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SOR: Supports, Critiques, Questions

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Reading Matters: Connecting Science and Education

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Reading Matters: Connecting Science and Education

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In the past month I've given two talks that are the beginning of a concerted attempt to address some issues about connecting reading research and educational practice to improve literacy outcomes.

Connecting research and educational practice is essential. The ongoing effort to make this happen (which I've called the "science of reading movement") is a landmark development in the history of reading pedagogy. However, it is also a work in progress. Education is a massive enterprise with numerous stakeholders whose interests are not all alike. Creating the paths to meaningful change is difficult in this environment. Course corrections may be necessary along the way.

From my perspective as a researcher, I have concerns about where these efforts are heading. In the talks I began to voice them.

This note is to say: please wait. There's a limit to how much information can be conveyed in an hour-long talk. The talks raised issues but did not settle them. (It was also deeply unfortunate that there was no discussion after my Atlanta talk, due to problems with the conferencing tech.) There is more coming. (For one thing, I will be re-recording both talks because neither is available in intact form on-line. They will be posted here very soon.)

I know from experience that when I say anything critical about beliefs or approaches that people value, it creates discomfort. A little discomfort is OK, but panic is not. Sometimes people conclude from a talk that they've been doing everything wrong and want to be told what they should be doing instead. My main message is that people need to think about what they are doing and why, taking into account new information that I'm offering. It isn't "you're all wrong and you should immediately change what you doing." You're not and you shouldn't.

Obviously not: I can't tell you what to do in class tomorrow or in a session with a severe dyslexic. I'm a scientist, not a K-5 teacher or reading specialist. My expertise is in conducting and explaining research. I am trying to use this expertise to help improve effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of instruction.

I am very aware that it is far easier to say what's wrong with a given approach or curriculum than to offer a replacement. I have to believe that identifying the limitations of an approach-based on research that people may not know about-will be helpful in improving instructional materials and practices.

It is a frustrating role, however. Here's something that happened to me recently. I was approached by my local school district about sitting on a committee that was deciding which reading curriculum to adopt. I have worked with the school district before. I have been studying several of the major curricula to see how they are designed and where they agree and disagree. I have some relevant knowledge. When I gave it a little thought I realized that I wouldn't be much help. The school system is committed to investing in a new curriculum; I would find it very hard to recommend any of the major ones. I'd rather see money spent on supporting in-service teachers, developing a cadre of well-trained coaches, providing high quality PD, adding support personnel and so on. These needs are even greater now because of the catastrophic impact of COVID. But, if you want to buy a curriculum, plus the support services, software, and other add-ons, I don't have much to contribute. That doesn't feel great.

I do know something about reading research, however. My concerns focus on the difficulties in making effective use of it. The science of reading movement has been enormously successful in raising awareness about the existence of basic research relevant to reading instruction. Many teachers have benefited from personal and professional development activities in the area. There is a lot of forward momentum that I am trying not to dissipate.

There also are growing pains, however. The SRM seems to be coalescing around a small number of topics, studies, and authorities. This is yielding a simplistic version of the "science of reading" that is encouraging some practices that are questionable with respect to efficacy, efficiency, and equity.

This narrowing of focus is prompted by a valid concern: teachers (and other educators) have to be able to understand the research in order to make use of it. Since most educators don't have much background knowledge in the area, the message has to be kept simple. That is the rationale for focusing on what I called "classic rock" studies.

I think this approach is giving up too much too soon. It underutilizes the science, underestimates the teachers, and diverts attention from the need to improve professional training. The science of reading movement hasn't even gotten to the good stuff yet. I think teachers can absorb the important findings if they are presented the right way. Good PD is clearly an important component. Improving pre-service training would have the biggest impact, but that it is not happening as yet on a broad scale.

Relying on a few studies and authorities is ill-advised for another reason. Every study has its limitations; every authority only knows so much (yes, I am including myself). The limitations create easy targets for people who aren't sympathetic to the "science of reading." I'd rather identify the problem areas (with an eye towards fixing them) than leave it to them.

For some time I have been thinking about ways to communicate important, useful research findings more effectively. I've settled on focusing on what we know (with good confidence having weighed the relevant research), not individual studies or authorities. Margaret Goldberg and I will be giving a talk about this collaborative work at the next meeting of the SSSR. We intend to begin rolling out this material well before then. It won't tell people what to teach or which system to use. It will provide a set of principles or guidelines that can be used in making educational choices and designing curricula and activities.

In the meantime, what else could be done to advance the integration of research and practice? It seems pretty obvious that progress depends on collaborations between active researchers who know the science and are familiar with the educational issues, with educators who are in the schools or manage what happens there (teachers, principals, superintendents) and educators who provide pre- and in-service training (in schools of education, in for-profit and non-profit companies). What could be done to make more of this kind of collaboration happen?

Here are some things that might be tried. I have no particular expertise here or inside information about what will work.

All those companies that are marketing educational materials based on the "science of reading": ask who the scientists are on the team. Not just people with advanced degrees; I mean, people who have conducted and published basic research in serious journals. Are they actively involved in developing products or acting as advisors who lend credibility to a product?

