How Young is Too Young to Teach Reading?

There are as many products advertising that “your baby can read” as there are educators warning people away from
them. Often, parents and teachers of young children receive conflicting advice. On one hand, they know that the key
to lasting success is teaching academic skills as soon as a child is ready to learn. But on the other hand, they don’t
know when is too early to instill a love of reading.

While it’s perfectly normal for a student to pick up literacy in kindergarten or even first grade, there are some pre-
reading skills that you can nurture early on. Long before school starts, children are already learning abilities like
listening skills or print recognition that will help them learn to read when they’re ready. The earlier parents and
educators can help students develop these skills, the better prepared they’ll be for academic achievement.

Read on to find out how and when children learn fundamental reading abilities, as well as which skills PreK children
are ready to study. Then, discover tips on teaching young children pre-reading skills at home or in the classroom.

Arguments Against PreK Reading in Early Education

To find the best way to teach reading to young children, it’s important to understand the arguments against PreK
literacy. According to traditionalists, children naturally pick up literacy when they’re ready to. For that reason,
opponents to early reading instruction feel that students cannot benefit from books until kindergarten or first grade,
which is the average age children learn to read.[9] Teaching reading strategies before elementary school, in their
opinion, has at best a neutral effect since they feel that their children won’t retain those skills.

Other opponents, however, think that teaching PreK students to read has a negative effect. Not only is it
counterproductive in their perspective, but they worry that it could lead to a learning disability misdiagnosis.[8]
Because young children don’t have the attention span or motivation to handle complex assignments, they may seem
like “slow readers” when their brains just aren’t developed enough to read yet.

These arguments, however, fail to acknowledge how complex reading development is. Literacy isn’t as simple as
picking up a book and learning to decode letters or sentences from scratch. Even in infancy and early childhood,
students pick up skills that ultimately contribute to a stronger reading ability later on. While parents or educators
might not teach PreK children to read, they can teach pre-reading skills that promote kindergarten readiness.

Plus, research suggests that children often don’t develop strong reading skills unless their parents familiarize them
with books at home.[2] The more engaged that families are in their student’s early education, the quicker fluent
literacy will develop when kids do start reading. Simple, daily activities like reading to young children or taking
them to a library are as important to long-term literacy development as formal instruction later on.

When Do Kids Learn to Read?

Over 80% of all elementary school teachers are unfamiliar with reading milestones, but recognizing what they are
and how to teach them can put your child at an advantage.[7] The question “What age do kids learn to read?”
doesn’t have a simple answer since every child is different, but skills that contribute to literacy later on begin
developing as soon as a baby is born. As children learn to communicate and are exposed to books for the first time,
they’re already reaching key child development milestones for reading.

The brain develops quicker than any other time from when a child is born to after they turn three[14]. This is when
babies and toddlers pick up basic language skills by building their vocabulary and understanding of grammar.
During this period, children build these skills so rapidly that it’s considered by many researchers to be one of the
most impressive cognitive feats that the brain performs. And by age three, children have usually mastered the basics
of their language and continue to learn about 5,000 new words per year.[1]
The skills that children learn during these early years and PreK are called metalinguistic skills, or the understanding
of their language on a structural level. Without strong metalinguistic skills, children will not pass all the stages of
literacy development they need to succeed once they begin school. Oral language and literacy are so tightly
connected that, alongside familiarity with books, strengthening one positively affects the other.

The age that children begin to read can depend on a variety of factors, from cognitive development to
socioeconomic differences.[6] Children with ADHD or dyslexia, for example, often have a harder time learning to
read than their peers. Students from low socioeconomic status (SES) homes in particular often enter schools with
lower vocabulary ranges and pre-reading skills. This is not because of any neurological differences but because low
SES students often have fewer resources available to them. Wealthier families, for example, may have more time to
read to their children or take them to library events.

“This is not so much as a vocabulary gap or an achievement gap,” says Dr. Nell Duke, educational professor at the
University of Michigan, “as an opportunity gap.”[15] For that reason, schools and communities can team up to
prevent reading gaps in schools. The more exposure low SES children and students with abilities have to books and
pre-literacy activities, the better families and educators can lessen or prevent reading disorders.

