ABSTRACT
By this stage it is difficult to separate out Meaning, Phonics and Fluency as distinct areas. The main characteristic of the Stage 3 reader is the way these areas are combined through:
• self-correction; • increasing confidence in making informed guesses, based on a
combination of context, recognition of whole words, and phonics; • where there is a difficult word, reading on to the end of a sentence
to see what word might make sense; • using knowledge gained from other sources when tackling
unknown words; • checking that guesses fit in with the appearance of the word; • seeing ‘little words in big words’, e.g. book-shop, black-board; • analysing words by letter-strings or syllables rather than letter by
letter; • a greatly increased and increasing sight vocabulary; • a more expressive reading voice.
