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The Science of Reading: A Resource Guide for Educators

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An Overview of the Science of Reading (SOR)

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Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation - even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read. In this podcast, host Emily Hanford investigates the influential authors who promote this idea and the company that sells their work. It's an exposé of how educators came to believe in something that isn't true and are now reckoning with the consequences - children harmed, money wasted, an education system upended.

Sixty years ago, Marie Clay developed a way to teach reading she said would help kids who were falling behind. They'd catch up and never need help again. Today, her program remains popular and her theory about how people read is at the root of a lot of reading instruction in schools. But Marie Clay was wrong.
Sold a Story is an independent investigative journalism project from American Public Media. We rely on your donations to support this kind of rigorous reporting.
The controversial educational publishing company has sold instructional materials and professional resources in almost every state, earning at least $1.6 billion over a decade. Explore a map of school districts.

More states are now requiring districts to adopt curriculum that adheres to the science of reading. Look up the policy in your state.

At least 15 states have passed laws about how schools teach reading since the Sold a Story podcast was released in 2022, but there is pushback.

Here's a reading list put together by Emily Hanford.

This discussion guide, created by a teacher, invites educators, parents, community members and kids to have a conversation about the podcast.

Emails and voice messages poured in from people who listened to Sold a Story.

We'll let you know when we release new episodes of the podcast. Enter your address below.

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Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong

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There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation - even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on this idea can make it harder for children to learn how to read.

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Science of Reading LessMore chart K-5.docx.pdf

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FCRR: Standards Based Literacy Games & Activities 

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FCRR: Standards Based Literacy Games & Activities 

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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FCRR: Digital Student Center Activities 

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FCRR: Digital Student Center Activities 

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Really Great Reading | Specialists in Reading Education

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Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read? 

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Hard Words: Why aren't kids being taught to read? 

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This is a MUST read for any stakeholder involving in teaching children to read!

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Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.

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"This collection of web-based language and literacy resources was compiled and curated by UFLI faculty and graduate students."

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Welcome to the University of Florida Literacy Institute's Parent Resource Hub! This collection of web-based language and literacy resources was compiled and curated by UFLI faculty and graduate students. We are adding to and refining these resources regularly, so check back often!

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Welcome to the University of Florida Literacy Institute's Parent Resource Hub! This collection of web-based language and literacy resources was compiled and curated by UFLI faculty and graduate students. We are adding to and refining these resources regularly, so check back often!

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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This article describes how to “rethink” teaching of high-frequency words.

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Overview of suggested restructuring

Teach 10-15 "sight words" before phonics instruction begins

Flash Words and Heart Words defined

Flash Words with advanced vowels to teach with early phonics instruction

Flash Words with two and three syllables

Implementing the new model

You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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A New Model for Teaching High-Frequency Words

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Integrating high-frequency words into phonics lessons allows students to make sense of spelling patterns for these words. To do this, high-frequency words need to be categorized according to whether they are spelled entirely regularly or not. This article describes how to "rethink" teaching of high-frequency words.

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Explicit Writing Curriculum: Step Up to Writing 

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Explicit Writing Curriculum: Step Up to Writing 

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Compatible With Any Core Curriculum

Grades K-12

Writing Instruction That Adapts to Every Student's Needs

Step Up to Writing® is a comprehensive program of multisensory writing strategies that develop students' ability to create thoughtful, well-written compositions. The solution's explicit and systematic approach to teaching writing is designed to provide clear strategies, methods, and supports for increased writing success in all content areas. Created for all students, the strategies can be integrated into any curriculum or implemented as a standalone writing solution.
Download Overview

Propel Students Forward with Explicit Instruction

Step Up to Writing instructional strategies help students understand the importance of each step in the writing process. Beginning writers explicitly learn and practice each phase of the process. Common expectations and language for writing across every grade level builds confidence as students grow into more advanced writers and the process becomes fluid and automatic. This writing program provides:

Multimodal instruction/differentiation

Flexible implementation options

Support for writing instruction across all content areas

A full body of proven writing strategies

The Power of Step Up to Writing

Support the Individuality of Each and Every Learner

One size fits all never works. With this in mind, Step Up to Writing provides variation and differentiation based on each student's needs throughout hundreds of strategies, across all four grade bands. Optional "Craft and Style" callouts within the strategies teach the three major text types while also providing opportunities for additional depth and richness.

Step Up to Writing provides the specialized instruction to meet the needs of diverse student groups.

