This document discusses the development of reading comprehension through 5 stages: 1) Pre-reading from birth to age 6 where children accumulate knowledge about letters and books. 2) Beginning reading from ages 6-7 where reading ability increases. 3) Confirmation and fluency from grades 2-3 where reading consolidates and fluency improves through reading familiar stories. 4) Reading for learning new perspectives in primary grades and then learning from text in higher grades. 5) Construction of knowledge from ages 18 and above where reading integrates multiple viewpoints into a personal world view.

1. Development of
Reading
Comprehension

2. Four levels of reading
comprehension (Adler and Van
Doren)

3. First stage
 The first or elementary
level involved
understanding the literal
meaning of the word and
sentences.

4. Inspectual Reading
Or “systematic skimming”
When reading at this level,
one has a set amount of time
to complete an assigned
amount of reading.

5. Analytic Reading
It is most complete reading
that is possible given
unlimited time. It requires a
deeper more complete
understanding of the contents
of the book.

6. Comparative reading
Mere comparison of the text is
not enough, however, because
the comparative reader must
be able to generate a critical or
novel interpretation of the
text.

7. Early language
stimulation

8. Early language
stimulation
Spoken language has an astonishing
impact on an infant’s brain development.
 Number of words an infant hears each
day is the single most important
predictor of later intelligence.

9. Researches
Professional parents 2,100 words
Working class parents 1,200 words
Parents on welfare 600 words

10. Hypothesis in Developing the
Scheme for Reading Stages

11. 1.Stages of reading
development resemble
stages of cognitive and
language development.
Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages

12. Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages
2. Reading is at all stages, a
form of problem solving in
which the readers adapt to
their environment through the
processes of assimilation and
accommodation.

13. 3. Individuals progress
through the stages by
interacting with their
environment --- the home,
school, larger community,
and culture.
Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages

14. Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages
4. Measures of having reached a
given reading stage will add a
further useful dimension to
standardized norm-referenced
testing, as well as to criterion-
referenced testing.

15. 5. The fact of successive stages
means that readers do “different”
things in relation to printed matter
at each successive stage, although
the term “reading” is commonly
used for all the stages.
Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages

16. Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages
6.The successive stages are
characterized by growth in the
ability to read language that is
more complex, less frequently
encountered, more technical, and
more abstract, and by changes in
how reading is viewed and used.

17. 7. The reader’s response to
the text also becomes more
general, more influential,
more critical, and more
constructive with successive
stages.
Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages

18. Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages
8. The stages are also
characterized by the extent
to which prior knowledge is
needed to read and
understand materials.

19. 9. At each stage, readers may
persist in characteristic techniques
or habits that, if continued too long,
may delay or even prevent
transition to the next stage.
Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages

20. Hypothesis in Developing the Scheme for
Reading Stages
10. Reading has
affective as well as
cognitive components.

21. Reading
stages

22. Stage 0 – Pre-reading:
Birth to age 6
From birth until the beginning of
formal education, children living
in a literate culture with an
alphabetic writing system
accumulate a fund of knowledge
about letters, words, and books.

23. Stage1–Beginning
Reading Stage: (6-7)
This stage is
characterized by an
increasing ability in
reading.

24. Stage 2 – Confirmation, Fluency,
Ungluing from Print: Grades 2-3
Stage 2 consolidates what was learned in
Stage 1. Reading stories previously heard
increases fluency. Stage 2 is not for
gaining new information, but for
confirming what is already known to the
reader.

25. Stage 3 – Reading for Learning
the New: A First Step
“learn the new” – new knowledge,
information, thoughts and experiences.
within one viewpoint
in the primary grades, children learn to
read: in the higher grades, they read to
learn.

26. Stage 4 – Multiple
Viewpoints: High School,
(Ages 14-18)
more than one point of view.
Stage 4 is mostly acquired through
formal education – the assignments in the
various school text books, original and
other sources, and reference works in the
physical, biological, and social sciences.

27. Stage 5 – Construction and
Reconstruction – A World View:
College, (Age 18 and above)
What not to read, as well as
what to read.
Ability to construct knowledge on a
high level of abstraction and generality
and to create one’s own ideas from the
ideas of others.

28. Questions? 