Chapter 14: Phases of Word Learning: Implications for Instruction With Delayed and Disabled Readers by Linnea C. Ehri and Sandra McCormick

· Important to distinguish between learner processes and teacher methods, because the two are often confused
o Phonics is a process of learning while worksheets and skill and drill are examples of methods of teaching.
· Chall, Ehri, and other researchers proposed distinguishing phases through which all readers pass in their development from pre-reading to skilled reading.
· This article specifically looks at the schemes that portray the development of word-reading processes and their instructional implications for students who have word identification difficulties.
· Information about word learning process can assist teachers by helping them understand and interpret word-reading behaviors in problem readers that are atypical or bizarre. Behaviors that less skilled readers may exhibit at a less skilled stage of development
· Ways mature readers read words
1. Decoding allows unfamiliar words to be read
2. Analogy reading unfamiliar words that contains the same spelling as an already known word (fountain to mountain)
3. Prediction guessing words in context by clues in the beginning of the word, around the word, etc. Not always able to be used in text as content words cannot be guessed very accurately
4. Sight- Uses memory to read words that have been read before. Spelling, pronunciation, and meaning are automatically activated. Especially useful in reading text, since process occurs automatically, the reader can focus on content of text.
· The traditional view holds that readers memorize connections between the words’ visual shape and their meanings. Ehri felt this was incorrect. Her findings indicate that readers learn sight words by connections made with the reader’s general knowledge of the grapheme-phoneme correspondences found in many word.
· Phases of Word Learning
1. The pre-alphabetic Phase- portrays preschoolers or older severely disabled readers with little working knowledge of the alphabetic system
§ Child does not use alphabetic knowledge and therefore not able to decode. They are limited to reading words from memory (sight words) or guessing words from context.
§ Also known as the selective cue stage (Juel, 1991) or the logographic stage (Ehri 1991l Frith 1985)
§ Behaviors at this stage
· Visual cue reading (environmental reading)
· Trouble reading words without context clues such as pictures or logos
· Students may select meaning-bearing cues but sounds are not linked to letters and therefore do not constrain how meaning is labeled. Sound of given letter combination does not always relate to other words with the same combination (book, moon, spool)
· Pretend reading
· Guessing from context cues
§ Skills needed
· Word study
· Phonemic Awareness-crucial precursor to developing grapheme-phoneme relations
2. The partial-alphabetic phase- portrays kindergarteners, novice first graders and older disabled readers who have a rudimentary working knowledge of the alphabetic system but are lack full knowledge, particularly vowel knowledge.
§ Read by sight using a combination of partial alphabetic knowledge and guessing
§ Students are weak in decoding and reading words by analogy because both strategies require more alphabetic knowledge than they possess.
§ Also called visual recognition stage or rudimentary alphabetic stage because some letters in words can be matched to sound
§ Behavior of the Reader
· Use of partial-alphabetic knowledge in combination with context cues to guess the identities of unfamiliar words
· Reading words backwards do not have strong left to right orientation
· Remember words by sight more easily than previous phase
· Know most consonants and “soft” sounds of c and g, still struggle with the name of Y and glottal glide sounds.
· Decoding strategies are not available for unfamiliar words
§ Instructional Implications to help produce full alphabetic knowledge
· Explicit instruction in letter-sound correspondences linking the correspondence to their occurrence in words
· Appropriate phonics instruction
· Engage in writing (invented spelling)
o Looking at a student’s invented spelling can tell you where they are having trouble
· Goal is to expand grapheme-phoneme relations for writing and reading
3. The full alphabetic-phase- portrays first grade students and beyond who have working knowledge of the major grapheme-phoneme units in English
· Characterization of learner
· Possession of major grapheme-phoneme correspondences and phonemic awareness which provides ability to decode unfamiliar words
· At first, decoding operations are executed slowly and increase over time through practice creating a sizable growth of sight word vocabulary
· Ability to read unknown words by analogy to known words they can read by sight
· Initially, text reading is slow and laborious even though students know most grapheme-phoneme relations
· Implications for Instruction
· Practice is Key
· Teach syllabication and onset and rime strategies
· Important for students to read words in connected text combining graphophoonic processing with comprehension.
· Use of a prediction strategy as confirmation to the accuracy of other strategies when identifying words.
4. The consolidated alphabetic phase- portrays students (usually second grade through eighth grade) that have working knowledge of graphophonic relations. At this phase, reading is faster and more fluent.
· Begins during the previous phase since they have used this knowledge to build a sizable sight vocabulary.
· Also known as the orthographic phase since the focus is on spelling patterns.
· Word learning maturity occurs through
1. learning about chunking
2. The first spellings to be consolidated occur most frequently in children’s texts.
3. Sight vocabularies continue to grow as connections between chunks can be made
4. If the analogy strategy has been learned, recognition of spelling patterns is easier
5. Decoding strategies are expanded to include hierarchal decoding and sequential decoding
· Instruction Implications
o As students work on analogy, teacher prompting should become less and less
o Practice breaking words into syllables
o Segmenting spelling patterns into syllables and pronouncing them helps with decoding unfamiliar words and analysis of lengthy words whose identities have already been determined.
o Word study work leads to learning about morphology study
5. The automatic alphabetic phase- portrays mature readers who recognize words in text automatically by sight and are automatic in applying the various strategies to attack unfamiliar words.
· Proficient word reading has been accomplished