DEVELOPMENT OF READING
There are four stages of reading that a child will go through in their early years learning.
Stage one: emergent
Stage two: early
Stage three: transitional
Stage four: extending
Figure 7.4 on page 149 in Hill, 2006 shows the steps in each stage and what students will be able to do transitioning from one stage to another.
EMERGENT
· Direct match between text and illustration
· High frequency words
· The word count ranges from 0 to 50
· Simple story line
· Range of punctuation
· Familiar oral language like structures
EARLY
· Concepts are familiar
· More text types are used
· The text length increases
· There are long sentences
· Different syntactic patterns
· More of the story is carried in the text
· Illustrations still offer support but this is beginning to diminish
· The placement of text on the page varies
TRANSITIONAL
· The books at this level begin to deal with topics that increasingly go beyond children’s experiences
· There is a range of fiction and information texts
· The sentence length and syntax varies
· The layout and placement of text varies
· There are diagrams, other graphic features and a variety of illustrations
· The conceptual load is increased
EXTENDING
· There are more complex stories and a greater conceptual load is required
· Narratives have more complex plots and characters
· More information details in information texts
· There is a larger variety of text types
· Less illustrative support is provided
· Use of more complex text features
· Text varies in sentence length and structure