Prealphabetic phase

 During this first phase, children begin to recognize words in their environment

(Ehri, 1991, 1992, 1995). Since children under this phase have little knowledge about

letters, they create connections between salient features of a word and the meaning of the

word (Ehri, 1991, 1992, 1995). The visual cues selected by children in this stage might be

part of the spelling, shapes, or colors. Simply, a large yellow arch shape logo of

McDonald can be a typical example of a visual cue (Ehri, 1992). Therefore, Ehri (1991)

indicated that the identification of the word occurs at the semantic rather than the

phonological level, and the connections are visual and nonphonetic in this first stage of

word recognition. She also described that because most connections formed between

spellings and meaning are arbitrary, they are easily forgotten unless practiced frequently"

(Ehri, 1992, p. 125). However, to become a skilled reader, children should be able to

form the connections systematically between the printed word and the meaning. In the

second phase of Ehri's theory the reader finally begins to use letter-sound relations.

Partial alphabetic phase

 During this second phase, "learners begin using their letter knowledge to form

visual-phonetic connections between letters seen in spellings and sounds detected in

pronunciation of words they are learning to read" (Ehri, 1992, p. 126). Compared to the

first phase where connections are arbitrary, those in the second phase are systematic.

Moreover, if only one connection occurs in the first stage, more connections are formed

in the second phases since a reader uses letters. Another main difference between two

phases is that the primary connection in Phase 1 is formed between a spelling and its

meaning, whereas the main connection in Phase 2 is between a spelling and its

pronunciation (Ehri, 1992). They use more reliable and systematic information, but they