Reader Behaviors
Beginning:
- move from pretend reading to real reading
- may say, “I can’t read” as they realize they do not know all the words in a book
- use mostly pictures and initial consonants to help them figure out unknown words (context clues)
- may guess at unknown words, even if it doesn’t make sense
- reading of texts sounds very laborious (word-by-word)
- begin to recognize words by sight
- “silent” reading=whisper reading as they vocalize words
- comprehension may be difficult from the first reading of a text, as readers are very focused on reading the words correctly
- finger points to words when reading
- rhyming becomes more consistent and readers are able to “play” with sounds in words better
Middle:
- begin to try and sound out unknown words
- rely on pictures, initial consonants, and length of words to help them figure out unknown words (context clues)
- “silent” reading=whisper reading as they vocalize words
- reading out loud is still word-by-word
- still may guess at unknown words, but begins to realize that their guesses need to make sense
- comprehension may be difficult from the first reading of a text, as readers are very focused on reading the words correctly
- finger point to words when reading
End:
- try to sound out many unknown words
- when sounding out doesn’t work, context clues are used to help with unknown words
- “silent” reading=whisper reading as they vocalize words
- will still finger point from time to time, but may start to move away from it
- develop more of an awareness that text should make sense; begins to self-correct more when an error is made
- may start to look for known words within other words (chunking)
(WTW 3rd ed, 22-23 & Reading Development
Spelling Behaviors
Beginning:
- match the written letters in words to letter sounds more consistently
- spell words with consonants, very few vowels are used
- spell mostly with the beginning and ending sounds, as they are easiest to hear and feel in the mouth; (wall spelled WL and heart spelled HT)
- say words slowly s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out the sounds as they write
- space in between words becomes even more regular, but can still be lacking at times
- may reverse some letters
Middle:
- sometimes add vowels in the middle of words, so bell may be spelled BAL and boat may be BOT (long vowels are easiest to hear)
- blends and digraphs are spelled partially (frog as FOG)
- say words slowly s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g out the sounds as they write
- space in between words is more consistent
End:
- begin to spell most short-vowel patterns (CVC) correctly
- can spell most consonant blends (fr, gl, sn, etc.) and digraphs (th, sh, ch, wh) correctly
- spell frequently used long vowel words correctly, such as like or name
- still stretches out individual sounds in words to write them
- most other long vowel words are spelled with short vowel patterns (PLAT for plate)
- letter reversals are less often, but may still happen on occasion
WTW calls them Letter-Name Alphabetic Spellers
(WTW 3rd ed, 14 & Stages of Spelling Development)