1. Learning to Read and Write
Learning to speak is a natural process. In all cultures, children pass through the same stages of language development and master the art of speaking without formal instruction.
Learning to read and write, however, is different; these are skills that need to be taught.

2. Baker and Freebody 1989 Written language takes up physical space
It moves from top to bottom and left to right (in English)
Line breaks occur in writing but don’t affect meaning
It is repeatable in its exact form
It is permanent
It is non-interactive – it won’t respond to your questions

3. Stages of Reading Development
As with the stages of CLA development, several theories exist. The following were identified by Jeanne S. Chall (1983), and American researcher and although the ages relate specifically to the USA school system, they correspond with those in the UK.

4. Stages of Reading Development
Stage 0 – Pre-reading and pseudo-reading (up to age 6). Children are increasingly able to name letters and start to write their own names.
Stage 1 – Initial reading and decoding (ages 6-7). Children learn the relationship between sounds and letters and can read short, high-frequency words. A child now understands 4000 spoken words and 600 written words.
Stage 2 – Confirmation and fluency (ages 7-8). A period of consolidation with an increase in skills and vocabulary. A child now understands 9000 spoken and 4000 written words.

5. Stages of Reading Development
Stage 3 – Reading for Learning (ages 9-14). Reading becomes a means of gaining knowledge and pursuing individual interests. The child tackles a wider range of reading material and recognises genre features.
Stage 4 – Multiplicity and complexity (ages 14-17). Reading material is increasingly complex and varied).
Stage 5 – Construction and reconstruction (ages 18 onwards). Confident readers now read a diverse range of texts. The practical and recreational benefits are recognized and they read for personal and occupational purposes.

6. The Teaching of Reading
This is always a controversial issue and the focus shifts. Historically, the division has been between:
Phonics: focusing on the sounds of language. Children are taught the relationship between letters and sounds and are encouraged to use this knowledge to decode/construct words by sounding out the letters.
The Whole-word approach: also known as ‘look and say’, the child learns to recognise individual words as wholes rather than as units made up of individual letters or sounds.

7. The Teaching of Reading Synthetic Phonics
Synthetic phonics is a method employed to teach phonics to children when learning to read. This method involves examining every spelling within the word individually as an individual sound and then blending those sounds together. For example, shrouds would be read by pronouncing the sounds for each spelling "/ʃ, ɹ, aʊ, d, z/" and then blending those sounds orally to produce a spoken word, "/ʃɹaʊdz/." The goal of synthetic phonics instruction is that students identify the sound-symbol correspondences and blend their phonemes automatically.

8. The Teaching of Reading Analytic Phonics
Analytic phonics has children analyze sound-symbol correspondences, such as the ou spelling of /aʊ/ in shrouds but students do not blend those elements as they do in synthetic phonics lessons. Furthermore, consonant blends (separate, adjacent consonant phonemes) are taught as units (e.g., in shrouds the shr would be taught as a unit).

9. Learning to Write This requires the mastery of several skills.
The physical coordination needed to write with a pen or pencil. In the early years, writing, accuracy and neatness improving.
The structure and conventions of written language have to be mastered, e.g. spelling, punctuation, sentence construction, paragraphing, etc.
The development of awareness of the different purposes language can serve and how style can be changed to suit purpose and audience.

10. Learning to Write Stages of Acquisition
B.M. Kroll (1981) identified four stages of development:
Preparatory stage: up to age 6. The child masters the physical skills needed and basic principles of the spelling system.
Consolidation stage: ages 6-8. Children write as they speak. They are likely to use short, declarative sentences, grammatically incomplete sentences or longer sentences linked by simple conjunctions such as and, so and then.

11. Learning to Write Stages of Acquisition
Differentiation stage: ages 8 – mid teens. An awareness of the differences between writing and speech. Increasing confidence in using conventions and grammatical structures associated with writing. Sentences become more complex, with more subordinate clauses and sophisticated connectives. Style becomes more suited to audience and purpose.
Integration stage: mid-teens upwards. The writer develops a personal ‘voice’ and adapts to the requirements of different situations. These skills continue to develop into adulthood.