A first-grade student who is an English learner enjoys creating labels for objects around the classroom. Most of the labels contain only a single letter to represent the beginning sound of the object, and a few also include a letter representing the last sound. According to Ehri, the student is demonstrating which of the following stages of grapheme-phoneme connections?

In the consolidated alphabetic phase, learners can recognize larger units of sound and are able to use clusters of letters to represent sounds in words. This phase indicates a more advanced understanding of phoneme-grapheme connections than demonstrated by the student, who is only using single letters for initial and final sounds.

The full alphabetic phase involves a complete understanding of the alphabetic principle and the ability to connect all letters in a word to their corresponding sounds. At this stage, students can decode unfamiliar words and apply their understanding of phonics comprehensively, which is beyond what the student is currently demonstrating.

The pre-alphabetic phase is characterized by an absence of understanding of the alphabetic principle. Students in this stage rely on visual cues or memory rather than grapheme-phoneme connections. Since the student is already using letters to represent sounds, they have progressed beyond this initial phase.