"[In] a developmental theory, literacy is not a single skill that simply gets better ... Being literate is very different for the skilled start grader, fourth grader, high school student, and adult, and the furnishings of school experiences can be quite unlike at unlike points in a child's development."
— Catherine Snow, et al, 1991, pg 9

Literacy is not something that just happens. One does not wake upward literate nor does one become literate in the same mode that ane learns to walk. Information technology is not intuited from the surroundings 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 evolution equally proposed by Maryanne Wolf (2008) in her book Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain.These five stages are:

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

  • the novice reader (typically between half-dozen to 7 years old);

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

  • the fluent, comprehending reader (typically between 9 - xv years sometime); and

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

Please explore, and as well visit the Stages of Literacy Development page for a more detailed discussion. Before nosotros begin with the stages, there are two preliminary notes to brand.

Preliminary Note #ane: "As every teacher knows, emotional appointment is the tipping bespeak between leaping into the reading life ... An enormously important influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what happens after we think, predict, and infer: nosotros feel, we identify, and in the the process we sympathise more fully and tin't wait to plough the folio. The child ... often needs heartfelt encouragement from teachers, tutors and parents to brand 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 commitment words begin to show other manners of signification beyond the realm of literal significant and correspondence." (Krebs, 2010, pg 138)

Preliminary Annotation #2:Beyond this lengthy catamenia of development, leaners are required to consolidate certain skills only to encounter new challenges. The ane rule that applies every bit is equally follows: "Experts [concord] that readers, no thing which reading philosophy is followed, have to exercise, practice, do." (You Need /r/ /ee/ /d/ to Read). There is no improve way to exemplify this than in the following anecdote from Maryanne Wolf'south book Proust and the squid: the story and science of the reading brain.

"I do not remember that commencement moment of knowing I could read, only some of my memories - of a tiny, two-room school with eight 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 accuracy, and ends, if one is lucky, with the tools and the capacity to 'spring into transcendence.'" (Wolf, 2008, p 109)

"My other vivid retentiveness of those days centres on Sis 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 after school, one child at a time ... My best friend, Jim, ... looked similar a stake version of himself, haltingly coming upwardly with the letter of the alphabet sounds Sister Salesia asked for. It turned my world topsy-turvy to come across this indomitable male child and so unsure of himself. For at to the lowest degree a year they worked quietly and determinedly afterward school ended." (Wolf, 2008, p 111 - 112)

Stage 1: The Emergent Pre-reader (typically betwixt 6 months to 6 years quondam)(back to top)

"The emergent pre-reader sits on 'dearest laps,' samples and learns from a full range of multiple sounds, words, concepts, images, stories, exposure to print, literacy materials, and only manifestly talk during the showtime 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 linguistic communication." (Wolf, 2008, p 115)

"Although each of the sensory and motor regions is myelinated and functions independently before a person is v years of age, the principal regions of the brain that underlie our ability to integrate visual, verbal, and auditory information rapidly -- similar the angular gyrus -- are non fully myelinated in well-nigh humans until 5 years of age and after ...What nosotros conclude from this research is that the many efforts to teach a child to read earlier four or five years of age are biologically precipitate and potentially counterproductive for many children." (Wolf, 2008, p 94 - 96)

By the end of this stage, the child "pretends" to read, can - over fourth dimension - retell a story when looking at pages of volume previously read to him/her, can names messages of alphabet; can recognises some signs; tin prints ain proper noun; and plays with books, pencils and paper. The child acquires skills by beingness dialogically read to by an developed (or older child) who responds to the kid's questions and who warmly appreciates the child'southward interest in books and reading. The child sympathize thousands of words they hear by age 6 just can read few if any of them.

(run across Stages of Literacy Development for farther discussion.)

Stage 2: The Novice Reader (typically between vi to 7 years quondam)(back to top)

In this stage, the child is learning the relationships between messages and sounds and between 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 "sound out" new one-syllable words.  There is straight instruction in letter-sound relations (phonics). The child is being read to on a level above what a child tin read independently to develop more advanced language patterns, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage 2, virtually children can empathize up to 4000 or more than words when heard simply tin read about 600.