Essential Pre-Reading Skills in Early Childhood Development

Now that you understand how and when reading develops, learning which foundational reading skills a PreK student
is ready to learn can help you create the best curriculum for your child. The definition of pre-reading skills are any
abilities that help children learn to read once they reach kindergarten.

Essential pre-reading skills for young students include:

• Phonological awareness: the ability to recognize words, sounds, or syllables

• Alphabet knowledge: the ability to recognize and name print alphabet letters

• Print recognition: a familiarity with books and ability to hold them correctly

• Phonemic awareness: the ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds within a word

• Critical thinking skills: the ability to analyze a topic and form a unique, informed opinion

• Spoken language fluency: the ability to speak and understand their native language(s) on an oral level

One important distinction in the list above is the difference between phonological awareness vs phonemic
awareness. The definition of phonological awareness is broad and can encompass anything from identifying letters,
sounds, syllables, and words within a sentence. Phonemic awareness is more specific and refers to the ability to
identify and manipulate sounds. Ideally, children should exhibit both of these connected pre-reading skills by the
time they enter kindergarten.

Each of these pre-reading skills are building blocks that make learning to read simpler for young students. Children
who learn alphabetical recognition at a young age, for example, often pick up vocabulary words and learn to spell
correctly at an earlier age.[3] And teaching kids to hear or read stories with critical thinking skills can prepare them
for more complex assignments in later grades. “It’s not that we expect kids to be reading by age five,” explains
educational professor Dr. Nell Duke. “We do not… [but] we expect these underlying understandings about literacy
to have developed at this point.”[15]

The most important factor that determines if students learn these skills by kindergarten is whether parents encourage
it. While students may learn some pre-reading skills on their own, others develop best with parent or teacher
instruction. Around 20-40% of all children, for example, do not learn phonemic awareness on their own.[4] By
reading books to your child and doing literacy activities together, you can encourage them to excel in the classroom
once they reach elementary school.[5]
Benefits of Teaching Reading Skills in PreK Programs

The benefits of reading aloud and teaching pre-reading skills begin at birth. Even in infancy, reading to your baby
can help them develop a positive association toward reading.[14] When children are raised with a love of reading,
they’re more likely to enjoy reading for the intrinsic value and have motivation to learn new topics. Plus, reading
aloud to your student can improve brain development during these critical early years.[11]

Plus, these benefits extend far beyond academic achievement. Students who learn pre-reading skills before
kindergarten often have a stronger sense of curiosity and better listening skills.[16] While these skills can lead to
student success, they can also contribute to better well-being and general quality of life.

In a nutshell, the benefits of teaching pre-reading skills before kindergarten include higher:

• Kindergarten readiness

• Brain development

• Curiosity

• Intrinsic love of reading

• Listening skills

At least 40% of the entire population has a significant enough reading problem to inhibit their enjoyment.[4] If these
difficulties aren’t caught by early elementary, they’re more likely to persist throughout a person’s entire life. But
children who do learn pre-literacy skills develop strong literacy skills and excel in their academic careers, especially
in comparison to non-early readers.[13] PreK and kindergarten are a critical “window of opportunity” for when to
teach kids to read, and any instruction during this period can prevent issues later on.

How to Teach Early Reading Skills to PreK Children

Whether you’re a PreK teacher or a parent, you can help children build essential pre-reading skills before they start
elementary school. With the right pre-reading strategies, any child can be prepared for long-term student success.

se these five tips for teaching reading to children to help your student learn essential concepts in a developmentally-
appropriate way:

• Take your child to the library regularly to help them develop print recognition. To encourage an early love
of reading, let them choose their own books to take home

• Teach PreK children all twenty-six letter names and print symbols. Students are more likely to succeed in
elementary school if they know letter names before kindergarten[10]

• To encourage phonological awareness, point to letters in a book or on a sign and ask your child to tell you
what sound it makes[4]

• Young children can have small attention spans that make long reading sessions difficult–instead, try
planning short, daily reading activities together. You could, for example, read one or two picture books
together or attend a PreK library event[6]

