You may be hearing more and more about the Science of Reading lately.

 

Do you wonder what it is that everyone is talking about?

 

My goal is to give you a quick synopsis of the Science of Reading, so that you can see what all of the excitement is about!

 

With this information you may decide to adopt some new techniques or strategies that will benefit the students you work with.  In my experience, teachers who find out about the Science of Reading are grateful to finally have the knowledge to support students who they had not been able to help learn to read, up until this point.

 

No matter what grade you teach, you are likely to have students who struggle to read in your classes.  The Science of Reading can be applied to support readers at any age. All of us can improve our practices by learning more about the scientific research behind reading. If you are a life-long learner, as I am, this information brings a breath of fresh air to literacy instruction, and to teaching in general.

 

What is the Science of Reading?

It is research that is based on a formula called the Simple View of Reading, first proposed in 1986 by researchers Gough & Tumner, which shows that reading comprehension depends on two basic components: decoding, and language comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019).

Decoding (D) x Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (RC)

Essentially, it is research that shows that a person will not be able to understand what they are reading if they do not have strong skills in both decoding, and language comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019, para 1). The significance of this research is that it shows the importance of directly and explicitly teaching students to associate letters and sounds, and then to sound out words letter by letter.

“Gough and Tunmer (1986) proposed the Simple View of Reading to clarify the role of decoding in reading. Many educators did and still do believe that strong decoding skills are not necessary to achieve reading comprehension if language abilities are strong” (Farrell et al.,2019, para 3).

 

Breaking Down the Formula

The formula can be further explained and broken down.

The multiplication symbol in the formula is significant, because it shows how a student with poor skills in either area would struggle to understand what they were reading.

An explanation by Dr. Jan Hasbrouk from The Reading League, helps to clarify this:  “If the decoding skill is weak…especially if it is so weak we would have to say it is basically a zero, in terms of competency in decoding, no matter how smart you are, how language proficient you are, …what a good thinker you are, you are not going to have reading comprehension” (Hasbrouk, 2019, 7:25).

This kind of profile is characteristic of students with dyslexia, who have average or above average intelligence, yet experience a “block” when it comes to interpreting written language (Hasbrouk, 2019).

Students who are learning English often experience the opposite challenge, compared with students who have dyslexia. They may be able decode or pronounce the words that they are reading, yet not be able to understand the meaning of the words. Imagine, for example, that the student does not know any of the English words in a paragraph they have been given to read in science class. Even if their decoding is 100%, (that is, they can pronounce all of the words aloud), if their understanding of the meaning of the English words is low, they will not have any understanding of what they’ve read (Hasbrouk, 2019).

This research is important because it provides an opposite view of learning to read, from the very common whole-language approach. In the whole-language philosophy, successful readers are thought to bring what they already know about language to the page, and to predict upcoming words.  They apply their understanding of oral language, sentence structure and meaning to reading the words (Zakaluk, 1982, para. 9-10). In contrast, in phonics-based approach, reading is seen as beginning with letters and sounds, and the emphasis is on cracking the code (para. 5). The whole-language approach remains very popular in schools today, and was the main approach used throughout the 80s and 90s.

 

Why is there so much attention on the Science of Reading now?

If the Simple View of Reading was first proposed in the 1980s, then why is it being brought up so much lately, you might wonder.

Over the past ten years or so, there has been extensive research into what happens inside the human brain, as a person develops the ability to read (Kearns, 2019, p. 185). Neuroscientists have been observing brain waves in readers, and have been using neuroimaging data to observe the difference between the brains of students with typical reading skills and those with dyslexia (p. 182). Their discoveries have implications for teaching reading, which confirm what Gough & Tumner presented in 1986:

“In the early elementary grades, students require extensive instruction and practice to help them learn grapheme-phoneme connections and recognize many words by sight. Some kinds of instruction – especially explicit, systematic phonics instruction – are especially effective in helping students acquire word reading skills. In its absence, some students will not develop good reading skills” (Kearns et al., 2019, p. 183).

For more information on connecting graphemes (letters) with phonemes (sounds), please see my previous post, on orthographic mapping.

 

Phonics and Whole-Language Combined

In contrast to the whole-language approach, the Simple View of Reading indicates the importance in teaching students how to decode, or to sound out words by matching letters to sounds.  In the Simple View of Reading, language skills remain an important factor, but it is only half of the equation. Students need both decoding and language skills to comprehend what they read.

