ABSTRACT
It is widely accepted that it takes children a long time to learn how to read and spell. Most current hypotheses about children’s reading, such as those of Frith (1985) and of Marsh (Marsh & Desberg, 1983; Marsh, Friedman, Desberg, & Saterdahl, 1981; Marsh, Friedman, Welch, & Desberg, 1980) asserted that children’s knowledge of written language increases right through their school years and that their approach to it changes quite radically as they become more knowledgeable. Yet, by far, the largest part of the remarkable body of recent research on children’s reading has concentrated on its beginning stages, and very little of it has dealt with the considerable learning that children still have to do later on.
