has a better chance of existence recognised as a word and also remembered and stored." (Wolf, pp 123)

"Explicit instruction in vocabulary in the classroom addresses some of the problem, but novice readers need to learn much more the surface meaning of a discussion, fifty-fifty for their simple stories. They also need to be knowledge and flexible regarding a discussion'south multiple uses and functions in different contexts." (Wolf, pp 124)

(meet Stages of Literacy Evolution for further word.)

Stage 3: The Decoding Reader (typically between vii - 9 years old)(back to top)

In this phase, the child is reading unproblematic, familiar stories and selections with increasing fluency. This is washed by consolidating the basic decoding elements, sight vocabulary, and meaning in the reading of familiar stories and selections. There is straight instruction in advanced decoding skills besides as broad reading  of familiar, interesting materials. The kid is still being read to at levels to a higher place their own contained reading level to develop language, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage 3, virtually 3000 words can be read and understood and about 9000 are known when heard. Listening is still more constructive than reading.

"If y'all listen to children in the decoder reader phase, you volition 'hear' the difference. Gone are the painful, if exciting pronunciations ... In their place comes the sound of a smoother, more than confident reader on the verge of becoming fluent." (Wolf, pp 127)

"In this phase of semi-fluency, readers need to add at to the lowest degree iii,000 words to what they tin can decode, making the thirty-seven common messages patterns learned earlier are no longer enough. To do this, they demand to be exposed to the next level of common letter patterns and to learn the pesky variations of the vowel-based rimes and vowel pairs." (Wolf, pp 127 - 128)

"In addition, they larn to 'see' the chunks automatically. 'Sight words' add important elements to the achievements of novice readers. 'Sight-chunks' propel semi-fluency in the decoding reader. The faster a child tin can come across that 'beheaded' is be + head + ed, the more likely information technology is that more than fluent word identification will allow the integration of this awful give-and-take." (Wolf, pp 128)

"Fluent discussion recognition is significantly propelled by both vocabulary and grammatical knowledge. The increasingly sophisticated materials that decoding readers are beginning to master are too difficult if the words and their uses are seldom or never encountered by the children." (Wolf, pp 129)

"With each step forward in reading and spelling, children tacitly learn a smashing bargain almost what's within a word -- that is, the stems, roots, prefixes and suffixes that make up the morphemes of our language." (Wolf, pp 129)

"And they begin to see that many words share mutual orthographically displayed roots that convey related meanings despite different pronunciations (east.grand. sign, signer, signed, signing, signature)." (Wolf, pp 129 - 130)

"Fluency is non a thing of speed; information technology is a matter of existence able to employ all the special knowledge a child has about a word -- its messages, letter patterns, meanings, grammatical functions, roots and endings -- fast enough to have time to call up and cover. Everything about a word contributes to how fast it can be read. The point of becoming fluent, therefore, is to read -- actually read -- and understand." (Wolf, pp 130 - 131)

"To be sure, decoding readers are skittish, young, and just beginning to learn how to apply their expanding cognition of linguistic communication and their growing powers of influence to figure out a text. The neuroscientist Laurie Cut of John Hopkins explains some nonlinguistic skills that contribute to the development of reading comprehension in these children: for example, how well they can enlist key executive functions such equally working memory and comprehension skills such as inference and analogy." (Wolf, pp 131)

  • CV: A script you tin can read fluently works on you lot very differently from one that y'all tin can write; but not decipher hands. You can lock your thoughts in this as though in a casket.

"Fluency does not ensure better comprehension; rather, fluency gives extra time to the executive system to direct attending where it is most needed - to infer, to understand, to predict, or sometimes to repair discordant understanding and to translate a meaning afresh." (Wolf, pp 131)

"It is the moment when children showtime learn to go 'beyond the data given.' It is the beginning of what will ultimately be the well-nigh important contribution to the reading encephalon: time to retrieve." (Wolf, pp 132)

"A child in this phase of evolution also needs to know simply that he or she must read a word, sentence, or paragraph a 2nd fourth dimension to understand it correctly. Knowing when to reread a text (e.g. to revise a false interpretation or to get more information) to improve comprehension is office of what [is referred to] equally 'comprehension monitoring.'" (Wolf, pp 132)

"[Information technology] emphasises the importance of the child at this phase of development of a child's being able to change strategies if something does not brand sense, and of a instructor's powerful role in facilitating that change." (Wolf, pp 132)

Bulwark for the Decoding Reader

--- "thirty to 40 percent of children in the fourth grade do not become fluent readers with adequate comprehension ... One nearly invisible issue ... is the fate of immature elementary students who read accurately (the basic goal in nigh reading research) just not fluently in grades three and 4." (Wolf, pp 135)

--- "Reasons ...lend themselves to diagnosis: such as, a poor surroundings, a poor vocabulary, and instruction not matched to their needs. Some of these children become capable decoding readers, but they never read chop-chop enough to comprehend what they read." (Wolf, pp 136)

(see Stages of Literacy Development for further word.)

Stage 4: The Fluent, Comprehending Reader (typically between nine - 15 years old)(back to top)

By this stage, reading is used to acquire new ideas in social club to gain new knowledge, to experience new feelings, to learn new attitudes, and to explore issues from 1 or more than perspectives. Reading includes the study of textbooks, reference works, trade books, newspapers, and magazines that incorporate new ideas and values, unfamiliar vocabulary and syntax. There is a systematic study of word meaning, and learners are guided to react to texts through discussions, answering questions, generating questions, writing, and more. At showtime of Phase 4, listening comprehension of the same material is still more effective than reading comprehension. By the cease of Stage four, reading and listening are about equal for those who read very well, reading may be more than efficient.