• Ask “big picture questions” while reading aloud to children to promote critical thinking skills. While
reading a fairy tale picture book, for example, you could ask, “Why do you think the queen is so mean to
Snow White? What would you do if you were her?”[5]

Sources:
Miller, G.A., and Gildea, P.M. How Children Learn Words. Scientific American, September 1987, 257(3), pp. 94-
99.[1]

Winner, E. Gifted Children. Different Strokes, 2012, pp. 75-81.[2]

Ehri, L.C. Learning to Read Words: Theory, Findings, and Issues. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2005, 9, pp. 167-
88.[3]

Grossen, B. 30 Years of Research: What We Now Know About How Children Learn To Read. Center for the Future
of Teaching and Learning, 1997, pp. 1-22.[4]

Bailey, N.M. Teaching Reading Skills. Retrieved from www.canisus.edu:

http://www3.canisius.edu/~justice/CSTmodule-final/CSTmodule-final3.html.[5]

Rose, J. Independent review of the teaching of early reading. Investor in People Department for Education and
Skills, March 2006, pp. 1-240.[6]

Joshi, R.M., Binks, E., and Hougen, M. Why Elementary Teachers Might Be Inadequately Prepared to Teach
Reading. Journal of Learning Disabilities, June 2009, 42(5).[7]

Strauss, V. Why pushing kids to learn too much too soon is counterproductive. Retrieved from
www.washingtonpost.com: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/08/17/why-pushing-kids-
to-learn-too-much-too-soon-is-counterproductive/?utm_term=.26e963b6c874.[8]

Elkind, D. Too Much Too Early. Retrieved from www.educationnext.org: https://www.educationnext.org/much-too-

early/.[9]

American Academy of Family Physicians. Early Childhood Literacy. Retrieved from aafp.org:
https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-of-health/child-literacy.html.[10]

American Association of Pediatrics. Evidence Supporting Early Literacy and Early Learning. Retrieved from
aap.org: https://www.aap.org/en-us/literacy/Literacy/For-Professionals/Evidence-Supporting-Early-Literacy-and-
Early-Learning/booksbuildconnections_evidencesupportingearlyliteracyandearlylearning.pdf.[11]

American Academy of Family Physicians. Early Childhood Literacy. Retrieved from aafp.org:
https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-of-health/child-literacy.html.[12]

The Libra Foundation. Why is Early Literacy Important? Retrieved from aafp.org:
https://www.raisingreaders.org/understanding-early-literacy/why-is-early-literacy-important/.[13]

Scholastic Corporation. Early Literacy. Retrieved from scholastic.com:

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/face/pdf/research-compendium/early-literacy.pdf.[14]

Jacobs, L., and Duke, N.K. Pre-K Comprehension Development & Instruction for Ed Equity and Learning. EduTalk
Radio, August 2018.[15]

American Academy of Family Physicians. Early Childhood Literacy. Retrieved from aafp.org:
https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-of-health/child-literacy.html.[16]

https://www.waterford.org/education/how-young-is-too-young-to-teach-reading/
 Stages of Emerging Literacy

Literacy is not something that just happens. One does not wake up literate nor does one become literate in the same
way that one learns to walk. It is not intuited from the environment nor is it simply a matter of physical
maturation. Literacy learning requires instruction and practice, and this learning occurs across discrete stages. The
following notes explore the five stages of reading development as 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 6 to 7 years old);

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

• the fluent, comprehending reader (typically between 9 - 15 years old); and

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

Please explore, and also visit the Stages of Literacy Development page for a more detailed discussion. Before we
begin with the stages, there are two preliminary notes to make.

Preliminary Note #1: “As every teacher knows, emotional engagement is the tipping point between leaping into
the reading life ... An enormously important influence on the development of comprehension in childhood is what
happens after we remember, predict, and infer: we feel, we identify, and in the the process we understand more fully
and can’t wait to turn the page. The child ... often needs heartfelt encouragement from teachers, tutors and parents to
make a stab at more difficult reading material.” (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 meaning and
correspondence.” (Krebs, 2010, pg 138)

Preliminary Note #2: Across this lengthy period of development, leaners are required to consolidate certain skills
only to encounter new challenges. The one rule that applies equally is as follows: “Experts [agree] that readers, no
matter which reading philosophy is followed, have to practice, practice, practice.” (You Need /r/ /ee/ /d/ to Read).
There is no better way to exemplify this than in the following anecdote from Maryanne Wolf's book Proust and the
squid: the story and science of the reading brain.

