READING
Learning to read is one the central rites of passage in our society. It separates young children from the world of older children and adults. At a general level, the development of reading skills can be viewed as occurring in five stages (Chall, 1979). The stages convey a general sense of major developments in reading and about when they usually occur.
STAGE 0: In this stage, lasting from birth to the beginning of first grade, children master several prerequisites for reading. Many learn to identify the letters of the alphabet, quite a few learn to write their name, some learn to read a few words that appear on signs.
STAGE 1: In the first grade and the second grade, children acquire the ability to sound out words, that is, to translate letters into sounds and blend the sounds into words. They also complete their learning of letter names and sounds during this stage.
STAGE 2: In second and third grade, children learn to retrieve individual words, and read somewhat more fluently. However, at this stage, reading is still not used much for learning. The demands of the mechanics of reading on children's processing resources are great enough that they do not have much left over for processing the content.
STAGE 3: In fourth through eighth grade, children become increasingly able to obtain new information from print. As Chall puts it, "In primary grades, children learn to read; in higher grades, they read to learn" (Chall 1979). They are still limited in the degree to which they can do this, however. For example, they still have difficulty understanding information presented from multiple perspectives within the same story.
STAGE 4: During the high school years, children become fully competent readers. Their ability to understand material told from many perspectives makes possible much more sophisticated discussions of literary works. This is partly due to the fact that adolescents' increasing life experience makes it possible for them to understand the themes. It is also partly due to their increasingly advanced reading comprehension. The last item has to do with memory capacity.
for more information see
Chall, J. S. (1979)
Theory and Practice of early Reading.