Reading is a key skill that develops from the early stages of childhood. Children go through distinct developmental phases, building different skills before developing full fluency.
Here, we’ll cover how children learn to read, the stages of learning to read, and how reading programs for kids and your support can help in their reading journey.
What Is the Science of Reading?
The science of reading comes from a body of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and education research. It demonstrates how people learn to read from a young age. It covers the five pillars of reading, which are:
- Phonemic awareness: the ability to hear and interpret different sounds (phonemes) as words.
- Phonics: connecting written words to their spoken form
- Fluency: the ability to read well and quickly — this is often seen as the transition from recognizing words to comprehending text
- Vocabulary: the understanding of a broad range of words and their meanings and uses
- Comprehension: the full understanding of text; the ability to understand it, extract ideas and meaning, and summarize content
How the Brain Learns to Read: Recycling Old Circuits
One of the most interesting things about learning to read is that the brain has no single dedicated region for it. That’s because, in the context of how long humans have existed, reading is a fairly recent phenomenon. This means the brain needs to recycle other systems to learn to read, like the ability to recognize faces, objects, and spoken language.
This aligns with how our brain learns more widely; instead of containing learning in one region of the brain, it taps into multiple skill sets and adapts knowledge to fit its required goals.
The Stages of Reading Development, Stage by Stage
Now let’s take a look at the stages of reading development throughout childhood and beyond, what children learn and what happens in the reading brain at each stage.
Stage 1 — Pre-reading (ages 0–5): Phonemic awareness; hearing and playing with sounds in words
Before children learn to read fluently, they’ll learn about phonemics and begin to understand the spoken word through both listening and speaking. Children will begin to hear sounds, aka phonemes, and learn how to pronounce them before developing an understanding of simple words. They will go from sounding out letters and sounds to putting them together to make words.
Rhyming plays a key role in pre-reading learning, with young children enjoying nursery rhymes and comprehending simple rhyming words like cat, bat, and sat. Children will also develop an understanding of syllables and can use actions like clapping to track the syllables in words.
Stage 2 — Learning to decode (ages 5–7): Phonics and decoding; linking letters to sounds
This is the key stage where children begin to translate their understanding of sounds into written text, as well as develop further spoken language skills. As they speak words, they will start to understand what they look like when written down and be able to write letters and simple words.
Children will also start to learn that not all sounds are written phonetically. First they’ll grasp words that are written phonetically, like “dog” or “book”, but then start to grasp simple words that aren’t, like ‘the” and “said”
Stage 3 — Building automaticity (ages 7–9): Orthographic mapping and reading fluency; words become “sight words” stored in long-term memory
This is the stage when children really begin to commit words to memory and read more fluently. They use orthographic mapping to store words in their memory for quick retrieval. So how does this process happen?
Your child’s brain will begin to connect the sequence of letters, aka orthography, to how they sound (phonology), before extracting meaning from them, also known as semantics. Learners will also begin to build their bank of sight words, aka frequently used words that children recognize instantly without having to spell them out. Often, sight words are not written phonetically, which makes memorization particularly useful.
Stage 4 — Reading to learn (ages 9+): Reading comprehension; the brain frees up attention for meaning
Once children have mastered the fundamentals of reading, they shift from learning to read to reading to learn, using reading as a tool to further their whole education instead of focusing on the initial skill of reading.
As kids build their vocabulary and learn key skills such as extracting meaning from text and summarizing written content, they become strong readers. Children use reading as a tool and strengthen their ability to understand and interpret increasingly challenging texts. They will continuously build on their skill of reading throughout their education and adult life.
What New Brain Research Reveals About Young Readers
The world of brain research is constantly updating as scientists and experts continue to discover more about the process of learning to read and how it impacts young people’s brains.
A 2025 study in the Children journal discovered that early engagement with reading improves the development of white matter in the brain. Additionally, Harvard researchers recently discovered that the neural bases required to build strong reading skills are present at birth and develop rapidly in early infancy.
These studies reinforce the importance of introducing reading, speaking, and listening skills at a young age to allow children to strengthen these important skills throughout their education and beyond.
How to Support Each Stage at Home
Parents have a responsibility to support their child’s reading from a young age. Providing practical support at the distinct reading-learning stage can be useful.
Stage 1
- Read aloud to your children every day after school and during holidays
- Follow the words as you read to show children the direction they need to read in
- Relate simple words, like apple, to real-life examples
Stage 2
- Play phonics games, like phonics bingo or rhyming games
- Let your child work out words for themselves instead of helping them too soon
- Allow children to guess what happens next in a story
Stage 3
- Take turns to read parts of a story or passages of text out loud
- Help build their vocabulary with new materials, and explain unfamiliar words to them
- Ask questions about the text that they’ve read to ensure they understand key themes and storylines
Stage 4
- Explore more advanced topics about pieces of text, like the main idea or character development
- Introduce your child to different types of reading materials, including story books, magazines, comic books, and non-fiction pieces of work
- Discuss your own reading materials with your child and encourage them to explore their favorite works more deeply
Conclusion
Reading is an important skill, and one that is learned. Because there are no dedicated regions in the brain for reading, it expertly taps into related regions that help it recognize faces, objects, and speech. The stages of reading are well-defined, and recent studies have shown how key early introductions to reading are for children. Keep your child engaged with learning by making it a natural part of life. And pay attention to how your own reading brain works itself!
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