"Whatever her literacy environment, whatsoever her methods of instruction ... the tasks for ... every novice reader begins with learning to decode impress and to sympathize the significant of what has been decoded. To get there, every child 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 messages connect to sounds of the linguistic communication." (Wolf, pp 117)

"Learning all the grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in decoding comes next for her, and this involves 1 part discovery and many parts hard work. Aiding both are three lawmaking-keen 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 ane of the best predictors of a kid'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 exist simply a pretentious term for reading aloud, simply 'reading aloud' would exist too simple a term for what is really a 2-part dynamic process. Reading aloud underscores for children the relationship between their oral linguistic communication and their written i. It provides novice readers with their own form of self teaching." (Wolf, pp 118)

"Reading out loud also exposes for the teacher and any listener the strategies and common errors typical for a particular child." (Wolf, pp 119)

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

Orthography

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

"Even so one labels it, orthographic evolution for novice readers requires multiple exposures to print - practice by whatever other name." (Wolf, pp 120 - 121)

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

Semantics (vocabulary)

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

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

"If the pregnant of the kid'southward awkwardly decoded word is readily available, his or her utterance has a better take chances of being recognised as a word and too remembered and stored." (Wolf, pp 123)

"Explicit education in vocabulary in the classroom addresses some of the trouble, but novice readers need to acquire much more than the surface meaning of a discussion, even for their simple stories. They also need to be cognition and flexible regarding a word'south multiple uses and functions in different contexts." (Wolf, pp 124)

(run into Stages of Literacy Development for farther discussion.)

Stage 3: The Decoding Reader (typically between 7 - 9 years old)(back to peak)

In this stage, the child is reading simple, familiar stories and selections with increasing fluency. This is done by consolidating the basic decoding elements, sight vocabulary, and pregnant in the reading of familiar stories and selections. There is direct pedagogy in avant-garde decoding skills as well as wide reading  of familiar, interesting materials. The child is still being read to at levels above their own independent reading level to develop language, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage 3, about 3000 words tin can be read and understood and nearly 9000 are known when heard. Listening is even so more effective than reading.

"If yous listen to children in the decoder reader stage, you will 'hear' the divergence. Gone are the painful, if exciting pronunciations ... In their place comes the sound of a smoother, more confident reader on the verge of condign fluent." (Wolf, pp 127)

"In this phase of semi-fluency, readers demand to add together at to the lowest degree 3,000 words to what they can decode, making the thirty-vii mutual letters patterns learned earlier are no longer enough. To do this, they need to be exposed to the next level of common letter of the alphabet patterns and to larn the pesky variations of the vowel-based rimes and vowel pairs." (Wolf, pp 127 - 128)

"In addition, they learn to 'run across' the chunks automatically. 'Sight words' add together of import 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 fluent word identification will allow the integration of this awful discussion." (Wolf, pp 128)

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

"With each footstep frontward in reading and spelling, children tacitly larn a great deal almost what's inside a discussion -- 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 common orthographically displayed roots that convey related meanings despite different pronunciations (e.g. sign, signer, signed, signing, signature)." (Wolf, pp 129 - 130)

"Fluency is non a thing of speed; it is a affair of beingness able to utilise all the special cognition a kid has most a word -- its messages, letter patterns, meanings, grammatical functions, roots and endings -- fast plenty to take time to call up and comprehend. Everything about a give-and-take contributes to how fast information technology 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, immature, and only first to learn how to use their expanding knowledge of language and their growing powers of influence to figure out a text. The neuroscientist Laurie Cutting of John Hopkins explains some nonlinguistic skills that contribute to the development of reading comprehension in these children: for example, how well they tin enlist key executive functions such as working retentivity and comprehension skills such as inference and analogy." (Wolf, pp 131)

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

"Fluency does not ensure ameliorate comprehension; rather, fluency gives extra time to the executive system to directly attending where information technology is nigh needed - to infer, to empathise, to predict, or sometimes to repair discordant understanding and to interpret a meaning afresh." (Wolf, pp 131)

"It is the moment when children first larn to go 'beyond the information given.' It is the beginning of what volition ultimately be the most important contribution to the reading brain: time to think." (Wolf, pp 132)

"A kid in this stage of development also needs to know merely that he or she must read a word, sentence, or paragraph a second time to sympathise information technology correctly. Knowing when to reread a text (e.g. to revise a false interpretation or to go more than information) to improve comprehension is role of what [is referred to] as 'comprehension monitoring.'" (Wolf, pp 132)

"[It] emphasises the importance of the child at this stage of evolution of a child's existence able to alter strategies if something does not make sense, and of a teacher's powerful role in facilitating that alter." (Wolf, pp 132)

Barrier for the Decoding Reader

--- "thirty to 40 pct of children in the fourth grade do not become fluent readers with adequate comprehension ... Ane about invisible consequence ... is the fate of young uncomplicated students who read accurately (the bones goal in most reading research) but non fluently in grades 3 and 4." (Wolf, pp 135)

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

(encounter Stages of Literacy Evolution for further give-and-take.)