Is there a way to increase the participation of active scientists in education efforts? I don't know-try asking. The incentives for collaborating with educators to improve materials and policies are not high. Researchers do research. The intrinsic and extrinsic rewards come from significantly increasing what we know about ourselves and the world. It is hard to pry good people away from their work. And many of us have had unsuccessful experiences working in the educational-industrial-political complex. However, the COVID pandemic has demonstrated that a crisis can be highly motivating. Many serious researchers in areas such as immunology and infectious diseases have gotten deeply involved in communicating complex science, challenging misinformation, and calling out charlatans (see, e.g., @laughterinlight on TikTok). Perhaps more cognitive science researchers could be recruited if they had a better understanding of our literacy crisis and why their participation is needed.

1. Ask philanthropies what they are doing to connect research and practice in reading and other areas of education. Many of them have topics such as education and child health as parts of their portfolios. The advocacy efforts that succeeded in the passage of legislation in many states could be directed at funding projects to join education and science in the service of increasing literacy.

2. Contact the government agencies that fund education-related research and ask: are you funding projects that would bring educators and researchers together to develop materials, formulate guidelines, create curricula for teaching teachers or coaches, etc. Or ask your representatives in Congress. You might start with IES.ed.gov, though there are other agencies as well.

3. Is there a college in your area that offers degree programs for future teachers? Ask the department or school of education: do you offer courses in cognitive science as part of teacher education? Do you have full-time staff with expertise in this research who are actively involved in teacher education? Do you partner with any departments on campus where such experts are found (e.g., psychology, communicative sciences and disorders, linguistics, educational psychology). Again, if the answers aren't satisfactory, that could suggest a focus for future advocacy activities.

I hope this is helpful and not too disruptive. More to follow.

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The "science of reading" is a work in progress

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In the past month I've given two talks that are the beginning of a concerted attempt to address some issues about connecting reading research and educational practice to improve literacy outcomes. Connecting research and educational practice is essential. The ongoing effort to make this happen (which I've called the "science of reading movement") is a...

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What Research Tells Us About Reading Instruction.pdf

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Is there really a ‘science of reading’ that tells us exactly how to teach kids to read?

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Is there really a ‘science of reading’ that tells us exactly how to teach kids to read?

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One of the longest-running education debates - commonly referred to as a war - has been over how to teach reading. It started in the 1800s, when Horace Mann, often called "the father of public education" in the United States, argued against teaching the explicit sounds of each letter. He worried that students would concentrate on sounding out words rather than learning how to read for comprehension, so he argued that students should learn to read whole words instead.

Thus began the fight over teaching phonics or "whole language" - and more recently what is known as "balanced literacy." We've also been hearing declarations that a "science of reading" proves that employing phonics in a particular war is the best and right path to teach young children how to read.

The following post looks at this broad issue and whether there really is a "science of reading" that has finally settled how reading should be taught.

It was written by David Reinking, professor emeritus at Clemson University and a former president of the Literacy Research Association; Victoria J. Risko, professor emerita at Vanderbilt University and a former president of the International Literacy Association; and George G. Hruby, an associate research professor of literacy and executive director of the Collaborative Center for Literacy Development at the University of Kentucky.

By David Reinking, Victoria J. Risko and George G. Hruby

Public debates about how to teach children to read have erupted periodically for decades. We are now in another cycle of those debates. Mainstream news sources are reporting, and in some cases fueling, the latest installment of the "reading wars." More worrisome, a majority of states have enacted, or are considering, new laws mandating how reading must be taught and setting narrow criteria for labeling students as reading disabled.

Since last March, the pandemic, the struggling economy, the movement for racial justice, November's presidential election and the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol have all muted attention to these issues. But they are again gaining traction, and with a new twist.

Parents who have had to take on their children's reading instruction at home are asking more questions and seeking informed advice. Marketers of some instructional materials have taken advantage of the situation offering ready-made, and sometimes overly promised, solutions. So, the debates about early reading instruction have a renewed immediacy.

This latest flare-up taps familiar themes. First, reasonable differences among qualified professionals are framed as a war between opposing factions. Second, phonics, as an approach to teaching reading, is a flash point. Finally, mainstream educators are portrayed as purveyors, or clueless victims, of conspiratorial resistance to scientific evidence. The latter theme is sometimes punctuated with anecdotes from distraught parents who have been led to believe that their children are being betrayed by an unenlightened educational establishment.

The straw man in the new round of the reading wars

These themes make for a compelling journalistic narrative and they can benefit for-profit interests outside mainstream education, particularly during a pandemic when many parents are seeking help teaching reading at home. But, they also obscure established evidence that teaching reading is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Overlooked is the common ground shared by those who draw different conclusions on the finer points of available research.

Phonics is the prime example. Few legitimate experts on teaching reading oppose teaching children phonics. Despite a timeworn narrative, there is no sharply drawn battle line dividing experts who completely support or completely oppose phonics.

Instead, reasonable differences exist along a continuum. On one end are those who see phonics as the foundation of learning to read for all students. To them, phonics - lots of it - is the essential ingredient that insures success for all students learning to read, and it must be mastered before other dimensions of reading are taught.

On the other end are those who see phonics as only one among many dimensions of learning to read - one that gains potency when integrated with meaningfully engaged reading and writing, with vocabulary and language development, with instruction aimed at increasing comprehension and fluency, and so forth. (For an extended discussion, click on this.)

Underlying that continuum is the question of whether a deficiency in phonics is at the root of virtually all reading difficulties, or whether, like many medical conditions (e.g., heart disease), those difficulties have multiple etiologies, including external factors, such as impoverished school resources to support students.

There are also reasonable professional differences about what phonics instruction should look like, how much of it is necessary, for whom, under what circumstances, and how it connects with other aspects of reading. But there is no justification for characterizing these differences as a "reading war" between those who believe in phonics and those who don't.

