Which aspect is essential in the learning to read stage?

The development of phonological awareness is fundamental during the learning to read stage because it involves the ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds of spoken language. Phonological awareness includes skills such as identifying and playing with the sounds in words, which is crucial for understanding the relationship between sounds and their corresponding letters or groups of letters. This foundational skill allows students to decode words when reading.

When children have strong phonological awareness, they can better segment words into individual sounds and blend those sounds to form words, which is a vital component of the reading process. This skill sets the groundwork for further reading development, making it accessible for students to move on to more complex reading tasks, such as decoding unfamiliar words and ultimately improving reading fluency and comprehension in later stages.