"The reader at the stage of fluent comprehending reading builds up collections of knowledge and is poised to learn from every source." (Wolf, pp 136)

"At this time teachers and parents tin be lulled by fluent-sounding reading into thinking that a child understands all the words he or she is reading." (Wolf, p 136)

"Even when a reader comprehends the facts of the content, the goal at this stage is deeper: an increased capacity to employ an understanding of the varied uses of words - irony, vocalism, metaphor, and point of view - to go below the surface of the text." (Wolf, pp 137)

"The world of fantasy presents a conceptually perfect belongings environs for children who are just leaving the more than physical stages of cognitive processing. One of the nearly powerful moments in the reading life ... occurs as fluent, comprehending readers learn to enter into the lives of imagined heroes and heroines." (Wolf pp 138)

"Comprehension processes grow impressively in such places equally these, where children learn to connect prior cognition, predict dire or good consequences ... interpret how each new inkling, revelation, or added piece of noesis changes what they know." (Wolf, pp 138)

"The reading adept Richard Vacca describes the shift as a development from 'fluent decoders' to 'strategic readers' - 'readers who know how to actuate prior knowledge before, during and afterward reading, to decide what'south important in a text, to synthesise information, to depict inferences during and after reading, to inquire questions, and to self-monitor and repair faulty comprehension." (Wolf, pp 138)

"One well-known educational psychologist, Michael Pressley, contends that the two greatest aids to fluent comprehension are explicit education by a child's teachers in major content areas and the child's own desire to read. Engaging in dialogue with their teachers helps students ask themselves critical questions that get to the essence of what they are reading." (Wolf, pp 139)

"Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden, Trabasso, and Basche (2001) studied the furnishings of influential reading comprehension questioning on students in the 4th, seventh, and tenth grades, as well as on college undergraduates. They constitute that questions posed during the reading of the text aided in shifting attending to specific information for older and more skillful readers. However, it interfered with the comprehension of the fourth- and seventh-grade students, who performed better when the questions came after, non during, the reading. (Fisher, Frey & Hattie, 2016, p. 38)

"[This is a] period of growing autonomy and fluent comprehension. The immature person'southward task in this extended fourth phase of reading evolution is to larn to use reading for life -- both inside the classroom, with its growing number of content areas, and outside school, where the reading life becomes a safety environment for exploring the wildly changing thoughts and feelings of youth." (Wolf, pp 140)

(see Stages of Literacy Development for further discussion.)

Stage v: The Proficient Reader (typically from 16 years and older)(back to top)

"All reading begins with attending -- in fact, several kinds of attention. When expert readers expect at a discussion (like 'acquit'), the starting time three cerebral operations are: (1) to disengage from whatever one else is doing; (2) to move our attention to the new focus (pulling ourselves to the text); and (3) to spotlight the new letter of the alphabet and word." (Wolf, pp 145)

"William Stafford expressed the first element in these changes when he wrote how 'a quality of attention' is given to us." (Wolf, pp 156)

"How nosotros nourish to a text changes over time as nosotros learn to read ... more discriminatingly, more sensitively, more associatively." (Wolf, pp 156)

"Cerebral neuroscientist Marcel Just and his inquiry team at Carnegie Mellon hypothesise that when experts make inferences while reading, at that place is a least a 2-stage process in the brain, which includes both the generation of hypotheses and their integration into the reader's noesis about the text." (Wolf, pp 160)

"The degree to which expert reading changes over the course of our adult lives depends largely on what read and how nosotros read it." (Wolf, pp 156)

Past this phase, the learner is reading widely from a wide range of circuitous materials, both expository and narrative, with a multifariousness of viewpoints. Learners are reading widely across the disciplines, include the physical, biological and social sciences every bit well as the humanities, politics and current affairs. Reading comprehension is improve than listening comprehension of materials of difficult content and readability. Learners are regularly asked to program writing and synthesise data into cohesive, coherent texts.

"The end of reading development doesn't exist; the unending story of reading moves e'er forward, leaving the center, the tongue, the word, the author for a new identify from which the 'truth breaks forth, fresh and light-green,' irresolute the brain and the reader every fourth dimension." (Wolf, 2008, p 162)

(see Stages of Literacy Evolution for farther give-and-take.)

References  (dorsum to top)

  • Fisher, D., Frey, Due north., & Hattie, J. (2016). Visible learning for literacy (Grades M-12): Implementing the practices that work best to accelerate educatee learning. Grand Oaks, CA :Corwin Literacy

  • Humphrey, North. (2006). Seeing red: a study in consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

  • Krebs, 5. (2010). The bodily root: seeing aspects and inner experience. In W. Day and V. Krebs (Eds), Seeing Wittgenstein anew. (pp. 120 - 139). Cambridge: Cambridge Academy Press.

  • Van den Broek, P., Tzeng, Y., Risden, K., Trabasso, T., and Basche, P. (2001) Inferential questioning: Furnishings on comprehension of narrative texts as a function of grade and timing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93(3), 521-529.

  • Wittgenstein, L. (1980). Civilisation and value. Translated past Peter Winch. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  • Wolf, Yard. (2008). Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading encephalon. Cambridge: Icon Books.