There are other notable points of agreement. One is that phonics is not real reading. It is aptly referred to as "decoding," because it teaches beginning readers to decipher letters into speech sounds. As such, it is a consciously applied, temporarily useful, set of technical skills that are, at best, a gateway to real reading for meaning, understanding, learning, and enjoyment. Phonics is a means to an end and only useful to the extent that it leads to real reading.

It is relatively easy to find measurable increases in decoding ability after phonics instruction. However, establishing a causal relation between approaches to phonics instruction and gains in real reading has been more elusive. Prominent studies across decades have failed to do so convincingly. One example is a critical review of several meta-analyses (comprehensive statistical analyses of effects across hundreds of studies), which was published recently in a highly regarded, peer-reviewed journal. It found no clear advantage for programs with a strong emphasis on phonics compared to those foregrounding other approaches ( click on this).

It is tempting to misappropriate science in claiming a higher ground in an argument, especially one framed as a war. Unfortunately, some have naively suggested that science has unequivocally resolved how reading must be taught to every child and that those who disagree are science deniers.

Not only is that conclusion unwarranted, it is quintessentially unscientific. Among scientists, scientific certainty is an oxymoron and the bar for even approaching certainty is extremely high. The science of reading is more about reducing ignorance than finding ultimate, immutable truths applicable to every child. In the reading wars, scientific certainty is often used rhetorically to deny reasonable differences and cut off healthy debate, turning science into scientism.

There are also reasonable differences about what scientific findings are most relevant and useful to teaching reading, again along a continuum.

On one end are those who turn mainly to research in disciplines such as neurology, cognitive science, and linguistics; others turn mainly to research focusing on educational factors directly related to instructional outcomes.

In any event, educators need to know more than what works pedagogically across many students in general. They need to know why it works, and what contextual and individual factors may qualify general findings. Such research is analogous to medical trials that determine not just the overall effectiveness of a drug, but its side effects, including those that are dangerous for patients with certain conditions.

Brain researchers and psychologists have cautioned against building bridges too far between their work and educational practice. One, Daniel Willingham, has stated the issue succinctly, "As one gets more distant from the desired level of analysis (the child in the classroom), the probability of learning anything useful diminishes."

Put another way, there is an underlying "science" of everything. For example, chemistry is at the root of cooking, and physics underlies driving a car, but they play a limited role in teaching a chef to prepare palate-pleasing food or a teenager to drive safely to the grocery store.

Likewise, many decisions about teaching reading are necessarily practical and informed only marginally by the science of underlying reading processes. Phonics, again, is a good example. English is among the most irregularly spelled languages. (For a satirical rendering, click on this). Further, the most frequently used words in English - words that appear often, even in simple texts, and thus that children cannot avoid - have a high percentage of ambiguous or irregular letter-to-sound spellings.

For example, why isn't "to" pronounced like "so" and "go"? What about "have" compared to "save," or comparing "one," "done," and "lone"? Or, "some" and "home"? Frequent words like these can quickly muddy the phonics waters.

Thus, many educators reasonably teach a small set of high-frequency, irregularly spelled words as special cases. Doing so is a practical, sensible pedagogical decision, not one that is anti-phonics, taking sides in a war, or, necessarily justified by scientific evidence about the brain's role in reading.

Another issue is that in an irregularly spelled language like English, teaching phonics often means introducing children to specialized vocabulary, including terms and concepts such as the following: vowel, consonant, long and short sounds, split/consonant/vowel digraphs, blends, clusters, schwa sound, diphthongs, silent letters, open/closed syllables, hard and soft sounds, r-controlled vowels, etc. The need for these terms reflects the complexity English spelling, adding a conceptual burden to teaching and learning phonics and raising a question about when phonics instruction may have diminishing returns.

Another issue is dialect. In some areas of the southern United States, for example, there may be little, if any, difference between the pronunciation of the word "wheel" and "will." There are also students who hear, and often may be taught to read, a language other than English at home.

These are only a few examples of the complex issues that popularized narratives about a "reading war" obscure. When the teaching of reading is framed as a war, nuance and common areas of agreement are casualties.

But worse, our children can become innocent victims caught in a no man's land between those more interested in winning a conflict than in meeting individual needs.

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Perspective | Is there really a 'science of reading' that tells us exactly how to teach kids to read?

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One of the longest-running education debates - commonly referred to as a war - has been over how to teach reading. It started in the 1800s, when Horace Mann, often called "the father of public education" in the United States, argued against teaching the explicit sounds of each letter.

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My summer graduate course, Foundations and Current Trends in Literacy Research and Practice, never fails at being an invigorating course for me and my students because it combines foundational topics in literacy with a never-ending series of current debates and controversies surrounding those enduring elements of teaching and learning literacy.

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Teaching Writing to Improve Reading Skills

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Teaching Writing to Improve Reading Skills

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A Teacher-Friendly Guide to Making Sense of Scientific Research

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A Teacher-Friendly Guide to Making Sense of Scientific Research

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#1: Read pages 1-14

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A Teacher Friendly Guide to Reading Research

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The Science of Reading Progress: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading

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The Science of Reading Progress: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading

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Theory: Going Deeper than the simple view of reading

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Theory: Going Deeper than the simple view of reading

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Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Where have all the readers gone? - Reading Recovery Council of North America

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Most families, teachers, and administrators are “literacy centrists.” We do not hold an extreme position in the so-called “reading wars.” We all agree phonics instruction serves an important purpose, but phonics alone won’t make them real readers.

