Developmental Reading

Developmental Reading deals with the theories of child`s early stages of learning his progress

to fluency in oral language, reading and writing, and the transfer of his home literacy to

school literacy.

Marie Clay (1966) was the first one who used the term emergent literacy. Emergent literacy

refers to the competencies and skills in early childhood.

Emergent or emerging means that the children are always in the process of becoming literate,

probably since they are just few months old(Teale,1987)

Sulzby (1991) defines literacy as the reading and writing behaviors of young children that

precede and develop into conventional literacy.

Models of Literacy Development

1. Bottom Up Model (Behaviorism S-R theory)

Stimulus is print or spoken message. Processing of the language starts with the smallest

unit to larger units of language.

Limitation- when too much attention is given to decoding, over all meaning maybe lost

2.Top down Model (Gestalt Psychology)

Reader processes the text from whole to parts. The individual parts of the text are

influenced by the readers`perception of the text as whole

3. Interactive Model ( combination theory- Bottom up and Top down)

Active approach- if the reader has strong background knowledge of the topic.

Passive- reader has limited prior knowledge of the text.

4.Transactional Model(Constructivism)

Emphasis in the social-situational context in which oracy and literacy take place. The text

is reconstructed by the reader in a unique way.

Factors that Affect Reading Progress

1.Cerebral Dominance- laterality of the individual is affected is by the dominance in the two

hemispheres of the brain.

2. Directional Orientation-spatial and directional orientation underlie in all aspects of

perception- visual. auditory, tactile and kinesthetic.

3.Maturation- lag in the maturation of the brain part neopallium can slow down intellectual

and emotional development.

4. Intelligence- mental aptitude is considered a crucial factor...