Reading is a complex skill, comprised of FIVE main strands:
Phonemic Awareness- The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. This has nothing to do with the actual recognition of letters. It is strictly focused on sound identification. It includes skills such as rhyming, deleting, manipulating, segmenting, and blending sounds.
Phonics- The ability to map sounds to written letters. At this point, the student can recognize that the printed letters and letter patterns they see correlate to specific sounds. Spelling instruction is also critical to developing recognition of letter patterns.
Vocabulary-The ability to recognize that words have meaning, and understand the meaning of the words they read. Vocabulary needs to continue to develop in order for students to continue to read more challenging works.
Fluency- The ability to read aloud accurately, naturally, and sound as though they are speaking. Fluent readers rarely get tripped up by words, slow down to decode, or read in choppy, monotone phrases. To achieve fluency, the decoding needs to become automatic enough that it does not interfere with the pace and expression. When students have a very difficult time with fluency, it is a good indication that they are reading at a level that is too challenging for them. See Reading Levels.
Comprehension- The ability to understand the meaning of a text. This includes several facets, including direct detail recall, drawing connections, making inferences, and coming to conclusions.