Even though research on the importance of teaching decoding has existed for over forty years, and even though this research has been replicated many times, and has not been dis-proven, many teachers do not know about it (Farrell et al., 2019, para 1,3) or are not convinced of its merit.

Many early years teacher do teach phonics and decoding, however some continue to believe that this is not necessary, or that it should only be touched on, in passing. There is the belief that students will grasp what they need to know about letters and letter patterns through exposure to words and reading, and that it is not important to spend time deliberately, directly teaching phonics. For example, Marie Clay, creator of the Reading Recovery program, states: “The beginning reader must discover for himself how to scan and visually analyze print to locate cues and features…” (p. 8).

As a previous resource teacher, and reading intervention teacher, I have worked with many, many students who were not able to deduce letter and sound correspondence through general reading practice. Instead, they required very intensive, explicit instruction, in order to learn to read. Developing the ability to decode was what finally helped them find success. In fact, I recently learned that up to 50% of students will struggle to read, if they are not directly taught sound symbol relationships (Hasbrouk, 2019). Bringing phonics into your instruction benefits all readers!

For all teachers, the Simple View of Reading is a helpful tool in determining how to help students who are struggling with reading comprehension (Farrell et al., 2019). Keeping the formula in mind when deciding what type of support to provide to students, the teacher can quickly see whether the problem is breaking down for the student over decoding or understanding language. This provides a very helpful starting point.

Middle Years and High School Students Who Struggle to Read

No matter what age the student is, consulting the Simple View of Reading can support the teacher in deciding how best to teach reading to an individual who is struggling:

“All of us can think of an older student who struggles with reading words.  This struggle usually occurs because poor decoding skills were not mastered during the foundational instruction phase.   Often students in these grades have adopted inefficient coping strategies that negatively impact comprehension.   Even in later grades, students can benefit from phonics instruction and teachers are encouraged to provide time to enable “catch-up” growth.  There is no substitute for effective decoding, and it can be taught at any age” (The Barksdale Reading Institute, Phonics tab, “Advanced Phonics Continuum”).

 

Where to Look Next: 

According to The Reading League, a website that was created with the goal of supporting teachers in improving the reading skills of students in the state of Mississippi, there “two key reports” that teachers should be aware of:

“Teachers should be knowledgeable about two national reports that articulate key recommendations for instruction that are based on the science of reading.

• The National Reading Panel (2000) emphasized that phonics instruction should be systematic and explicit.

 

•  The Institute of Educational Sciences (2016) confirmed the findings of the National Reading Panel by emphasizing again that it is important to explicitly teach the alphabetic principle and that students need to decode, encode, and analyze word parts in order to internalize the sound-symbol associations.

 

•  In addition, the IES report recommended the importance of reading decodable connected text everyday during the early reading instruction years to build accuracy and fluency. (The Barksdale Reading Institute, Phonics tab, “Research: Two Key Reports” section)

 

I hope that you will find this helpful, and that you will apply this research with the students you teach.  I am convinced if you give it a try, you will see positive changes not only in the readers who are experiencing difficulty, but with all of your early readers!

Happy Teaching!

 

References

Clay, M. M. (1979). The early detection of reading difficulties. Heinemann.

 

Farrell, L., Hunter, M., Davidson, M., & Osenga, T. (2019). The simple view of reading. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/article/simple-view-reading

Hanford, E. (2020, October 3). Influential literacy expert Lucy Calkins is changing her views. APM Reports. https://www.apmreports.org/story/2020/10/16/influential-literacy-expert-lucy-calkins-is-changing-her-views?fbclid=IwAR26L9qEoFLsxBYbe7y74qZMHgXUzrfiO2-vpOTQVxEYiPmlWuZyr5dbU10

 

Harbrouk, (2019, July 9). The science of reading: An overview (by Dr. Jan Hasbrouck) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTvHSgoTeZE

Kearns, D. M., Hancock, R., Hoeft, F., Pugh, K. R., & Frost, S. F. (2019). The neurobiology of dyslexia. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51 (3), 175-188.

 

Kilpatrick, D. A. (2016).  Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step by step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Casey & Kirsch Publishers.

 

The Barksdale Reading Institute. (n.d). The Reading Universe:  Understanding the Big Picture of Literacy Instruction [interactive grid]. https://www.readinguniverse.org/copy-of-concepts-of-print

 

Zakaluk, B. (1982). A theoretical overview of the reading process: Factors which influence performance and implications for instruction. [Unpublished monograph]. University of Manitoba.