Foundations of Reading Development
Domain 1: Foundations of Reading Development
This domain tests how reading develops from oral language and print awareness into accurate word recognition and meaningful comprehension. Expect questions on the Simple View of Reading, Scarborough's Rope, Ehri's phases, concepts of print, and the alphabetic principle.
Core concepts
- The Simple View: reading comprehension = decoding x language comprehension; neither factor alone is sufficient.
- Ehri's phases: pre-alphabetic (visual cues), partial alphabetic (some letter-sound links), full alphabetic (complete phoneme-grapheme mapping), consolidated alphabetic (chunks and morphemes).
- Orthographic mapping: storing words for instant retrieval by bonding phonemes to graphemes, not by visual memorization.
- Print concepts: directionality, spacing, front/back, words vs. letters.
Worked example
A kindergarten student reads the word "sun" correctly only when a picture of a sun is present, and calls the word "ball" when shown a ball. She knows most letter names but few sounds. Reasoning: she is using picture cues and partial letter knowledge, consistent with the pre-alphabetic or early partial alphabetic phase. The instructional priority is not a comprehension strategy; it is phonemic awareness and letter-sound correspondence with explicit practice.
Traps
- Treating the Simple View as additive rather than multiplicative.
- Assuming a child who guesses from pictures is unmotivated rather than developmentally cued.
- Confusing orthographic mapping with rote visual memorization.