Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development

Adapted from Kastner, P. (August, 2022). Dr. Pam Kastner’s Book Chat. The Reading League. https://padlet.com/trlpa/kzl4xiskoechegb6

Phase Description / Reading Behaviors Implications for Instruction

Early -little to no alphabetic knowledge To Promote Learning in the
Alphabetic Early/Pre-Alphabetic Phase and
-uses pictures, shape of word, or logos to figure out words support students’ move into the next
Phase -uses context clues & guessing phase:

-match voice to print in memorized text -phonological awareness

Typically -use semantics rather than phonological relationships -alphabet knowledge
preschoolers
-grapheme-phoneme correspondence
and older
severely
disabled
readers.
 Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development
Adapted from Kastner, P. (August, 2022). Dr. Pam Kastner’s Book Chat. The Reading League. https://padlet.com/trlpa/kzl4xiskoechegb6

Phase Description / Reading Behaviors Implications for Instruction

Early -students begin to use grapheme-phoneme connections To Promote Learning in the

Alphabetic Early/Partial Phase and
-phonetic cue reading support students’ to move to
-connections may be unreliable or incomplete the next phase:
Kindergarten -may use first letter sound to try to guess words -reinforce letter-sound
and novice first knowledge & phonemic
grade students -visual cues are more reliable awareness
and older -no real way to read novel words in print -emphasize using all letters in
disabled readers
every word
who have
rudimentary
working
 Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development
Adapted from Kastner, P. (August, 2022). Dr. Pam Kastner’s Book Chat. The Reading League. https://padlet.com/trlpa/kzl4xiskoechegb6

knowledge of
the alphabetic
system but lack
full knowledge,
particularly
vowel
knowledge.

Phase Reading Behavior Implications for

Instruction:
Later -attends to every letter in each word To Promote Learning in the
Alphabetic Later/Full Phase and to support
-words assessed through phonological recording students’ moving into the next phase:
-more reliable -segmenting
Students in first -working knowledge of letter-sound connections
grade and -blending phonemes
beyond who -phonemic awareness -attending every grapheme individually
have working -decodes slowly and sequentially
knowledge of -repeated exposure to words taught with
-decodes to read unfamiliar words the grapheme-phoneme correspondence
major
to promote orthographic mapping
grapheme-
phoneme
relationships in
 Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development
Adapted from Kastner, P. (August, 2022). Dr. Pam Kastner’s Book Chat. The Reading League. https://padlet.com/trlpa/kzl4xiskoechegb6

English.

Phase Reading Behavior Implications for Instruction:

Consolidated -use chunks to decode To Promote Learning in the
Alphabetic Consolidated Phase:
-phonograms are used in the forms of digraphs & vowel teams
-focus on recognition of various chunks
-phonograms are committed to memory & recognized instantly within words
Students in -common word families, affixes, and letter patterns are recognized
second grade -students should pronounce each new
and beyond who -syllables and morphemes are chunked word aloud during silent reading to
promote orthographic mapping, form
possess -orthographic mapping continues to develop spelling-sound connections, and to
knowledge of
-reader can teach themselves new connections commit the word to memory
the major
grapheme-
 Ehri’s Phases of Reading Development
Adapted from Kastner, P. (August, 2022). Dr. Pam Kastner’s Book Chat. The Reading League. https://padlet.com/trlpa/kzl4xiskoechegb6

phoneme
relationships,
who have used
this knowledge
to build a
sizable sight
vocabulary, and
as a result have
learned how to
decode
commonly
recurring
patterns as
units. Their
reading is faster
and more fluent