ABSTRACT
Beginning reading imposes two kinds of demands on a child: to learn to recognize (decode) printed words and to apply already developed oral lanuage comprehension skills to written language. Subsequent reading development involves the acquisition of new comprehension strategies and processes that are specific to the increasingly specialized demands of written school language, that is, to the specialized forms, structures and uses of written language that children encounter in the late elementary grades and beyond. Literacy development thus involves two important transitions, a transition to written language codes in which a child learns to recognize printed words and apply already developed oral comprehension skills to written text, and a transition to literate school discourse in which new comprehension skills develop that are adapted to the progressively increasing cognitive demands of school discourse. The major thesis of this chapter is that to prepare children for the increasing demands school texts make for their comprehension, beginning reading instruction should have a more explicit emphasis on comprehension.
