In which stage does the child use a letter or group of letters to represent every speech sound they hear in a word?

The phonetic stage is characterized by a child’s ability to use letters or groups of letters to represent each individual speech sound in a word. In this stage, children begin to understand the alphabetic principle, meaning they can connect sounds (phonemes) to written letters (graphemes). For example, if a child were to spell "cat" as "k-at," they demonstrate that they recognize each sound and are attempting to represent it with a corresponding letter.

Understanding this concept highlights the developmental progress that young learners make as they transition from more rudimentary forms of writing to more sophisticated ones that accurately convey the sounds of spoken language. Children in the phonetic stage often show a clearer awareness of letter-sound correspondences, which is critical for further literacy development.