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How to Navigate Social Media Debates about the "Science of Reading"

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How to Navigate Social Media Debates about the "Science of Reading"

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How to Navigate Social Media Debates about the “Science of Reading” [UPDATED]

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[Download a PDF here.] [Download PP here.] Let me start with a caveat: Don’t debate “science of reading” (SoR) advocates on social media. Ok, so I suspect some of you will enter t…

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#2

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Being a proficient reader has an impact on a student's entire education. Teaching students to read is the work of educators. While some educators are well-equipped to take on such a significant task, others wish they were better prepared and supported to make an impact that could change a child's life. IMSE makes it easy for teachers to access and understand the core principles of Structured Literacy and the Science of Reading (SoR) through their professional development trainings and programs. IMSE programs are delivered by experienced teachers, all with a master's degree, who know how to ensure that teachers feel knowledgeable and supported in their ability to teach literacy.

Notably, over the past years, the Science of Reading has compiled information that holds important implications for empowering teachers with the knowledge to help students succeed in reading. In addition, intervention research estimates that the use of evidence-based prevention and intervention approaches in literacy, such as what IMSE offers, could decrease the number of below-level readers from 30% to 5%.

The Science of Reading: What it is

The Science of Reading is a comprehensive body of research that encompasses years of scientific knowledge, spans across many languages, and shares the contributions of experts from relevant disciplines such as education, special education, literacy, psychology, neurology, and more. The Science of Reading has evolved from a wide span of research designs, experimental methods, participants, and statistical analyses. This conclusive, empirically supported research provides us with the information we need to gain a deeper understanding of how we learn to read, what skills are involved, how they work together, and which parts of the brain are responsible for reading development. From this research, we can identify an evidence-based best practice approach for teaching foundational literacy skills called Structured Literacy.

David Kilpatrick stated, "We teach reading in different ways; they [students] learn to read proficiently in only one way." The Science of Reading (SoR) has demystified any wonder of how we learn to read and offers evidence backed by science to confirm that there is one right way to teach reading. In addition to this, the SoR provides vital information to drive IMSE's approach to instruction and to reach all learners.

The Science of Reading: What we know

The SoR helps us to understand the cognitive processes that are essential for reading proficiency. It describes the development of reading skills for both typical and atypical readers.

The SoR has debunked various methods used over the years to teach reading that were not based on scientific evidence.

Most reading difficulties can be prevented in young, at-risk students. In other grades, studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of intensive phonemic awareness training, intensive phonic decoding training, and opportunities for repeated practice with reading controlled text. Intervention in these skills leads to efficient orthographic mapping and the highest degree of success.

Teaching whole word memorization is limited, and learning phonics empowers students with an exponential effect.
If a child memorizes ten words, then the child can read ten words. But, if the child can learn the sounds of ten letters, the child can read...

350 three-sound words

4,320 four-sound words

21,650 five-sound words

Reading development can be divided into three stages:

Letters and sounds: Letter-sound knowledge is essential for both phonic decoding and sight-word learning.

Phonic decoding: Early phonological awareness skills enable the development of letter-sound knowledge and should be targeted for direct instruction through first grade. Advanced phonological awareness skills should continue to be assessed and practiced through third grade to ensure that a solid orthographic lexicon is established.

Orthographic mapping: Understanding orthographic mapping allows for teachers to support students who struggle to read. Orthographic mapping is the process that occurs when unfamiliar words become automatic sight words. The research on orthographic mapping explains how students develop this vast sight word bank for accurate and automatic word retrieval and also why students with reading problems struggle to develop this skill.

Phonics and phonemic manipulation must be proficient to allow for students to build a sight word bank or orthographic lexicon. To support this, students need sufficient practice and review in decoding and encoding, knowledge and application of concept skills, and exposure to decodable text.

Comprehension is the ultimate goal for reading. It is driven by two broad skill sets that are identified in the Simple View of Reading (SVoR).

The Simple View of Reading (SVoR) is further detailed in Scarborough's Reading Rope, which highlights the essential components of reading.

Phonics is an important component in early, effective literacy-based instruction.

Learning to spell is far more complex than just memorizing words. Encoding (spelling) is a developmental process that impacts fluency, writing, pronunciation, and vocabulary.

Most teachers have received little knowledge about language structures that are used in reading, speaking, and writing. The SoR has compounded information but has yet to make it into the professional development of all teachers.

Students with reading difficulties present on a continuum of severity and require highly skilled teachers who have the knowledge and expertise to provide intervention based on the SoR.

The findings of the SoR translate into practices called Structured Literacy™. Structured Literacy is an approach to teach reading that is based on the Science of Reading.

Structured Literacy: How we teach

Through Structured Literacy (SL), teachers implement methods that are appropriate for all students and particularly necessary for students with learning differences.

Orton-Gillingham is an evidence-based SL approach that uses research from the SoR and incorporates recommended multi-sensory instructional techniques. SL supports instruction that is explicit, sequential, systematic, prescriptive, diagnostic, and cumulative.

Instruction is assessment-driven. The diagnostic aspect of SL requires continued progress monitoring to measure outcomes and guide differentiation.

Students are provided repeated opportunities with decodable text that have ample representations of the phonetic elements for code-emphasis.

Through regular dictation of words and sentences containing the phonetic concept, students become skilled in spelling words within and outside of the text.

