Which of the following students demonstrates variation in reading development that would require intervention focused on
explicit phonics instruction?
(A) a first-grade student who can recite the alphabet from memory but has difficulty distinguishing individual phonemes in
words
(B) a second-grade student who can easily decode nonsense words but has limited comprehension of the meaning of text
(C) a third-grade student who is adept at using context cues to identify words but has difficulty sounding out the letters in
unfamiliar words
(D) a fourth-grade student who can read most grade-level text but has difficulty with unfamiliar irregular low-frequency words