The developmental pathway

How do readers gradually learn to do these things? Our model suggests that they gradually learn to:

• Read words and to learn ways to read novel words
• Read sentences and to understand them in a literal way
• Understand the conceptual network that is coded in the text
• Comprehend the main ideas in the text
• Understand why the author wrote the text, the message the writer wants to convey.

The pathway to learning to read begins early. Let us first look at some of the early types of knowledge that contribute to learning to read.

Pre-literate developments Prior to learning to read, children learn a number of key capacities that allows them to gradually learn to read. They

• build and store meanings, how words and groups of words are said and used.
• express intentions in 'mini-sentences' that are contextually anchored.
• become aware of the concept of a word and begin to build a bank of words.
  

  how words are said; their phonological properties	what words mean; their semantic properties
  "cat"	drinks milk, purrs, chases mice,

• develop phonological knowledge, use sound patterns in words, play with rhyme, predict words, segment spoken words into onset and rime, eg., segment "flip" into "fl" + "ip".
• begin to play with writing, learn to write individual letters, particularly upper case.
• learn how to order and sequence words in sentences, that is, grammar.

These pre-literate linguistic developments are shown in the following diagram.

Developing literacy knowledge

In terms of our model of literacy, students gradually develop knowledge at the following levels

• word level
• sentence level
• conceptual level
• topic level
• dispositional level

At each level students

• gradually build a knowledge of structural text features, the 'whats' or the conventions of writing that they learn to interpret.
• Gradually learn reading strategies or actions that they can use to link the ideas in the text and match it with what they know. This can referred to as their 'how to' knowledge.
• Become aware of the value of working at each level. This is the reader's beliefs about text processing at each level.

Learning to read words

Children need to develop phonological knowledge to read words. In order to learn to read words in these ways, students need to develop phonological knowledge. The order in which they learn this knowledge is shown in the following developmental sequence.

You can use this developmental sequence to

• Locate any student in the sequence
• See what to teach next

Learning sentence comprehension processes. Readers learn gradually to read sentences. They show that they develop 'templates'; for making sense of strings of words that are sentences. Their sentence level knowledge also develops gradually in three areas:

• Grammar and sentence propositions
• verbal short-term working memory
• strategies such as visualising and paraphrasing

Developments in these areas provide the basis for sentence level comprehension.

Learning concept level and topic level processes As students develop intellectually they modify their understanding of concepts and conceptual relationships. This provides them with conceptual networks for comprehending what they read. These networks are organised into topics or themes.

As students develop

• They learn gradually new ways of thinking about concepts and ways of reasoning
• They learn new links between concepts in their networks of meanings.
• Their networks of meanings is gradually modified (or 'programmed') by their experiences.
• They develop particular 'cognitive styles'; these are the characteristic ways in which they make sense of information they experience, using what they know.

The conceptual networks that students have formed provide them with the thinking space or working memory for thinking about ideas.

Learning to manage the reading activity

Readers learn gradually to direct and regulate their use of reading strategies, the self-management and control strategies they employ to apply what they know and to keep track of how it is working for them. Readers use various types of self management: they

• frame up reasons or purposes for reading a text, plan how they will read.
• monitor their reading, initiate corrective action, decide when to re-read, self-correct, how they use what they know at each level.
• review and self-question to see whether reading goals achieved, review or consolidate what they have read having read.
• organise the information gained from reading to fit our purposes for reading, evaluate its effectiveness in terms of some goal or purpose and take further strategic action if necessary.

This is their 'metacognitive knowledge' and is managed through self talk or self scripts.

Beliefs about ability as readers

Readers gradually develop beliefs about reading, and themselves as readers. Three types of perceptions are relevant:

1. how they see reading, for example, what reading is like ("reading aloud without making errors"), its value and functions,
2. how they believe reading is learnt, what one does when one reads, (for example, a reader may believe that one reads by attending to single words at a time, sounding out words that are not recognized, etc), and
3. their self-concept of self-perception as a reader, for example, whether he is likely to be successful as a reader, or to enjoy reading, etc.

These perceptions are learnt; children learn to perceive reading in various ways, and themselves as readers.

These attitudes and beliefs are shown in how readers

• attribute reasons for success and failure , the factors they believe they can control when the read.
• assess their ability to be successful as readers; their self efficacy. Their expectations for success affect their persistence with reading.

These beliefs affect motivation and achievement in reading.