Structured Literacy: What we teach

The SoR identifies five essential components that make up the Simple View of Reading. Structured Literacy incorporates all five:

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Fluency

Vocabulary

Comprehension

Students who have difficulty decoding need a focus on phoneme-grapheme and blending automaticity for both real and nonsense words. Teachers are skilled at differentiating instruction based on assessment results.

Orthography helps students to understand why words are spelled the way they are spelled. Students learn to identify the overlapping features of words including word origin, phoneme-grapheme correspondence, position constraints, and patterns and conventions. This helps them to acquire the alphabetic principle.

Phonemic awareness is emphasized as a necessary pre-reading skill and teachers recognize and target the sequence of skills to build phonological awareness from early to advanced skill levels.

Regular words are taught according to phonetic patterns and irregular words are analyzed for their irregularities. When proficient readers encounter new words, they phonemically analyze the word for the regular grapheme-phoneme patterns and are able to identify the irregular element(s) with ease. Teaching weak readers to activate this process allows them to align the letters to the phonemes in their memory.

Morphology is the study of meaningful units within words. Students are able to expand their vocabulary when they are directly exposed to the study of root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

The Science of Reading has proven that a Structured Literacy approach is a necessary foundation for reading success. As teachers, we make a commitment to continue our education to support the learning of every student. IMSE's Orton-Gillingham training and programs make it possible for teachers to integrate evidence-based and research-based reading instruction and intervention strategies into Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) to empower all students in every classroom.

Sign up for our LIVE virtual Orton-Gillingham training! We are now offering half-day, evening, and weekend options to best fit your schedule.

To learn more about the Science of Reading and Structured Literacy, check out the following great reads:

IMSE's approach allows teachers to incorporate the five components essential to an effective reading program into their daily lessons: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.

The approach is based on the Orton-Gillingham methodology and focuses on explicit, direct instruction that is sequential, structured, and multi-sensory.

It is IMSE's mission that all children must have the ability to read to fully realize their potential. We are committed to providing teachers with the knowledge and tools to deliver proven literacy education to students of all ages and abilities.

About The Author

Dr. Kirstina Ordetx is a Level 4 Master Instructor with The Institute for Multi-Sensory Education (IMSE). She holds a doctorate in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in pediatric neurology. Dr. Ordetx is an educational specialist with over 25 years of clinical experience, research, and consultation. She is a certified Structured Literacy Dyslexia Interventionist through the Center for Effective Reading Instruction, a Certified Nutrition and Wellness Consultant, Executive Functions Coach, and a registered Licensed Mental Health Intern. Dr. Ordetx has published two books that compile her research and practice in Theory of Mind. She has served on accreditation committees for the Florida Council of Independent Schools, is a university adjunct professor in developmental and child psychology, and presents at various national and international conferences. Dr. Ordetx is head of school for a private academy in Lakewood Ranch, Florida specializing in the multi-sensory education of students who have language and learning-based differences. She is the Executive Director of the Pinnacle Pediatric Therapy Group, a multi-disciplinary, pediatric therapy clinic.
Please connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest to get tips and tricks from your peers and us. Read the IMSE Journal to hear success stories from other schools and districts, and be sure to read the OG Weekly email series for refreshers and tips.

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Being a proficient reader has an impact on a student's entire education. Teaching students to read is the work of educators. While some educators are well-equipped to take on such a significant task, others wish they were better prepared and supported to make an impact that could change a child's life.

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Why Schools Should Use Structured Literacy

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Why Schools Should Use Structured Literacy

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By Louise Spear-Swerling, PhD

Recently the topic of Structured Literacy™ teaching has sparked considerable interest. Educators and parents often have questions about this approach:

What does it involve?

How is it different from the ways that children are usually taught to read?

Why is it effective for children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties?

Here is an explanation of what structured literacy means and why schools should use it.
What Is Structured Literacy?
Structured literacy (SL) approaches emphasize highly explicit and systematic teaching of all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (e.g., decoding, spelling) and higher-level literacy skills (e.g., reading comprehension, written expression). SL also emphasizes oral language abilities essential to literacy development, including phonemic awareness, sensitivity to speech sounds in oral language, and the ability to manipulate those sounds.

Explicit teaching means that teachers clearly explain and model key skills; they do not expect children to infer these skills only from exposure. Systematic means that there is a well-organized sequence of instruction, with important prerequisite skills taught before more advanced skills. For instance, children master decoding and spelling simpler consonant-vowel-consonant words (e.g., tap) with short vowel sounds before learning more complex short-vowel words (e.g., stamp or tapped) with consonant blends or affixes.

Explicit, systematic teaching requires teacher-led instruction. Teacher-led instruction also enables educators to provide prompt, targeted feedback in response to children's mistakes, another characteristic of SL. For example, suppose that children are practicing reading words with short vowel sounds and consonant blends (e.g., stamp) aloud, and a child misreads stamp as stump. Rather than just telling the child the word, the teacher might point to the vowel to draw the child's attention to it. If that cue did not help, the teacher would provide additional feedback focused on the child's specific error (e.g., "short sound for a is pronounced /ă/ ").

...the emphasis is on patterns rather than specific words. This is because the teacher is trying to foster a decoding (and encoding) process or strategy-instead of teaching children to memorize individual words by overall visual appearance.

Structured literacy approaches use books and other instructional materials that lend themselves to this kind of teaching. Educators teach from a sequence of phonics materials proceeding from use of simpler to more complex patterns. Children read books containing the phonics word patterns they have been taught. Reading of texts and phonics instruction are coordinated so that as children's decoding skills develop, they are able to read increasingly complex texts. Similarly, spelling is coordinated with decoding, so that each reinforces the other.

