Parallels between personal and reading development

Module 4: Stages of Reading

Write: What’s the answer? Explain how people grow into readers.

People grow into readers similarly to how they grow themselves. There are building blocks that will help advance development but the path is fluid, there will always be an opportunity for growth and understanding even when knowledge doesn’t develop in the “typical” stages. Reading knowledge and style is influenced by the individual person just as reading knowledge impacts the individual.

Personally, I do not feel there is a single stage model that is a proper “one size fits all” scenario for reading development. There are some stages of reading that are most common during specific age ranges but there is always room for flexibility and revisiting. The first stage of development in reading and personality is sensory or experiential. Mostly, the child is sensing and experimenting through observation and touch at first. This will eventually progress to an exploratory phase where language and phonics are first beginning to be “played” with and experienced.

I feel the stages of reading are similar to Piaget’s Stages of Development.

1. Sense: This stage is similar to the sensorimotor stage because as a reader children are just practicing and becoming familiar with different phonemes and sounds. They are still in a “sensory stage” where they can explore with making sounds but have not (mostly) made connections for written meaning.
2. Symbolize: This is where children start to connect sound and words to symbols. That being first simple symbols like a picture or a sign (physical or ASL) then on to shape, letter, several letters and eventually, a single word. These connections are usually first made based on importance to the self such as learning the letters and sounds in their name before any others. Eventually, as knowledge expands they may make further connections to subjects of higher interest. This is a discovery phase where children are learning the sound-letter meaning connection and may be on the fringes of spelling connection.
3. Concrete thought: In this stage, readers take the fundamental literacy concepts they have learned and manipulate them in logical ways. They will begin to use previous knowledge to continuously build their reading and literacy knowledge to make connections. They may be able to use sound and spelling rules to make words and sentences. Eventually, this can be used to create entire stories. They may start seak out new knowledge on undiscovered and less high-interest topics and expand on their vocabulary.
4. Formal thought: This is where students become the most creative in terms of writing and reading as they are now at the stage of abstract concepts. Students learn to read comprehensively and allow them to build on facts to use for formal, persuasive, or creative writing. Students now consider different viewpoints and research to influence their writing. Eventually, the hope is that they will develop the skills to focus on the most important details of a work in order to think critically and use that information for further learning and works.

These stages happen around the same age but there is some fluidity although some later stages may be very challenging or near impossible if there is no mastery of the beginning stages. The time it takes to reach the stages can have some flexibility in my opinion. This information along with parent and teacher supports are shown in the following poster:

Participate: Make a poster. Define stages and include what students (family) and teachers can do to support each.