Stages of Word Recognition in Early Reading Development

Abstract

Hoien, T. & Lundberg, I. 1988. Stages of Word Recognition in Early Reading Development. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 32, 163‐182. A stage model for the early acquisition of reading is proposed with the following ordered sequence of steps: Pseudo‐reading, logographic‐visual, alphabetic‐phonemic, and orthographic‐morphemic reading. As the development proceeds, the dependency on contextual support for word recognition is assumed to gradually decrease. From a longitudinal study of 50 children in 10 different Scandinavian communities, 4 cases were selected to illustrate the validity and usefulness of the model. The cases showed a highly similar pattern of development, indicating that the model captures fundamental features in the development of decoding skill. Three of the selected cases showed unusually slow development. However, no qualitative differences from the ‘normal’ cases could be detected, suggesting that reading disabilities should be understood within a developmental framework.