General Education

Strategies boost student writing to the next level

Solid structure across the types of writing assignments

Revision guidance

Consistent strategies and multiple opportunities for practice

Gifted & Talented

Focus on organizing information strategically to increase written impact

Writers learn to effectively articulate complex thoughts and content

Students perceive shades of meaning within words

English Language Learners

Oral language development is encouraged

Students develop an academic vocabulary

Students stay actively involved

Emphasis on relating and organizing information

At Risk & Special Education

Strategies make abstract concepts concrete

Guidance for better reading comprehension

Use of multisensory approaches

Confidence is built incrementally

Organization and planning skills are emphasized

Step Up to Writing Customer Success

We are committed to a long-term partnership with every district that implements our solutions. Districts can choose from a menu of training and support options including in-person or online. Visit our Customer Success page to learn more.
More Information

Featured Step Up to Writing Resources

Brochure: How Step Up to Writing Aligns to the Science of Reading

Although reading and writing instruction are usually taught separately, they are both informed by the science of reading and reinforce each other throughout literacy development. Just as teaching students how to read requires explicit and systematic instruction, the same is true of writing instruction. In fact, writing is one of the most effective ways to improve reading proficiency.
Download Now

Podcast: How Handwriting Supports the Science of Reading

While assistive technology can help students with writing problems, it does not remove the importance of teaching explicit handwriting. Handwriting reinforces reading and spelling skills, and is linked to reading and spelling achievement. In this insightful podcast, you will learn how handwriting supports the science of reading and strategies educators can use immediately in the classroom to build handwriting into their daily lessons.
Listen Here

White Paper: Connecting Handwriting to the Science of Reading

Handwriting is back in the curriculum after a long absence. Educators now understand teaching handwriting explicitly is firmly linked to reading and spelling achievement. Although it never disappeared totally, it was de-emphasized in most districts. But it's now clear handwriting plays a critical role in literacy and is making a comeback.
Download Now

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Step Up to Writing - Research-Based Writing Program (K-12)

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Unparalleled instruction designed for learners of all levels and types in grades K-12. Provides variation and differentiation based on each student's needs throughout 1,100+ strategies. Compatible with Any Core Curriculum.

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Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching 

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Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching 

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Effective and Efficient Teaching

By Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes

Explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success oriented-and has been shown to promote achievement for all students. This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area. The authors are leading experts who provide clear guidelines for identifying key concepts, strategies, skills, and routines to teach; designing and delivering effective lessons; and giving students opportunities to practice and master new material. Sample lesson plans, lively examples, and reproducible checklists and teacher worksheets enhance the utility of the volume.

This title is part of the What Works for Special-Needs Learners Series, edited by Karen R. Harris and Steve Graham.

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Explicit Instructions | Effective and Efficient Teaching

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By Anita L. Archer and Charles A. Hughes Explicit instruction is systematic, direct, engaging, and success oriented-and has been shown to promote achievement for all students. This highly practical and accessible resource gives special and general education teachers the tools to implement explicit instruction in any grade level or content area.

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Elements of Explicit Instruction Summary 

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Elements of Explicit Instruction Summary 

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Elements of Explicit Instruction 13 Summary.pdf

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Lesson Design for Vocabulary Instruction

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Delivery of Instruction: Frequent Responses 

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Delivery of Instruction: Frequent Responses 

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Response Cards: Use or make it better for your classroom!

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You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Do you think your child or student might have dyslexia? This fact sheet provides a definition of dyslexia, symptoms, prevalence, signs, and effects, as well as ways to help your child.

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"Our goal is to help parents, teachers, and advocates of students with dyslexia expand their knowledge, refine their practice, and understand their rights."

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Welcome! This collection of dyslexia resources was compiled and curated by the University of Florida Literacy Institute team.

Our goal is to help parents, teachers, and advocates of students with dyslexia expand their knowledge, refine their practice, and understand their rights.

The Dyslexia 101 webinar gives an overview of dyslexia and provides an introduction to the resources here on the Hub

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Welcome! This collection of dyslexia resources was compiled and curated by the University of Florida Literacy Institute team. Our goal is to help parents, teachers, and advocates of students with dyslexia expand their knowledge, refine their practice, and understand their rights.

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University of Florida College of Education

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls 

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls 

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You are welcome to print copies for non-commercial use, or a limited number for educational purposes, as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact the author or publisher listed.

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Transitioning from Word Walls to Sound Walls

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Sound walls support students with learning those tricky high-frequency words. They also support students in retaining and learning to read unfamiliar words on their own. A sound wall does the work of matching our articulation of speech sounds/phonemes to the letters/graphemes that represent those sounds.

