In our model, then, when we use the term languaging we refer to a more general concept than spoken language. Our model does not require, although it permits, a conception of reading as decoding to speech or some form of internal phonetic representation. This is a useful aspect of the model because it permits us to consider early acquisition of reading skill as learning to decode print to speech, while it also allows us to consider mature reading as going directly from print to language (verbal or visual language), with the mature reader having the option of going from print to speech when necessary for understanding of the message. The concept of languaging also permits extension of the model to the deaf and others who may learn to read without the spoken language.
Continuing with the developmental model, following the acquisition of the oracy processes of Stage 3, both the non-linguistic processes of listening and uttering, and the languaging processes of auding and speaking, continue to develop. Later, if the child is in a literate society, he may learn a special kind of looking defined as reading-looking at script in order to language (Stage 4, Figure 1). During this time, the child may also learn a special ,kind of marking called writing, which is marking to produce script for languaging.
These literacy processes are achieved after considerable language competency has been developed by auding and speaking, and they utilize the same conventionalized signs (e.g., words) and rules to sequence the signs (syntax) for communicating that are used in auding and speaking,1 plus the signs and rules used for graphic display of language elements (e.g., spelling patterns; representation of homophones such as site, cite, and sight).
By the present model, reading is construed as a special kind of looking-looking at print in order to language. For beginning readers, the model subscribes to the two-stage hypothesis from linguistics (Carroll, 1970; Fries, 1964) which asserts that the early reader looks at print to convert it to the spoken representation of meaning, and then comprehends the spoken symbols. For advanced readers, the model assumes that the reader may look at print and convert it directly into language content (words, phrases, or sentences) without necessarily involving the spoken representation of the language content, although such conversion is possible and may even be typical for the advanced reader (see Hypothesis 3, Chapter V).
At this point, we are not going to review literature for or against the different stage hypotheses. The major points we wish to make here are that, according to the present model, (a) reading occurs after oracy competency is fairly well developed, and utilizes the same language content (signs, rules) as used in the oracy skills, plus the special competencies needed for understanding language in written form; and (b) reading is a special case of the more general information-processing activity of looking, hence there are looking-but-not-reading activities, but no reading-but-not-Looking activities.