Here is an example of coordination of decoding and spelling. Suppose that beginning decoders are learning to decode simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words such as tap, win, or fit. Their spelling instruction would employ similar CVC word patterns, such as nag, sip, and hat. Notice that the emphasis is on patterns rather than specific words. This is because the teacher is trying to foster a decoding (and encoding) process or strategy-instead of teaching children to memorize individual words by overall visual appearance.

Figure 1 provides one example of a structured literacy activity for decoding and spelling, a phoneme-grapheme mapping task. The teacher dictates a chain of patterned words for children to spell in a grid, one word at a time, with one phoneme (speech sound) per box. (For decoding, the teacher can write the words and have children decode them.) The chain involves a variety of single-phoneme changes in words, not just changes in the first phoneme (spelling) or grapheme (decoding).

Words in the chain are carefully chosen. All are phonetically regular and involve only letter-sound (grapheme-phoneme) relationships children have been taught. For example, in the second row of the grid, tar would not be an appropriate choice to follow tap, because tar contains a vowel- r pattern ( ar) with a different vowel sound that children have not been taught at this early stage.

This SL activity and other similar activities promote careful attention to all the letters in a word-and all the phonemes they represent. They help children to grasp the alphabetic principle-the idea that reading involves a code in which sounds in spoken words map onto letters (graphemes) in printed words-as well as to develop strong phonemic awareness, decoding, and spelling skills.

They help children to grasp the alphabetic principle-the idea that reading involves a code in which sounds in spoken words map onto letters (graphemes) in printed words-as well as to develop strong phonemic awareness, decoding, and spelling skills.

A number of instructional programs and approaches have the features of SL. There is not one "best" SL approach for all children with dyslexia or other learning problems. Still, some instructional approaches and materials are simply incompatible with SL. Unfortunately, many of these are widely used in schools.
How Is Literacy Usually Taught?
Literacy instruction in many schools is not highly explicit or systematic. Important foundational skills (e.g., phonemic awareness and decoding) often receive limited emphasis, even for beginners or struggling decoders (Moats, 2017).

Literacy instruction in many schools is not highly explicit or systematic. Important foundational skills (e.g., phonemic awareness and decoding) often receive limited emphasis, even for beginners or struggling decoders (Moats, 2017).

Typical literacy instruction frequently uses loosely structured types of approaches, such as "reader's workshop" or "writer's workshop." Considerable classroom time is spent having children work independently on reading and writing tasks of their own choosing. Teachers do supervise this work and spend time "conferencing" with individual children. However, the way that instruction is organized means that time for teacher-led, explicit instruction is minimal.

Another key problem is that commonly used instructional materials do not lend themselves to explicit, systematic teaching of important foundational components of literacy. These problems may undermine the effectiveness even of a highly capable teacher.

For example, many schools do not provide teachers with a systematic phonics program and accompanying sets of words, texts, and materials. It is very difficult to teach phonics well, especially to large groups of children or those who struggle, without appropriate instructional materials.

Many schools do not provide teachers with a systematic phonics program and accompanying sets of words, texts, and materials. It is very difficult to teach phonics well, especially to large groups of children or those who struggle, without appropriate instructional materials.

Instead, teachers may be told to post "word walls" in the classroom; these "word walls" often contain common words that vary greatly in spelling patterns and pronunciation. (See Figure 2.) Some words (e.g., are, again) are irregular (i.e., exceptions to phonics generalizations). Other words are regular, but involve a wide range of patterns, including some difficult ones for beginners (e.g., two-syllable words like better). These kinds of materials do not help children understand the predictability of phonics patterns in words. Instead, they encourage memorization of whole words, a strategy that will not help children learn to read well in the long run.
More About Phonics in Typical Literacy Instruction
A frequent response from schools using typical literacy practices is, "But we do teach phonics!" This is generally true. However, in addition to limited emphasis and lack of explicitness, there are other problems with phonics instruction in many schools.

Research over the past couple of decades has suggested that, although any phonics is better than no phonics at all, certain types of phonics approaches are more effective than others. Specifically, an initial phoneme-grapheme level approach-that is characteristic of structured literacy-is more effective than a larger-unit phonics approach such as onset-rime, analytic phonics, or word families. (See Brady, 2011, for a review.) Typical literacy instruction often favors a larger unit approach to phonics.

Following are examples of how different phonics approaches might teach children to decode an unfamiliar word such as stack:

In a word families approach, children would learn to decode stack by comparing it to a known word such as back.

In an onset-rime approach, children would learn the sound for two parts of the word, the onset (st→/st/) and the rime (-ack→/ăk/). They would then blend the two parts to form the word (/st/) →/ăk/)→/stack/).

In a phoneme-grapheme level approach, children would learn sounds for the graphemes that represent each phoneme (s→/s/ t→/t/ a→/ă/and ck→/k/), then how to blend all four parts into a whole word (/s/ /t//ă/ /k/ →/stack/.

Research over the past couple of decades has suggested that, although any phonics is better than no phonics at all, certain types of phonics approaches are more effective than others. Specifically, an initial phoneme-grapheme level approach-that is characteristic of structured literacy-is more effective than a larger-unit phonics approach such as onset-rime, analytic phonics, or word families. (See Brady, 2011, for a review.) Typical literacy instruction often favors a larger unit approach to phonics.

