The Development of Reading

Development of reading is important to understand the typical stages of development that children pass through in their reading. This knowledge helps you to pitch your planning and interaction at an appropriate level for the children you are teaching. People who have already experienced such development as teachers and parents are in an advantageous position. However, teachers who are inexperienced need to grasp the fundamental aspects of such development. One of the reasons for this is that it heightens their awareness of what to look for when they do have the opportunity to interact with developing readers.

Fortunately there are a number of in-depth case-studies of individual children that can help in acquiring knowledge about children’s development. Studies of individual children do not act as a blueprint for all children: one of the important things that such case studies show us is that children’s experiences vary greatly. However, if we focus on certain key concepts and significant milestones these can be applied to larger groups of children. These milestones are likely to happen at roughly the same age for many children, but there will be significant numbers of children whose development is different.

It is important to make clear that although some experts have indicated ages of development and have associated certain kinds of reading behaviour with those ages, we are aware that learning does not proceed in a simple linear or step-by-step fashion. The fact that a certain concept is reveakd at age 3 does not imply that it does not feature in later ages. For example, the three-year-old who relates their own visit to a fair to Ted Hughes’ picture book Shaggy and Spotty is not so different to the adult who, for example, responds to The Diary of Bridget Jones by recognising insecurities about their own lives. Both instances involve linking personal experience with a text.