The Science Of Reading

This is an interesting article I read about the science of reading.

This resource lays out problematic misconceptions about reading instruction and shares critical research headlines we should use to inform decisions. It offers suggestions to carve a path forward that leads to the end of the reading crisis in Tennessee, U.S.

I think it`s important to remember that reading is not a skill that we`re naturally born with. It is in fact a complex set of explicitly taught skills that we must acquire as children. Therefore, a child should not be shamed or embarrassed if she struggles with reading.

The human brain is not naturally wired to read. Reading is a complex set of skills that must be explicitly taught.

A widely-held misconception is that learning to read is a natural process – much like learning to speak- and that kids will naturally pick up the skills if given enough time and access to text at their “just right” reading level. This is not true.

• Foundational Reading Skills—often referred to collectively as decoding—help early readers understand how letters, sounds, and words work.

Foundational reading skills are finite and can be fully mastered. They include things like:

Concepts of print: Readers learn how to approach a text and can read left to right and top to bottom on a page.

Phonemic awareness: Students learn to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in words. For example, a kindergartener can identify the three sounds in the word cat: /k/ /a/ /t/. She can also identify how the word changes if the /k/ sound is replaced with /m/.

Phonological awareness: Students learn to hear, identify, and manipulate units of oral language, including words, syllables, and other word parts. For example, a second grader can clap twice to show he can accurately identify the number of syllables he hears in the word “sister”: sis-ter. He can tap three times to count the syllables in “artichoke”: ar-ti-choke.

Phonics: Readers learn the predictable relationships between sounds (phonemes) and the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language. With phonics, students have a system for remembering how to read and write words. For example, once a child learns that bone is spelled b-o-n-e rather than b-o-a-n, her memory will help her read and spell the word instantly and more accurately in the future.

Spelling: Students use their knowledge of phonics to accurately write the letters to represent the sounds they hear in words.

Fluency: Readers learn to read text accurately, quickly, and with appropriate expression to show they understand emphasis and tone. Fluency is the link between decoding and comprehension.

Knowledge-based competencies are rooted in overall language comprehension and help students create meaning from text. They are dynamic and are developed over a reader’s lifetime, starting at birth. Knowledge-based competencies include things like:

• Vocabulary: Readers have vast knowledge of words and their meanings.

• Background knowledge: Readers accumulate knowledge of the world,
facts, and skills to build their background knowledge. They use this background knowledge to make sense of the information they come across through reading.

• Oral language skills: Students develop command over word form, sentence structure, and discourse. They can make meaning from spoken language using their background knowledge, vocabulary, and understanding of how language is structured.

• Reading comprehension skills: Readers learn to unlock the meaning of text because they can decode the words on the page and simultaneously understand the meaning of those words.

Since 1986, reading experts have used these two categories of competencies to clarify the relationships between decoding and language comprehension
in reading, and elevate the critical role skills-based competencies have in reading ability, particularly for early readers.

Both decoding skills and language comprehension abilities are critical, and both must be strong for proficient reading comprehension. Strength in one area cannot compensate for a deficit in
the other area, particularly

for young readers. In other words, a young reader with excellent decoding skills will not understand a text if she does not also have knowledge of the topic. The opposite is also true. A beginning reader with a great deal of knowledge of the topic will struggle to understand the text if he cannot read the words on the page.