What occurs during the pre-reading phase of Chall's Stages of Reading Development?

During the pre-reading phase of Chall’s Stages of Reading Development, oral language development is a key focus. This stage lays the foundation for reading by helping children enhance their listening and speaking abilities. It often involves engaging with stories, discussing vocabulary, and developing an understanding of narrative structure through oral interactions. These experiences promote language skills that are crucial for later literacy development, as they form the basis for decoding and comprehension when children start to read independently.

While the other options pertain to essential literacy skills, they are more relevant in later stages of reading development. Written language development comes into play as children begin to create written texts. Comprehension skills development becomes critical as they start reading and need to understand the meaning of texts. Phonetic awareness, while important, is generally introduced more formally beyond the pre-reading phase as children begin to recognize sounds in spoken words.