Why is an initial phoneme-grapheme level phonics approach generally preferable to other phonics approaches? One reason may be that the phoneme-grapheme approach promotes closer attention to spelling (grapheme) and speech sound (phoneme) sequences in words than do other phonics approaches. Careful attention to letter sequences in words is fundamental for developing good decoding skills. Also, this approach generally includes explicit teaching of phoneme segmentation and blending, important phonemic awareness skills-foundational skills for both spelling and decoding.

In a phoneme-grapheme level approach, children would eventually learn to attend to larger patterns in words, including common orthographic patterns, such as graphemes (e.g., ar, ee, au, igh) and morphemes (e.g., common roots/base elements, prefixes, and suffixes). Some very common morphemes (e.g., ​-ing, ​-ed​ [​​indicating tense​]​) often would be taught relatively early. However, an emphasis on larger units mostly comes later, as children advance to more complex words, rather than at the very beginning of phonics teaching. Furthermore, all of these elements-phonemes, graphemes, and morphemes-would be taught in an explicit, systematic way.

In addition to basic phonics instruction, children need to practice applying their phonics skills while reading texts (Foorman et al., 2016). While their decoding is still developing-and particularly for children who struggle with decoding-oral reading of texts with teacher guidance and feedback is essential. Texts should include many words that children can decode. Otherwise, children may just guess at words.

In addition to basic phonics instruction, children need to practice applying their phonics skills while reading texts (Foorman et al., 2016). While their decoding is still developing-and particularly for children who struggle with decoding-oral reading of texts with teacher guidance and feedback is essential.

Unfortunately, in typical literacy instruction, children often read leveled or predictable texts. These texts use many words that poor decoders cannot read, with pictures that usually encourage guessing.

For instance, a predictable text about a child getting ready to go to school in the morning might have sentences such as William found his lunch, William found his crayons, and William found his backpack, with accompanying pictures of William getting his lunch, crayons, and backpack. With words spelled with varied and relatively complex phonics patterns, and pictures that enable guessing, this type of text does not encourage children to look carefully at the letters in words to decode them-and the letters and their sequence are what make one word different from another.

Teacher feedback to children's decoding errors also matters. This feedback should emphasize attention to the print and application of decoding skills, as would occur as part of a structured literacy approach. However, many teachers are trained to believe that small errors such as reading a for the or this for that can be ignored, because they do not greatly alter meaning (Spear-Swerling, 2018). Nevertheless, beyond the earliest grades, good readers decode with a very high degree of accuracy and do not make frequent errors of this type (e.g., Daane, Campbell, Grigg, Goodman & Oranje, 2005).

Are there children who learn to read well with typical literacy practices? Certainly. However, the typical literacy practices outlined in this section are not nearly as effective for children with dyslexia and other literacy difficulties as are structured literacy practices (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2018; Foorman et al., 2016; International Dyslexia Association, 2017).
Why Is Structured Literacy Effective?
First, SL explicitly and effectively addresses foundational literacy skills, a core need of children with dyslexia as well as many other struggling students. Also, in all components of literacy, SL emphasizes teaching that is clear, systematic, and unambiguous to the learner-all important qualities for students experiencing difficulty.

Finally, SL instruction can be very engaging to struggling students. Explicit teaching has been criticized as "drill and kill" that dulls interest and creativity, with typical literacy practices presented as inherently more engaging to children. Little research supports this view (Archer & Hughes, 2011).

Reading children's literature with beautiful pictures or extended opportunities to write for pleasure can indeed be motivating-but not for students who cannot decode or write well enough to enjoy them. Helping children to succeed at literacy is a key way to motivate and engage them, as well as to prepare them for ongoing, higher-level literacy learning.

Reading children's literature with beautiful pictures or extended opportunities to write for pleasure can indeed be motivating-but not for students who cannot decode or write well enough to enjoy them. Helping children to succeed at literacy is a key way to motivate and engage them, as well as to prepare them for ongoing, higher-level literacy learning.
Moving Forward
Structured literacy approaches are much more successful than many typical literacy practices for meeting the needs of children with dyslexia and other literacy problems. SL prioritizes teacher-led, explicit instruction in all important components of literacy. Initial phonics instruction uses a phoneme-grapheme (encoding) and grapheme-phoneme (decoding) level approach. Texts and other materials are well coordinated with the phonics program.

If educators are prepared to implement this kind of instruction, and are given appropriate instructional materials, they can reach a much wider range of children than with typical literacy practices. Virtually all teachers want to be effective with their students. Let's give them the knowledge and tools to do so.
References
Archer, A., & Hughes, C. (2011). Explicit instruction: Effective and efficient teaching. New York, NY: Guilford.

Brady, S. (2011). Efficacy of phonics teaching for reading outcomes: Indications from post-NRP research. In S. Brady, D. Braze, & C. Fowler (Eds.), Explaining individual differences in reading: Theory and evidence (pp. 69-96). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Daane, M. C., Campbell, J. R., Grigg, W. S., Goodman, M. J., & Oranje, A. (2005). F ourth-grade students reading aloud: NAEP 2002 Special Study of Oral Reading (NCES 2006-469). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

Fletcher, J. M., Lyon, G. R., Fuchs, L. S., & Barnes, M. A. (2018). Learning disabilities: From identification to intervention (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.

Foorman, B., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J.,...Wagner, R. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.

International Dyslexia Association. (2017). Effective reading instruction for students with dyslexia (fact sheet). Retrieved fromhttps://dyslexiaida.org/effective-reading-instruction/

Moats, L. C. (2017). Can prevailing approaches to reading instruction accomplish the goals of RTI? Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 43, 15-22.

