The Process of Learning to Read in the Brain by Sarah Houck

Language Development

shouck1999 — 2025-09-23 22:07:39 UTC

The first and more important step in helping a child learn to read is developing their language skills. Young children, usually around the infant/early toddler stage, learn new vocabulary everyday by listening to the words that are spoken to and around them. Along with learning that vocabulary, they are also learning to listen and retain the different sounds that are being spoken in their languages. For example, English speaking children are learning the different sounds that are used in the English language. It would be the same for any child speaking and learning a language other than English.

Print Awareness

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:02:42 UTC

As children begin to grow and develop, they begin to learn and recognize different print in texts. Print awareness begins in infancy, and continues all the way to about the time they enter preschool. As infants, who are exposed to print, they might be observed simply flipping through pages of a book and simply seeing pictures in the book. As they develop into toddlers, they begin to see those pictures more clearly, and recognize different characteristics of the pictures. As these toddlers develop into older age, typically preschool age, they begin to actually recognize the print. They are beginning to identify different letters, and they are beginning to recognize that different prints have some kind of meaning.

Phonemic Awareness

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:09:40 UTC

Non-readers begin to develop their phonemic awareness skills at a young age. Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize that the spoken language is made up of individual units of sound. By this time, children are able to hear sounds, identify what those sounds are, and even manipulate what those individual sounds are in any of the spoken words. These sounds are called phonemes. It is important to realize that phonemic awareness is NOT something that comes naturally to a young reader, it is something that has to be taught.

Phonics

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:18:21 UTC

Phonics is an instructional approach for teaching both reading and spelling that helps young readers to understand sound-symbol relationships. As children begin to develop out of their preschool years, they begin exposure to the relationship between letters and sounds. This taught method of reading is the stepping stone for a young reader's ability to decode new words that they are exposed to.

Decoding

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:32:14 UTC

Young readers begin to decode words during this stage of their reading development. Decoding is the process of children taking their recognized letters and sounds in WRITTEN words and now turning them into SPOKEN words that the child already knows. This means that young readers will be able to look at a word, recognizing the phonemes while also being able to blend the phonemes together to pronounce the word. In order for the child to be considered a proficient reader, the child must be able to decode accurately and fluently.

Orthography

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:50:17 UTC

Orthography is the brains ability to process and recognize letter patterns and other common spelling rules. Determining how quickly a child learns to read a language correctly depends on how closely the language's orthography represents the pronunciation. There are two common forms of orthography. Number 1 is shallow orthography, which happens when languages have a very close correspondence between letters and sounds they represent. Number 2 is deep orthography (found in the English language) which occurs when the language has a poor correspondence between how a word is pronounced and how it is spelled.

Word Recognition

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 16:55:05 UTC

At this time in a child's reading development, they are beginning to move from a slower reading process, to a more rapid and advanced one. Word recognition comes as young readers begin to automatically recognize common words. This means that their brain's will automatically begin moving them away from practicing their decoding strategies, and they will now begin to focus more on comprehension strategies. This also means that they are becoming more fluent readers, because their brains no longer have to sound out the phonemes in a word, and now the brain can begin to help them comprehend what they are reading and what the words mean that they are reading.

Fluency and Accuracy

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 17:02:33 UTC

Children become fluent and accurate readers when the young readers start to read with speed, accuracy and prosody. You know they have begun to build fluency when they are no longer decoding words when they read. This means that as they read, they are no stopping sound out the letters in words to put the whole word together. They can look at the word and read it automatically. Being fluent with their reading, also helps them to be accurate as well. Though they can be fluent readers, they may not be accurate readers. They become accurate readers when they can fluently read words or text with minimal errors. Fluency also comes with prosody, where young readers are able to recognize and read text with expression.

Working Memory

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 17:12:25 UTC

Young readers also have a working memory. The working memory is a temporary memory where the conscious processing occurs. A young reader's working memory comes in handy as they begin to build their reading comprehension skills. A child's working memory is put to work to hold and process any information that they might gather from the text. The working memory then takes the information they have gathered, and relate it to their prior knowledge. If they can take their newly understood information, and tie it to their existing knowledge, they will be more successful in understanding the text that they have read. It is important to note that the working memory cannot hold too many pieces of information at one time. The working memory in an infant can only hold about 2 items of information at once, which is why their working memory wouldn't help them read much. Whereas older readers have working memories that can hold between 3 to 7 items, which helps them to be able to read and comprehend.

Why does this process matter for instruction?

shouck1999 — 2025-09-27 17:18:53 UTC

Knowing the process of how a child learns to read is important for instruction because the one delivering the instruction needs to be aware of where their child might be in their development. For example, as a Reading Specialist, we will be exposed to young readers from every aspect of this timeline. Just because the child might be of a certain age, that doesn't mean they have developed in that way. You could have a fourth grade student who is still in the Novice reading stage, or you could have a 2nd grade student who is in the skilled reader stage. They development depends on the exposure at early ages, and how often they are exposed. Like Sousa states, reading is not something that comes naturally, it is something that is taught. Knowing this process helps an instructor to know what kind of steps they can take to help those students become better readers, and what help and support they can offer.