Month: October 2021

If your  child is reaching Stage III of reading development, congratulations,  you’ve reached the Promised Land!!!

You’re in Decoding/Fluency Nirvana.

Typically, Stage III corresponds to about the middle of third grade  continuing through the upper grades, when the children are putting the more mechanical aspects of  reading (and spelling and writing) behind them.

Stages I & II are the equivalent of learning notes chords and scales ( (Stage I)   (Stage II)), while Stage III involves playing the songs.

For the “smooth-road” kids it isn’t that hard to get to Stage III.  A couple of grades go by and you are there – no fuss, no muss – no testing, no tutoring.

But for the children of concern, those with learning disabilities, dyslexia, sprinkled in with a  dose of ADHD/ADD, it’s been a much longer and bumpier road.  If these children get to Stage III, often it is well beyond the expected age/grade range.

Why does Stage III represent the “Promised Land?”

Once a child reaches this stage the mechanical aspects of reading (i.e., decoding, fluency, word reading efficiency etc.) are no longer a factor.

When a child is in Stage III,  the entire focus  can be put on developing a child’s range of comprehension skills, such as higher-order reasoning, inferential thinking, drawing conclusions and increasing vocabulary.

As the original theorist of the Stages of Reading Development, Dr. Jean Chall, noted,  within Stage III the child is no longer “learning to read, but reading to learn.”

Copyright, 2021 www.shutdownlearner.com
Questions or comments email Dr. Selznick:  rselznick615@gmail.com.

Stage II of reading development is an exciting period of time, especially if the child is in this stage at the expected time – usually beginning in the second grade and ending in the middle of the third grade.

In this stage your child has mastered most of the high frequency (sight) words and can read them automatically.  They are also starting to show a pretty good understanding of one-syllable word patterns and their component sounds.  More complex words such as  stomp, branch, reaching and even and nonsense word like “grimp” would be good examples of words that follow early Stage II.

As we have been talking in previous blog posts utilizing the metaphor of learning to ride a bike, you can think of Stage II as one where the child starts out a bit insecure, but with more and more practice gains greater confidence and fluidity to the point where the child is independently enjoying the activity.

The primary activity of Stage II is reading – lots of it – both orally and silently, starting with small chapter books that are easy (but not too easy) for the child to independently read.

While in the early stages many large words could overwhelm the child, but as they progress through this stage they will be able to manage more of the words efficiently and read them correctly.

One final point, in this stage it is often useful to help a child break more complex, multisyllabic words down into the component parts and to practice this skill of breaking the words down. Examples of these words might be the following: ladder, mechanic,  porcupine, dinosaur, parrot.  Most children within this stage would know the meaning of these words, but reading them efficiently may be a different story altogether.

How will you know your child is getting ready to leave Stage II?

Essentially when they know almost all of the high-frequency (sight) words and can show they are starting to  read material containing less-controlled words relatively smoothly and fluently.

Effectively, the child is “riding the bike” independently and can now move on to the final stage.

Copyright, 2021 www.shutdownlearner.com
Questions or comments email Dr. Selznick:  rselznick615@gmail.com.