Spear-Swerling, L. (2018). Structured literacy and typical literacy practices: Understanding differences to create instructional opportunities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 51, 201-211.

Louise Spear-Swerling, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita in the Department of Special Education at Southern Connecticut State University. She has prepared both general and special educators to teach literacy for many years. Dr. Spear-Swerling helped to write IDA's Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading. Her most recent book, published by Brookes, is The Power of RTI and Reading Profiles: A Blueprint for Solving Reading Problems.
Copyright © 2019 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). Opinions expressed in The Examiner and/or via links do not necessarily reflect those of IDA. We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be reprinted for the purpose of resale. Permission to republish this article is available from info@dyslexia.org.

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Here's Why Schools Should Use Structured Literacy - International Dyslexia Association

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Share This: By Louise Spear-Swerling, PhD Recently the topic of Structured Literacy™ teaching has sparked considerable interest. Educators and parents often have questions about this approach: What does it involve? How is it different from the ways that children are usually taught to read? Why is it effective for children with dyslexia and other learning difficulties?

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What is the Science of Reading Why Does it Matter?

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What is the Science of Reading Why Does it Matter?

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Find more answers here!

The "Science of Reading" is a loaded phrase these days. It's creating a lot of controversy, partly because people define it in different ways. To some people, the "Science of Reading" represents a large body of well-conducted research that investigates how children learn to read and what instructional approaches work best. To others, it represents an overly narrow view of teaching reading, one that is just focused on how children learn to read individual words. To specify, being able to read individual words involves decoding, or the ability to map sounds to the letters and groups of letters we see in print. More colloquially, this is called "sounding out words."

What are the two sides to "Science of Reading?"

When people identify as "Science of Reading" advocates, they can be perceived as only caring about the science of word reading. Language, identity, culture and sociocultural contexts are incredibly important as children learn to read and the "Science of Reading" movement has been accused of ignoring these factors.

While most researchers would agree that learning how to read individual words is necessary for learning how to read, they would also agree that there is much more that goes into becoming a strong reader. However, because the phrase "Science of Reading" has taken on such loaded meanings for different people, it has become increasingly difficult to have conversations about what children need.

What are the "Reading Wars?"

Unfortunately, none of these conflicts are new. There's a long history spanning across decades on the debate about the best way to help kids learn how to read. You might remember flare-ups between the phonics and whole language camps. Right now, one side of the debate, generally aligned with phonics advocates in the past, have started to use the phrase "Science of Reading."

The other side of the debate, generally aligned with prior whole language advocates, emphasizes that reading is so much more than learning how to read words. Here's a simple explanation of the debate: People who are concerned about the "Science of Reading" movement worry that we're creating children who can read words proficiently, but who have little in the way of critical thinking or comprehension skills. People who advocate for the "Science of Reading" often say that no other reading skills matter if children can't read the words on the page, so we need to make sure we are teaching decoding, systematically, to all children.

Most researchers agree that all children benefit from phonics instruction and that some kids may need more intensive support with phonics, so we need to have that type of intervention in place. At the same time, most researchers agree that we also need to help kids learn how to comprehend and analyze what they read. However, depending on who you ask, you may hear that one set of skills is substantially more important than the other.

What do the "Reading Wars" mean for teachers in the classroom?

It can be really confusing. They've been given reading and writing programs that are widely used around the country and they are now being told that there's no research behind these programs, that they don't work. These same teachers have been told by researchers that these programs were effective when they were first trained. And, they've been using these programs for years and have seen these programs be effective for some children.

At the same time, new teachers are coming out of college with an undergraduate degree and very little time to hone and understand their craft compared to a lot of other professions. Most available reading programs have at least some useful components and can be effective in the hands of a knowledgeable teacher. However, it can be difficult to engage with the curriculum on a deeper level as a teacher while being thrown into a classroom for the first time. It's even harder when the research surrounding these programs can become so controversial and hotly debated.

Can we do it all?

Yes, and we have a responsibility to do so! As a literacy researcher, I want my work with students and teachers to be informed by rigorously-conducted research on how children learn how to read, both individual words and all kinds of texts. I do believe that we are doing a huge disservice to children if we aren't using the most evidenced-based approaches on helping them learn how to read words. However, there are many classroom-based studies that explore things like identity, motivation and cultural responsiveness during the teaching and learning of reading. It would also do a huge disservice to children to disregard this important research. We can teach children to read words and make meaning from texts in systematic ways that honor children's identity, agency and culture.

Teachers are the key and so many are out there making a profound difference with children every single day. If we really care about teaching kids how to read, we need to focus on creating space and time for teachers to enhance their professional knowledge around reading development and instruction. No one is going to "win" the reading wars and children will always be the losers.

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What is the "Science of Reading," and why does it matter? | University of Nevada, Reno

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The "Science of Reading" is a loaded phrase these days. It's creating a lot of controversy, partly because people define it in different ways. To some people, the "Science of Reading" represents a large body of well-conducted research that investigates how children learn to read and what instructional approaches work best.

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It’s Not Settled Science or Rocket Science, and It’s Not Your Science, It’s Our Science: A Centrist’s Perspective on the Reading Wars. By Dr. Sam Bommarito

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It’s Not Settled Science or Rocket Science, and It’s Not Your Science, It’s Our Science: A Centrist’s Perspective on the Reading Wars. By Dr. Sam Bommarito

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Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction

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Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction