Foundations of Reading and Language Development
Foundations of Reading and Language Development
This domain tests how reading develops from oral language, print concepts, and phonological awareness into word recognition and comprehension. Expect items on the Simple View of Reading, Scarborough's Reading Rope, Ehri's phases, and the alphabetic principle. The exam asks you to connect a student's observed behavior to a developmental explanation and an instructional move.
Core rules and concepts
- Oral language is the base for comprehension: vocabulary, syntax, and discourse knowledge predict later reading comprehension.
- Phonological awareness is oral and includes syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes; phonemic awareness is the phoneme-level subset.
- Concepts of print include directionality, return sweep, and the idea that words are separated by spaces.
- The alphabetic principle is the understanding that letters represent sounds in a systematic way.
- The Simple View: reading comprehension = decoding × language comprehension; neither alone is sufficient.
- Ehri's phases move from pre-alphabetic to partial alphabetic, full alphabetic, and consolidated alphabetic.
Worked example
A kindergarten student retells a story with rich vocabulary and correct sequence but cannot produce the first sound in "moon" and writes random letters. Oral language is strong; phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge are weak. The best next step is brief, explicit phonemic-awareness work with letters integrated-not a comprehension intervention, because comprehension is not the bottleneck in early decoding.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing phonological awareness with phonics: phonics involves print; phonological awareness does not.
- Treating letter-name knowledge as sufficient for decoding; sounds matter.
- Ignoring the Simple View and prescribing comprehension strategy instruction for a decoding deficit.
- Assuming a student with strong oral language will decode automatically.