ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to describe early reading acquisition in Brazilian Portuguese. In particular, the chapter discusses the extent to which Ehri’s (1992, 2002) phase theory, which has been formulated on the basis of children learning to read English, can be extended to children learning to read a relatively transparent writing system. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the Brazilian Portuguese writing system, followed by a description of Ehri’s theory. Finally, I review the results of an investigation of the course of early reading acquisition in Brazilian Portuguese by both typical readers and children with reading disabilities.
