2.9 Stages of Reading Development and the Purposes of Reading
Key Takeaways
- Chall's stages move readers from prereading through decoding to fluency, and then from 'learning to read' to 'reading to learn' at roughly grade four.
- The fourth-grade slump hits multilingual learners hardest because text becomes context-reduced and academically dense exactly when decoding support is withdrawn.
- Decoding and comprehension are separable: accurate oral reading with no understanding signals a vocabulary or background-knowledge gap, not a phonics gap.
- Readers adjust strategy to purpose: skimming, scanning, intensive study reading, and extensive reading serve different goals.
- Instruction must supply both word recognition and language comprehension, because reading comprehension is the product of the two, not their sum.
2.9 Stages of Reading Development and the Purposes of Reading
The ETS outline lists a single dense sub-topic: candidates "identify stages of reading development, stages of writing development, transfer from L1 literacy to L2 literacy, purposes of reading, and the difference between simple decoding and comprehension." This section handles the reading half; Section 2.10 handles writing.
1. Chall's Stages of Reading Development
Jeanne Chall's model is the framework most often referenced in U.S. teacher preparation and the one Praxis distractors are built around.
| Stage | Typical grades | What the reader is doing | EL-specific risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 — Prereading / pseudo-reading | Pre-K–K | Concepts of print, rhyme, letter names, pretend-reading familiar books | Print concepts may transfer from a non-Latin or right-to-left script |
| 1 — Initial reading / decoding | Grades 1–2 | Letter-sound correspondence, blending, decoding simple text | Cannot decode phonemes not present in the L1; may decode without meaning |
| 2 — Confirmation and fluency | Grades 2–3 | Consolidating; automaticity; reading familiar material smoothly | Fluency lags because vocabulary is unfamiliar even when decodable |
| 3 — Reading to learn the new | Grades 4–8 | Text becomes a source of new information; academic vocabulary expands sharply | Highest-risk transition — the fourth-grade slump |
| 4 — Multiple viewpoints | Grades 9–12 | Analyzing competing perspectives, complex argument, dense syntax | Requires CALP plus cultural background knowledge |
| 5 — Construction and reconstruction | College+ | Reading critically for one's own purposes; synthesis | Rarely the focus of K-12 ESOL |
The pivot at Stage 3
The single most important line in the table is the shift from "learning to read" (Stages 1–2) to "reading to learn" (Stage 3). Before it, text is short, illustrated, and about familiar experience. After it, text is long, unillustrated, syntactically complex, and about content the reader has never encountered.
This is the fourth-grade slump, and multilingual learners are disproportionately affected. The reason maps directly onto Cummins' quadrants (Section 2.2): fourth-grade text is context-reduced and cognitively demanding at exactly the moment when pictures, manipulatives, and teacher read-alouds are withdrawn. A student whose decoding is fine and whose BICS is fluent can suddenly appear to "stop progressing" — when in fact the task has changed underneath them.
2. Decoding Is Not Comprehension
The ETS outline names this distinction explicitly. The Simple View of Reading (Gough and Tunmer) states:
Reading Comprehension = Decoding × Language Comprehension
It is a product, not a sum. If either factor is near zero, comprehension is near zero — which yields four diagnostic profiles:
| Decoding | Language comprehension | Profile | Typical EL case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strong | Strong | Skilled reader | Reclassified student reading on level |
| Strong | Weak | "Word caller" | The most common EL profile: accurate, fluent oral reading with little understanding |
| Weak | Strong | Dyslexic profile | Struggles in both L1 and L2 (Section 5.5) |
| Weak | Weak | Global difficulty | SIFE learners; requires both strands |
The word caller profile is the one Praxis tests hardest. A student reads a passage aloud at 98% accuracy and fails every comprehension question. The instructional error is to prescribe more phonics — the decoding strand is already strong. The actual deficits live in vocabulary, syntax knowledge, and background/cultural schema (Section 2.5), so the intervention is pre-teaching Tier 2 vocabulary, building background knowledge, and unpacking complex syntax.
Fluency as the bridge
Fluency — accuracy, appropriate rate, and prosody — matters because laborious decoding consumes the working memory that comprehension needs. But note the EL-specific caveat: fluency norms assume the reader knows the words. An EL reading unfamiliar vocabulary will show depressed rate for lexical reasons, not decoding reasons, so oral reading fluency scores must be interpreted alongside vocabulary data rather than in isolation.
3. Purposes of Reading and Strategy Matching
The outline names "purposes of reading" as its own identifiable element. Skilled readers vary their approach to match the goal, and multilingual learners frequently apply one slow, word-by-word approach to every text because that is what has been rewarded.
| Purpose | Strategy | Classroom example |
|---|---|---|
| Get the gist quickly | Skimming — headings, first sentences, visuals | Previewing a chapter before a lecture |
| Find one specific fact | Scanning — targeted visual search for a name, date, number | Locating a date in a timeline |
| Study and analyze deeply | Intensive reading — close reading, annotation, rereading | Analyzing a primary source document |
| Build fluency and volume | Extensive reading — self-selected, easy, high-interest, sustained | Independent reading of leveled library books |
| Follow a procedure | Functional reading — sequential, step-verifying | Lab instructions, recipes, assembly directions |
| Read for pleasure | Aesthetic stance | Free-choice narrative reading |
Extensive reading deserves special emphasis for ELs. Large volumes of comprehensible, self-selected text supply the repeated encounters that build vocabulary breadth, sight-word automaticity, and syntactic familiarity — the same comprehensible-input mechanism described in Section 2.1, applied to print.
4. What This Means for Instruction
- Never assume decoding equals reading. Assess comprehension separately from oral accuracy.
- Front-load the Stage 3 transition. Build academic vocabulary and background knowledge before the fourth-grade content load arrives, not after scores drop.
- Keep context high while cognitive demand rises. Visuals, graphic organizers, and structured discussion let a student stay in Cummins' Quadrant B rather than falling into Quadrant D.
- Teach purpose-strategy matching explicitly. Model skimming and scanning as legitimate reading, not as cheating.
- Protect volume. Independent reading time is not a reward activity for ELs; it is the input engine.
A 5th-grade multilingual learner reads a social studies passage aloud with 97% word accuracy and an appropriate rate, but cannot answer a single comprehension question about it. Which instructional response is most appropriate?
An ESOL specialist notices that several multilingual learners who performed adequately through 3rd grade show sharply declining reading scores in 4th grade. Which explanation best accounts for this pattern?
A teacher wants students to locate the year a treaty was signed within a two-page historical document. Which reading strategy should she explicitly model?
According to the Simple View of Reading, why can a student with strong decoding and weak language comprehension show near-zero reading comprehension?