Stage iv: The Fluent, Comprehending Reader (typically between 9 - 15 years old)(back to summit)

By this stage, reading is used to larn new ideas in order to gain new knowledge, to experience new feelings, to learn new attitudes, and to explore issues from one or more than perspectives. Reading includes the study of textbooks, reference works, trade books, newspapers, and magazines that contain new ideas and values, unfamiliar vocabulary and syntax. In that location is a systematic written report of word meaning, and learners are guided to react to texts through discussions, answering questions, generating questions, writing, and more. At start of Phase 4, listening comprehension of the aforementioned material is still more constructive than reading comprehension. By the end of Stage 4, reading and listening are virtually equal for those who read very well, reading may be more efficient.

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

"At this time teachers and parents tin can 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 use an understanding of the varied uses of words - irony, vocalization, metaphor, and signal of view - to go below the surface of the text." (Wolf, pp 137)

"The globe of fantasy presents a conceptually perfect holding environment for children who are just leaving the more concrete 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 as these, where children acquire to connect prior knowledge, predict dire or good consequences ... interpret how each new clue, revelation, or added slice of knowledge changes what they know." (Wolf, pp 138)

"The reading adept Richard Vacca describes the shift equally a development from 'fluent decoders' to 'strategic readers' - 'readers who know how to actuate prior noesis before, during and after reading, to determine what's important in a text, to synthesise information, to draw inferences during and afterward reading, to enquire 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 past a kid'south teachers in major content areas and the child's own want to read. Engaging in dialogue with their teachers helps students ask themselves disquisitional 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 effects of influential reading comprehension questioning on students in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, every bit well as on college undergraduates. They institute that questions posed during the reading of the text aided in shifting attending to specific information for older and more good readers. Nonetheless, it interfered with the comprehension of the fourth- and seventh-grade students, who performed better when the questions came after, not during, the reading. (Fisher, Frey & Hattie, 2016, p. 38)

"[This is a] period of growing autonomy and fluent comprehension. The young person's task in this extended quaternary phase of reading development is to learn to utilise reading for life -- both inside the classroom, with its growing number of content areas, and outside school, where the reading life becomes a condom environment for exploring the wildly changing thoughts and feelings of youth." (Wolf, pp 140)

(see Stages of Literacy Development for further discussion.)

Stage 5: The Expert Reader (typically from 16 years and older)(back to peak)

"All reading begins with attention -- in fact, several kinds of attention. When skillful readers look at a word (similar 'bear'), the first three cognitive operations are: (ane) to disengage from whatsoever one else is doing; (2) to move our attending to the new focus (pulling ourselves to the text); and (3) to spotlight the new letter and discussion." (Wolf, pp 145)

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

"How nosotros attend to a text changes over time every bit we learn to read ... more than discriminatingly, more sensitively, more associatively." (Wolf, pp 156)

"Cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Simply and his research squad at Carnegie Mellon hypothesise that when experts brand inferences while reading, there is a least a two-phase process in the brain, which includes both the generation of hypotheses and their integration into the reader'southward knowledge 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 we read it." (Wolf, pp 156)

Past this phase, the learner is reading widely from a broad range of complex materials, both expository and narrative, with a variety of viewpoints. Learners are reading widely across the disciplines, include the physical, biological and social sciences also equally the humanities, politics and electric current affairs. Reading comprehension is better than listening comprehension of materials of hard content and readability. Learners are regularly asked to plan writing and synthesise data into cohesive, coherent texts.

"The end of reading development doesn't exist; the unending story of reading moves ever frontward, leaving the centre, the natural language, the word, the writer for a new place from which the 'truth breaks along, fresh and greenish,' irresolute the brain and the reader every time." (Wolf, 2008, p 162)

(see Stages of Literacy Development for further discussion.)

References  (back to top)

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

  • Humphrey, N. (2006). Seeing red: a written report in consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

  • Krebs, 5. (2010). The actual root: seeing aspects and inner feel. In W. Twenty-four hour period and Five. Krebs (Eds), Seeing Wittgenstein anew. (pp. 120 - 139). Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing.

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

  • Wittgenstein, 50. (1980). Culture and value. Translated by Peter Winch. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

  • Wolf, Thou. (2008). Proust and the squid: the story and scientific discipline of the reading brain. Cambridge: Icon Books.