From Scribbles to Skilled Reading: Understanding Ehri’s Phases of Word Recognition

Imagine walking into a kindergarten classroom and watching a five-year-old proudly point to a cereal box and exclaim, “That says Cheerios!” You glance over and see there’s no actual decoding happening. But there is something important happening. That child is beginning a lifelong journey from recognizing symbols to becoming a fluent, skilled reader.

What you’re witnessing is one of the earliest steps in a process that literacy researcher Linnea Ehri calls the Phases of Word Recognition Development, a powerful framework for understanding how children learn to read. And if you’re an educator, interventionist, or literacy leader, understanding these phases isn’t just helpful. It’s essential for making smart, research-aligned instructional decisions.

Let’s break these phases down together, and explore what they look like in real classrooms, for real kids.

Why Does This Framework Matter?

Too often, reading instruction treats all students the same, assuming they’re starting from the same place or progressing at the same rate. But when we zoom out and look at reading through a developmental lens, everything changes. We begin to ask smarter questions:

• What does this child already know about how print works?
• How well can they connect letters to sounds?
  What’s the next skill they need to master?
  
  

And most importantly, what kind of instruction will help get them there?

That’s where Ehri’s Phase Theory comes in. According to Ehri, students typically move through four key phases on their journey toward becoming skilled readers:

1. Pre-Alphabetic Phase
2. Partial Alphabetic Phase
3. Full Alphabetic Phase
4. Consolidated Alphabetic Phase
   
   

Let’s walk through each one.

1. Pre-Alphabetic Phase: The Beginning Spark

Think: Preschoolers or early Kinder students who “read” the world around them.

In this earliest phase, children have little to no understanding of letter-sound relationships. Instead, they rely on visual or contextual cues to “read” words. This is the stage where a child might recognize the McDonald’s logo from the golden arches or say “Nutella!” when they see the familiar jar, without reading a single letter.

Here is an example in a classroom: A student sees the word “STOP” on a red octagon during morning circle time and proudly announces, “That says stop!” They’re right, but not because they decoded it. They’ve memorized the shape and context.

What’s happening during this phase?

• Recognition of environmental print (logos, labels, signs)
• No decoding yet, just visual memory
• Emerging print awareness (understanding that print carries meaning)

The instructional focus during this phase should include:

• Alphabet instruction: Teach letter names, shapes, and basic letter-sound connections.
• Phonological awareness: Engage students in games that involve rhyming, syllable counting, and beginning sounds.
• Print-rich environments: Label classroom items and use read-alouds to build exposure.

2. Partial Alphabetic Phase: Starting to Connect the Dots

Think: Mid-kindergarten students beginning to make sense of sounds and letters.

Now students start using some phoneme-grapheme knowledge. They might notice the first or last letter of a word and use it as a clue. But their decoding is often partial or inconsistent.

Here is an example in a classroom: A student sees the word Nutella and says, “Nutella starts with N!” They recognize the logo and are starting to attend to the letter N, but they’re not sounding out the whole word.

What’s happening during this phase?

• Emerging knowledge of letter-sound correspondences
• Reliance on initial (and sometimes final) sounds
• Heavy dependence on context or memory to identify words

The instructional focus during this phase should include:

• Phonemic awareness: Isolating beginning, middle, and end sounds in spoken words.
• Explicit phonics instruction: Teach how to decode simple CVC words (e.g., cat, sun, map).
• Guided decoding practice: Encourage attempts to sound out whole words, not just parts.
  
  

3. Full Alphabetic Phase: Learning to Decode

Think: Late kindergarten to early first grade, where real decoding begins.

Students in this phase can systematically connect individual graphemes to phonemes. They are now able to decode unfamiliar words by sounding them out, although it may still take effort and time.

Here is an example in a classroom: A student sees the word crab and says, “/k/ /r/ /a/ /b/ … crab!” It may take a few seconds, but they’re doing it, they’re decoding!

What’s happening during this phase?

• Decoding unfamiliar words with effort
• Increased focus on blending sounds together
• Building orthographic knowledge (starting to store how words look/sound)

The instructional focus during this phase should include:

• Blending and segmenting phonemes: Support students in stringing sounds together fluently.
  Decodable texts: Provide books aligned with their phonics instruction.
• Repetition and practice: Strengthen neural pathways through repeated exposure.
  
  

4. Consolidated Alphabetic Phase: From Sounds to Chunks

Think: Second grade and beyond, where fluent reading takes shape.

At this point, students begin recognizing larger chunks or patterns within words, like -ing, -tion, or -ight. They decode more quickly and with less cognitive effort. They also begin using morphemes (meaningful word parts) to make sense of new vocabulary.

Here is an example in a classroom: A student reads the word unbelievable by breaking it into parts: “un–believe–able.” They don’t stop to sound out each letter, they chunk and go.

What’s happening during this phase?

• Recognition of common letter patterns and word families
• Use of affixes, roots, and syllables to decode and understand words
• Increased fluency and comprehension

The instructional focus during this phase should include:

• Morphological awareness: Teach prefixes, suffixes, roots, and base words.
• Syllabication strategies: Break longer words into syllables for easier decoding.
• Advanced phonics: Continue instruction in less common graphemes and irregular patterns.
  
  

It’s Not About Memorization, It’s About Mapping

One of the biggest misconceptions about reading is that kids just “memorize” words. But that’s not how skilled reading develops. Children must map words into their brains by connecting sounds (phonemes) to letters or letter patterns (graphemes), and then to meaning. That’s how orthographic mapping works, and it’s how reading becomes automatic.

Fill out the form below for a free mapping poster you can use to support word mapping in your classroom.

Understanding which phase of development a student is in helps us make smarter instructional choices. For example:

• If a child is stuck in the partial alphabetic phase, they need more focused phonemic awareness and decoding instruction.
• If they’re in the consolidated phase, they’re ready for morphology and multisyllabic word work.
  
  

No guessing. No hoping. Just teaching that’s aligned with where their brain is in the reading process.

Want to Go Deeper? Join the Science of Reading Academy

Ehri’s phases are just one part of the bigger picture. If this breakdown sparked new thinking or helped you better understand your students' needs, we’d love to invite you to explore even more in our FREE Science of Reading Academy.

In this self-paced, online course, we’ll take you through:

• The neuroscience of how the brain learns to read
• How to apply reading frameworks, including Ehri’s Phases, in classroom and intervention settings
• Practical strategies for phonemic awareness, decoding, and orthographic mapping
• Tools to assess where your students are, and how to move them forward
  
  

This course was designed for educators who want to move beyond surface-level literacy strategies and instead teach in a way that’s aligned with how the brain actually learns to read.

Let’s Rethink Reading, Together

Your students are on a journey from scribbles to fluency. When you understand the path, you can guide them more confidently at every step.

👉 Ready to take your knowledge deeper and transform your instruction? Enroll in the Science of Reading Academy today.
Because every reader deserves a teacher who understands the science behind how they learn.