Initial isolation of letter and word sounds are those steps. Something I believe needs to be addressed in conjunction with reading development is handwriting in schools. Children, who have just learned to read and print, are confronted in the third grade with a bewildering set of hieroglyphics, in the form of cursive writing, that has to be mastered. It belongs certainly to the pre-computer days if, indeed, it ever belonged to any age. The measure of that skill, the real test of handwriting, is, of course, ensuring that it can be read - other than by the author.
Communication has to take place.
Sometimes there is the situation of even the author being unable to decipher his writing. Manuscript writing, or more commonly printing, is taught only in the first two grades. However, by contrast, cursive handwriting only minimally complements reading development since there is little comparison between the print seen in books and that used in the cursive hand. How many parents and teachers have heard beginning readers say they now want to learn to read grown-up writing. The children themselves distinguish between the ability to read handwriting and the ability to read text in books.