During which phase of Chall's Stages of Reading do children pretend to read and point to words?

In Chall's Stages of Reading, the phase where children engage in pretending to read and pointing to words is known as the Pre Reading Stage. During this developmental period, typically occurring from birth to around age 5, children are not yet capable of reading in the conventional sense, but they display early literacy behaviors that indicate their learning and understanding of written language.

In this stage, children often mimic reading activities they have observed in adults, such as holding a book and turning pages, even if they do not fully comprehend the text. This imaginative engagement is crucial as it lays the foundation for their reading skills. During the Pre Reading Stage, children also develop print awareness and begin to understand concepts about print, such as the direction of text and the association of spoken language with written words.

The other stages, such as The Developing stage, The Construction stage, and The Mastery stage, reflect more advanced stages of reading development, where children have acquired solid decoding skills, comprehension strategies, and a deeper understanding of language and literature.