Hello and welcome to CAP number three word reading development in this video you'll learn about the
continuum of word reading development as described in the work of Linnea Ehri
in this video we'll present a model of how children learn to read words
this model was developed by Linnea Ehri the full name for this model is the continuum of
word reading development but we'll refer to them as Ehri's phrases for short the prior
knowledge that you'll need to apply in order to understand this model includes phonemic awareness
orthographic mapping and decoding there are some new terms that we'll go over later too
here are the big ideas for this video we'll cover the five phases in Ehri's model and how
children progress through them as they learn to read we'll also cover the importance of
learning the alphabetic principle in order to be able to recognize words automatically or
on sight let's start with a review of that key background knowledge
phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual phonemes phonemic
awareness is one of the levels of phonological awareness remember that these two terms are
not interchangeable orthographic mapping is the mental process of storing words and their sounds
for immediate and effortless retrieval decoding is the ability to convert a word from print to speech
using sound spelling knowledge remember that sound spelling knowledge is the same
as phoneme-grapheme correspondences or sound spelling relationships
now let's learn these new terms that you'll need to know the alphabetic principle is the
understanding that speech sounds and letters link to one another this seems really basic
and it's not always obvious when children have picked up this principle but it's definitely a
requirement for being able to decode read words and develop automaticity and fluency in reading
phoneme-grapheme correspondence is the process of matching phonemes in words with the graphemes that
represent them this is a term that you'll see a lot in this course but you may also see the terms
sound spelling relationships or phoneme-grapheme mapping these all mean the same thing just don't
confuse phoneme-grapheme mapping with orthographic mapping sight words are words that an individual
student recognizes instantly and effortlessly this is another really common term but it's not
always used accurately let's look at where some of the confusion comes from and try to clear it up
first of all the words that an individual student knows on site are just that individual there are
lots of grade level lists of sight words out there that say all students should know these and those
can be a useful guide but which words become sight words and when is dependent on the individual
students reading development not on a list so in a classroom having all of the students use the same
master list of sight words is actually not meeting those individual students where they are depending
on a lot of different factors including how much exposure to print and reading a student has had
not all of those students are going to develop the same sight word knowledge at the same pace
another confusing thing about sight words is the belief that sight words are only words that
are not decodable or that have irregular spellings this idea makes sense but the truth
is that only a very few words in english are truly never decodable with a strong foundation
in code-based instruction or phonics instruction students will learn to apply
their phonemic awareness orthographic mapping and decoding skills to all unfamiliar words
now that we've defined those key terms let's dive into Ehri's phases there are five phases in Ehri's
continuum of word reading development these phases are common to most typically developing children
from approximately ages four to six the borders between phases are not really solid borders
the skills and information that children learn about and use learn to use overlap across phases
as children progress through these phases their orthographic mapping also expands
the first phase is the pre-alphabetic phase during this phase students are exploring all of the print
around them they quote unquote read environmental print an example of this is seeing a stop sign and
knowing it says "stop" not because of decoding the letters but because of recognizing the shape and
colors of the sign children also recognize logos in this phase they may or may not know the letters
in the word "McDonald's "and they definitely can't decode it but they recognize the logo guessing
based on clues like these is a common part of this phase as children learn more about letters
and sounds and how they work together they don't need to rely on guessing or memorization as much
this is also when we see children reciting books that are familiar to them it looks a lot
like reading and that rehearsal is important but children don't yet have the knowledge they need to
decode and read those books children in this phase also start attempting to write letters and words
and they can decide what their writing means although to readers they may not look clearly like
words in the second phase the partial alphabetic phase children are improving and expanding their
knowledge of the alphabet in sequence as well as starting to identify individual letters
children in this phase also start to identify individual letters within words even though
they're not decoding the whole word yet this is why it's called the partial alphabetic phase in
this phase children have learned a few sight words but when they see them in text they may often
confuse those words with words that look similar share letters or start with the same letter
next is the later or full alphabetic phase this is when children pick up the all-important
alphabetic principle remember this principle is essential to being able to decode words
in this phase children continue to learn more phoneme-grapheme correspondences
and can start attempting to sound out entire words because they're expanding their phonemic
awareness and orthographic mapping children also in this phase will gain more automaticity and know
more sight words children will also continue to understand letter sequences in writing
and the letters and words they attempt to write resemble real words more and more
next is the consolidated alphabetic phase we call it this because this is when children consolidate
and generalize their phonemic awareness expanding from recognizing correspondences between
individual phonemes and graphemes into recognizing common blends, digraphs, diphthongs etc
in this phase children also start to recognize common basic morphemes like prefixes
and start to use them to figure out new words as children learn more and more about the code
they stop relying on guessing and memorization we measure this by having them decode nonsense words
words that follow conventional spelling patterns and use the same sound spelling
relationships but are not real or meaningful words children's sight word knowledge continues
to grow in this phase and begins to include more and more complex and multi-syllabic words
as decoding becomes more and more automatic children begin to notice and understand
common sentence structures and syntax the final phase in this model is the automatic phase
at this point children can read most words quickly and accurately
words that they don't recognize automatically they can independently use their decoding skills to
figure out if they have been taught those skills because word reading has become mostly automatic
at this phase children can now start to pay closer attention to meaning and context when reading
they can also pay more attention to reading with expression and pacing when reading aloud now let's
review the key information that we covered in this video we examined the five phases on the continuum
model of word reading development this model shows the progression of children learning to read words
we also explained the importance of the alphabetic principle and phoneme-grapheme mapping
in building sight word knowledge we looked at all five phases of Ehri's continuum model
this model covers ages approximately four to six we define the terms alphabetic principle
phoneme-grapheme correspondences and sight words we also clarified some of the misunderstandings
about sight words and how children actually learn them that's all for this video thanks for watching
