Which phase describes a stage where individuals begin to grasp the connection between letters and sounds?

• A. Prealphabetic
• B. Partial alphabetic
• C. Full alphabetic
• D. Consolidated alphabetic

Answer: (B)

In early word reading, learners progress from recognizing words by shape to connecting letters with their sounds. The stage where this begins to happen is the partial alphabetic phase. At this point, readers start to attach phonemes to some letters and use that partial letter–sound knowledge to help decode words, often relying on the initial letter (or a few letters) and context to fill in the rest. They’re moving beyond non-letter cues, but they’re not yet mapping all letters consistently or blending smoothly across the entire word. This sits between the non-letter cues of earlier stages and the more complete, systematic decoding of later phases.