3/20/2023

What, Why, and How: The Science of Learning to Read

Humans have been listening and speaking for tens of thousands of years, whereas reading and writing didn’t become common until the 19th and 20th centuries. That being said, literacy is not something that comes naturally—it is a skill that needs to be developed through explicit and systematic instruction. Students arrive in the classroom with a huge variety of background knowledge, and most teachers only have a limited amount of time they can spend on lessons. By implementing lessons based on the science of reading, teachers can provide students with highly effective and equitable literacy instruction.

The science of reading has been studied rigorously using gold-standard methodologies, and it has produced an enormous volume of research to back up the effectiveness of using certain teaching methods over others. Unfortunately, many classrooms still take a Whole-Language/Balanced Literacy approach to teach students how to read. This method of teaching values views over scientific evidence, which puts many students—especially those who have learning disabilities or are English Learners—at a disadvantage.

So, how can teachers integrate the science of learning to read in their own classrooms?

What is the Science of Reading, and Why is it Important?

Simply put, the science of reading consists of a multidisciplinary body of research from the fields of education, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and cognitive psychology. This body of research explains how the human brain learns to read and outlines the best practices for reading instruction.

In the Simple View of Reading (SVR), reading comprehension is conceptualized through the combination of two skills: word recognition and linguistic comprehension. Neither of these components are sufficient on their own, and a lack of understanding of one concept could lead to overall reading failure. This is why it is so important for students to develop both alongside each other. Along with this, Scarborough’s Reading Rope is an infographic that shows all the components that go into literacy. Below we’ve provided a more in-depth view of the processes of word recognition and linguistic comprehension.

Word Recognition

Word recognition is a combination of components: phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. Out of these three, decoding is the element that helps bring everything together when it comes to word recognition. Decoding is the process of linking printed words or letters on the page to their spoken equivalents. A student’s ability to decode words begins with their understanding of the language sound system and then proceeds to have a grasp on the writing system through an understanding of phonology, orthography, and morphology.

Phonology

This is the sound system of a language. The English language is made up of 44 phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound that can make a difference in the meaning of a word. Having phonemic awareness is the ability to isolate, identify, focus on, and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Instruction that helps students develop these skills is incredibly important for beginning and struggling readers. Some examples of phonemic awareness tasks might be:

• Identifying rhyming words
• Blending spoken syllables into words
• Changing a sound in a word to produce a different word
• Segmenting a word into sounds

Identifying students who might be struggling with grasping phonology and implementing proper reading intervention techniques is crucial to preventing further difficulties in learning to read.

Orthography

This is the writing system of a language. The English writing system has 26 letters that represent the phonemes for spoken words, either singular or grouped. There are different rules and constraints for the ways letters are arranged in words (e.g. the letters ck don’t occur at the beginning of words). Students are taught these rules through phonics, which teaches them letter-sound correspondences.

For all types of readers, it is more productive to sound out unfamiliar words than to guess the word based on semantic or syntactic cues alone, which is what other methods of learning to read suggest. After readers have repeatedly practiced certain words and letter-sound correspondences, they will be able to immediately recognize them without sounding the words out. Automatic word recognition is ultimately the goal, which leads to fluent reading, and in turn frees cognitive resources to focus on reading to learn as opposed to learning to read.

Morphology

This deals with morphemes, which are the meaningful units of words such as prefixes, suffixes, roots, etc. Introducing students to morphemes helps synthesize multiple aspects of the Simple View of Reading because morphemes combine phonology, orthography, and semantics.

Phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition all make up the lower portion of Scarborough’s Reading Rope. These elements work together to promote accuracy, fluency, and speed as students are participating in reading instruction.

Language Comprehension

Language comprehension is the other necessary component of reading comprehension, and it makes up the top half of Scarborough’s Reading Rope. As stated in the Indiana Department of Education’s guide to the science of reading, language comprehension required in-depth knowledge of morphology, semantics, syntax, background knowledge, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. These elements are taught through the underpinning components of semantics, pragmatics, syntax, and discourse.

Semantics

Semantics refers to anything related to vocabulary, the meaning of words, and the relationships between words. By focusing instruction on high-frequency, high-utility words that are found across the curriculum, students are able to deepen their vocabulary and further support them throughout their journey toward literacy. Teaching word-learning strategies such as contextual cues, synonyms, and morphology can also be beneficial for students.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics refers to the rules of conversation, as well as the use and interpretation of language in a particular context. This refers to the circumstances before and after a particular event and certain societal rules such as eye contact, taking turns, asking questions, etc. Pragmatics also deals with things like the speaker’s tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and body language cues the listener can use to determine meaning. When taught with explicit and systematic instruction, pragmatics helps students develop their social use of language, fluent reading, and comprehension. This is an especially important area to focus on for English Learners, students with learning disabilities, and students with executive function impairments.

Syntax

Syntax refers to the order, relationships, and structure of words in oral and written sentences. In English, the order of words sometimes impacts the meaning of a sentence. Because of this, a student’s success in reading complex texts is dependent on their understanding of sentences with multiple clauses, as well as the connective words that signal the relationships of clauses within and across sentences. For example, connective words could signal additional information (and, also, in addition to), contrasting information (but, although, however), or causal relationships (because, so, therefore).

A reader’s knowledge of pronoun references, verb tenses, and subject-verb agreement is predictive of reading comprehension, and so instruction that includes the parts of speech and syntax supports reading comprehension and written composition.

Discourse

This refers to the organization of spoken and written language. Students’ proficiency with words, phrases, and text at an oral and listening level predicts reading comprehension. By engaging students in high-quality, engaging books they are better able to develop their knowledge about discourse. Along with books, having a strong background knowledge also helps students relate what they are reading to what they already know. By supporting students through explicit instruction and guiding them through deep reading in multiple subjects, they will increase their background knowledge along with their comprehension skills.

Just like word recognition, students can’t be expected to develop strong linguistic comprehension skills without explicit, systematic instruction. Below we will highlight the recommended evidence-based methods that should be used when teaching students how to read.

The How: Systematic Instruction

According to the science of learning to read, taking an explicit and systematic approach to teaching literacy is the best way to ensure student success. This type of instruction is often referred to as Structured Literacy (SL), and there are four main components that go into this type of teaching according to the IDA.

Explicit

This means that concepts and skills being introduced to students are directly taught and practiced—educators should not assume students learn principles of literacy on their own or through exposure alone. The teacher should take care to explain each concept directly and clearly and provide plenty of guided practice with each new concept. Students should also receive immediate feedback on their work to minimize learning concepts incorrectly.

Systematic and Cumulative

Each concept students are taught should build on top of the previous concept they learned, and their teacher should explain how each new lesson fits into the whole. New skills should be presented in a logically ordered way, progressing from simple to complex. The goal of systematic and cumulative teaching is that students will begin to develop automatic reading and transition from learning to read into reading to learn.

Hands-on, Engaging, and Multimodal

This combines listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which in turn develops a student’s language comprehension skills and fosters multimodal learning. Methods of teaching that allow students to get hands-on experience include using tiles, hand gestures, color-coding words, etc.

Diagnostic and Responsive

Educators should always be assessing their students’ progress and adjusting their pacing, presentation, and amount of practice given for each new concept. Take a look at this Lexia® blog for tips about how to effectively assess students’ reading abilities.

Systematic instruction, or Structured Literacy, is an incredibly effective way to guide students to success in reading. Lexia is dedicated to helping your students learn how to read, which is why we provide programs backed by evidence and based on the science of reading. If you’re interested in learning more about bringing the science of reading to your curriculum, take a look at our webinar that outlines exactly how to incorporate Structured Literacy in your classroom.