“I do not remember that first moment of knowing I could read, but some of my memories - of a tiny, two-room
school with eight grades and two 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 ‘leap into transcendence.’” (Wolf, 2008, p 109)

“My other vivid memory 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 then all over again after school, one child at a time ... My best friend, Jim, ... looked like a pale
version of himself, haltingly coming up with the letter sounds Sister Salesia asked for. It turned my world topsy-
turvy to see this indomitable boy so unsure of himself. For at least a year they worked quietly and determinedly after
school ended.” (Wolf, 2008, p 111 - 112)

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

“The emergent pre-reader sits on ‘beloved laps,’ samples and learns from a full 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 period 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 age, the principal regions of the brain that underlie our ability to integrate visual, verbal, and auditory
information rapidly -- like the angular gyrus -- are not fully myelinated in most humans until five years of age and
after ...What we conclude from this research is that the many efforts to teach a child to read before 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 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 name; and
plays with books, pencils and paper. The child acquires skills by being dialogically read to by an adult (or older
child) who responds to the child’s questions and who warmly appreciates the child’s interest in books and reading.
The child understand thousands of words they hear by age 6 but can read few if any of them.

Stage 2: The Novice Reader (typically between 6 to 7 years old) (back to top)

In this stage, the child is learning the relationships between letters 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 direct instruction in letter-sound
relations (phonics). The child is being read to on a level above what a child can read independently to develop more
advanced language patterns, vocabulary and concepts. In late Stage 2, most children can understand up to 4000 or
more words when heard but can read about 600.

Whatever her literacy environment, whatever her methods of instruction ... the tasks for ... every novice reader
begins with learning to decode print and to understand the meaning 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 letters connect to sounds
of the language.” (Wolf, pp 117)

“Learning all the grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules in decoding comes next for her, and this involves one
part discovery and many parts hard work. Aiding both are three 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 best predictors of a child’s 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 just a pretentious term for reading aloud, but ‘reading aloud’ would be too simple a
term for what is really a two-part dynamic process. Reading aloud underscores for children the relationship between
their oral language and their written one. 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 death - 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 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)
“However one labels it, orthographic development for novice readers requires multiple exposures to print - practice
by any other name.” (Wolf, pp 120 - 121)

“Explicit learning of common vowel patterns, morpheme units, and varied spelling patterns in English (e.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 thing.” (Wolf, pp
122)

“For thousands of code-cracking 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 meaning of the child’s awkwardly decoded word is readily available, his or her utterance has a better chance
of being 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 than the surface meaning of a word, even for their simple stories. They also need to be knowledge and
flexible regarding a word’s multiple uses and functions in different contexts.” (Wolf, pp 124)

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

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 meaning in the reading of familiar stories and
selections. There is direct instruction in advanced 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 can be read and understood and about 9000 are known
when heard. Listening is still more effective than reading.

“If you listen to children in the decoder reader phase, you will ‘hear’ the difference. Gone are the painful, if exciting
pronunciations ... In their place comes the sound of a smoother, more confident reader on the verge of becoming
fluent.” (Wolf, pp 127)

“In this phase of semi-fluency, readers need to add at least 3,000 words to what they can decode, making the thirty-
seven common letters patterns learned earlier are no longer enough. To do this, they need 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 learn 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 can see that
‘beheaded’ is be + head + ed, the more likely it is that more fluent word identification will allow the integration of
this awful word.” (Wolf, pp 128)