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There are 5 Big Ideas in Beginning Reading:

Where did the Big Ideas in Beginning Reading come from?*

In 1997, congress asked the NICHD, along with the U.S. Department of Education, to form the National Reading Panel to review research on how children learn to read and determine which methods of teaching reading are most effective based on the research evidence.

The panel included members from different backgrounds, including school administrators, working teachers, and scientists involved in reading research.

Many of the nation's children have problems learning to read. If they don't get the help they need, these children will fall behind in school and struggle with reading throughout their lives.

Although parents, teachers, and school officials work hard to help kids learn to read, there have been many different ideas about what ways of teaching reading worked the best - and some ideas contradicted each other.

Congress asked the NICHD and the U.S. Department of Education to form the National Reading Panel to evaluate existing research about reading and, based on the evidence, determine what methods work best for teaching children to read.

Specifically, congress asked the panel to:

Review all the research available (more than 100,000 reading studies) on how children learn to read.

Determine the most effective evidence-based methods for teaching children to read.

Describe which methods of reading instruction are ready for use in the classroom and recommend ways of getting this information into schools.

Suggest a plan for additional research in reading development and instruction.

In addition, the National Reading Panel held public hearings where people could give their opinions on what topics the panel should study.

The National Reading Panel's analysis made it clear that the best approach to reading instruction is one that incorporates explicit instruction in phonemic awareness, systematic phonics instruction, methods to improve fluency, and ways to enhance comprehension.

The following is a summary of the panel's findings:

Phonemic Awareness
Means knowing that spoken words are made up of smaller parts called phonemes. Teaching phonemic awareness gives children a basic foundation that helps them learn to read and spell.

The panel found that children who learned to read through specific instruction in phonemic awareness improved their reading skills more than those who learned without attention to phonemic awareness.

Phonics Instruction

Phonics teaches students about the relationship between phonemes and printed letters and explains how to use this knowledge to read and spell.

The panel found that students show marked benefits from explicit phonics instruction, from kindergarten through 6th grade.

Fluency means being able to read quickly, knowing what the words are and what they mean, and properly expressing certain words - putting the right feeling, emotion, or emphasis on the right word or phrase. Teaching fluency includes guided oral reading, in which students read out loud to someone who corrects their mistakes and provides them with feedback, and independent silent reading where students read silently to themselves.

The panel found that reading fluently improved the students' abilities to recognize new words; read with greater speed, accuracy, and expression; and better understand what they read.

Comprehension: Vocabulary instruction

Teaches students how to recognize words and understand them.

The panel found that vocabulary instruction and repeated contact with vocabulary words is important.

Comprehension: Text comprehension instruction
Teaches specific plans or strategies students can use to help them understand what they are reading.

The panel identified seven ways of teaching text comprehension that helped improve reading strategies in children who didn't have learning disabilities. For instance, creating and answering questions and cooperative learning helped to improve reading outcomes.

Comprehension: Teacher Preparation and comprehension strategies instruction

Refers to how well a teacher knows things such as the content of the text, comprehension strategies to teach the students, and how to keep students interested.

The panel found that teachers were better prepared to use and teach comprehension strategies if they themselves received formal instruction on reading comprehension strategies.

Teacher Education in Reading Instruction

Includes how reading teachers are taught, how effective their methods of teaching reading are, and how research can improve their knowledge of teaching students to read.

In general, the panel found that studies related to teacher education were broader than the criteria used by the panel. Because the studies didn't focus on specific variables, the panel could not draw conclusions. Therefore, the panel recommended more research on this subject.

Computer Technology in Reading Instruction

Examines how well computer technology can be used to deliver reading instruction.

Because few studies focused on the use of computers in reading education, the panel could draw few conclusions. But, it noted that all of the 21 studies on this topic reported positive results from using computers for reading instruction.

The findings of the National Reading Panel were highlighted in President Bush's plan for improving education - the No Child Left Behind Act.

The NICHD, the National Institute for Literacy, and the U.S. Department of Education also united to form the Partnership for Reading.

The Partnership is an effort to distribute evidence-based reading research - such as the findings of the National Reading Panel - to those who can benefit the most from it. The Partnership works to ensure that the methods of reading instruction used in the classroom reflect evidence-based methods, such as those put forth by the National Reading Panel.

More Information

To get more information about NICHD Publications and Materials about Reading, visit: http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubskey.cfm?from=reading.

To learn more about the National Reading Panel, visit: http://www.nationalreadingpanel.org/default.htm.

*Content retrieved from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH, DHHS.

