Ehri's model of phases of learning to read: a brief critique

A theory of how children progress through different phases of reading should be an asset both to reading researchers and teachers alike. The present paper provides a brief review of Ehri's influential four phases of reading development: pre‐alphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic and consolidated alphabetic. The model is flexible enough to acknowledge that children do not necessarily progress through these phases in strict sequence. Such flexibility is perhaps both a strength and a weakness. Despite some minor problems (such as weak operational definition, little attempt to relate to underlying developing cognitive structure, a final phase that seems removed from mature skilled reading) the model has served reasonably well as a flexible framework rather than as a set of falsifiable scientific hypotheses.     

Latin American Education: Perceptions of linearities and the construction of discursive space

Through an account of eight contemporary books that refer to Latin American education, this article offers an interpretation of the processes of construction of 'Latin American discursive space'. The similarities in the principles that dominated the latest educational reforms in the region and the main perspectives that 'explain' these similarities in the literature are taken as the starting point. The article then suggests another interpretation, based on the analysis of discourse, to understand limitations for thought and action in Latin American education.