“Fluent word 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 great deal about what’s inside 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 common orthographically displayed roots that convey related
meanings despite different pronunciations (e.g. sign, signer, signed, signing, signature).” (Wolf, pp 129 - 130)
“Fluency is not a matter of speed; it is a matter of being able to utilise all the special knowledge a child has about a
word -- its letters, letter patterns, meanings, grammatical functions, roots and endings -- fast enough to have time to
think and comprehend. Everything about a word contributes to how fast it can be read. The point of becoming
fluent, therefore, is to read -- really read -- and understand.” (Wolf, pp 130 - 131)

“To be sure, decoding readers are skittish, young, and just beginning 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 can enlist key executive functions such as working memory and
comprehension skills such as inference and analogy.” (Wolf, pp 131)

• CV: A script you can read fluently works on you very differently from one that you can write; but not
decipher easily. 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
attention where it is most needed - to infer, to understand, to predict, or sometimes to repair discordant
understanding and to interpret a meaning afresh.” (Wolf, pp 131)

“It is the moment when children first learn to go ‘beyond the information given.’ It is the beginning of what will
ultimately be the most important contribution to the reading brain: time to think.” (Wolf, pp 132)

“A child in this phase of development also needs to know simply that he or she must read a word, sentence, or
paragraph a second time 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 part of what [is referred to] as
‘comprehension monitoring.’” (Wolf, pp 132)

“[It] emphasises the importance of the child at this phase of development of a child’s being able to change strategies
if something does not make sense, and of a teacher’s powerful role in facilitating that change.” (Wolf, pp 132)

Barrier for the Decoding Reader

--- “30 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 young elementary students who read accurately (the basic goal in most
reading research) but not fluently in grades 3 and 4.” (Wolf, pp 135)

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

Stage 4: The Fluent, Comprehending Reader (typically between 9 - 15 years old) (back to top)

By this stage, reading is used to learn new ideas in order to gain new knowledge, to experience new feelings, to
learn new attitudes, and to explore issues from one or more perspectives. Reading includes the study of textbooks,
reference works, trade books, newspapers, and magazines that contain 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 beginning of Stage 4, listening
comprehension of the same material is still more effective than reading comprehension. By the end of Stage 4,
reading and listening are about equal for those who read very well, reading may be more 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 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
apply an understanding of the varied uses of words - irony, voice, metaphor, and point of view - to go below the
surface of the text.” (Wolf, pp 137)

“The world of fantasy presents a conceptually perfect holding environment for children who are just leaving the
more concrete stages of cognitive processing. One of the most 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 learn to connect prior
knowledge, predict dire or good consequences ... interpret how each new clue, revelation, or added piece of
knowledge changes what they know.” (Wolf, pp 138)

“The reading expert Richard Vacca describes the shift as a development from ‘fluent decoders’ to ‘strategic readers’
- ‘readers who know how to activate prior knowledge before, during and after reading, to decide what’s important in
a text, to synthesise information, to draw inferences during and after reading, to ask 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 instruction 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 effects of influential reading
comprehension questioning on students in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, as well as on college
undergraduates. They found that questions posed during the reading of the text aided in shifting attention to specific
information for older and more proficient readers. However, 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 fourth
phase of reading development is to learn 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 safe environment for exploring the wildly
changing thoughts and feelings of youth.” (Wolf, pp 140)

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

“All reading begins with attention -- in fact, several kinds of attention. When expert readers look at a word (like
‘bear’), the first three cognitive 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 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 we attend to a text changes over time as we learn to read ... more discriminatingly, more sensitively, more
associatively.” (Wolf, pp 156)

“Cognitive neuroscientist Marcel Just and his research team at Carnegie Mellon hypothesise that when experts make
inferences while reading, there is a least a two-stage process in the brain, which includes both the generation of
hypotheses and their integration into the reader’s 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)
By this stage, 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 as well as the humanities, politics and current affairs. Reading comprehension is better than listening
comprehension of materials of difficult content and readability. Learners are regularly asked to plan writing and
synthesise information into cohesive, coherent texts.

“The end of reading development doesn’t exist; the unending story of reading moves ever forward, leaving the eye,
the tongue, the word, the author for a new place from which the ‘truth breaks forth, fresh and green,’ changing the
brain and the reader every time.” (Wolf, 2008, p 162)

References

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

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