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University of Oregon Center on Teaching and Learning

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In 1997, congress asked the NICHD, along with the U.S. Department of Education, to form the National Reading Panel to review research on how children learn to read and determine which methods of teaching reading are most effective based on the research evidence.

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Dyslegia: A Legislative Information Site

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Dyslegia: A Legislative Information Site

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Dyslegia: A Legislative Information Site – New US & State Laws about Dyslexia and Reading Education

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Dyslegia.com tracks the progress of legislation specifically related to dyslexia throughout the United States.

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Teach Your Monster: Free Phonics, Reading and Mathematics Games

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Help children learn with our free, award-winning reading, mathematics and phonics games.

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Science of Reading- What I Should Have Learned in College 

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Science of Reading- What I Should Have Learned in College 

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"The purpose of this group is to connect the research of how we learn to read to our teaching practice. Our mission is to inform and deliver to teachers professional development in evidenced based practices."

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Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College | Facebook

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Science of Reading-What I Should Have Learned in College Mission Statement "Researchers now estimate that 95 percent of all children can be taught to read by the end of first grade...." Dr....

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Uncovering the Logic of English teaches us it doesn't need to be that way since we can empower all students to learn to read through vital knowledge about how written English works. In 2000, the National Reading Panel concluded that when the Five Essential Skills of Reading are incorporated into language arts curricula, students of all ages can become the strong readers, spellers and writers they were meant to be.

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teaching methods based on the science of reading

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A place where you will find curriculum, programs, supplements, core materials and online courses that combine the Science of Reading with the Joy of Learning!

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"Created by literacy experts, Sounder & Friends™ targets the critical but often neglected skill of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and play with individual sounds (or phonemes) in spoken words. Educational researchers recognize that phonemic awareness is key to reading proficiency. Children need to be able to blend, segment, and manipulate the sounds in words in order to read and spell proficiently."

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"sounder & friends" "science of reading" "phonemic awareness" "educational programming" "literacy for all" kindergarten preschool "unleashed innovation" yout...

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Welcome to our official YouTube Channel, live as of March 1, 2021! Created by literacy experts, Sounder & Friends™ targets the critical but often neglected skill of phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and play with individual sounds (or phonemes) in spoken words.

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This is a fabulous PD that is based on the research of how children learn to read. If this training is offered again by the DOE, take it!

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Lexia Learning Systems https://www.lexialearning.com/Assets/img/logo.svg 1984 978-405-6232 info@lexialearning.com 300 Baker Avenue, Suite 320 Concord MA 01742 USA

Lexia ® LETRS ® Professional Learning

The Lexia LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) Suite is comprehensive professional learning designed to provide early childhood and elementary educators and administrators with deep knowledge to be literacy and language experts in the science of reading. Developed by Dr. Louisa Moats and leaders in the field of literacy, Lexia LETRS teaches the skills needed to master the foundational and fundamentals of reading and writing instruction-phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and written language.
Download brochure

Why LETRS?

Research shows that only 35% of students are reading proficiently, but 95% of students CAN learn to read. And while teachers are the most essential factor in student success, only about half of teaching institutions effectively prepare teachers for literacy instruction. Teaching reading requires a deep understanding of the processes and science behind it. LETRS is the professional learning program rooted in the science of reading that empowers teachers.

LETRS®

Lexia LETRS provides a professional learning course of study based in the science of reading for elementary educators. The course teaches the how, what, and why of literacy acquisition to improve instructional practice and achieve long-term systemic change in literacy instruction.

LETRS for elementary educators is an investment in teachers' literacy knowledge and professional practice. Teachers gain essential knowledge and skills to master the fundamentals of literacy instruction required to apply and transform student learning.

LETRS® for Early Childhood Educators

LETRS® For Early Childhood Educators professional learning provides deep knowledge of literacy instruction for the youngest learners. The more children know about language and literacy before they begin kindergarten and first grade, the better equipped they are to succeed in literacy learning and beyond.

LETRS® for Administrators

Lexia LETRS® for Administrators is a professional development course designed specifically for school leadership, coaches, principals, and district administrators. The course defines the systems and infrastructures required to successfully implement a literacy initiative aligned to scientifically based research. Built from the research in implementation science and sustainability, school improvement, and shared leadership, the course provides numerous tools-including an analysis of the current systems required for improved literacy outcomes-for guiding an implementation through various stages.

Learn More

Engaged Students

Lexia LETRS provides a professional learning course of study based in the science of reading for elementary educators which teaches the how, what, and why of literacy acquisition to improve instructional practice and impact long-term systemic change in literacy instruction. The more children know about language and literacy before they begin kindergarten and first grade, the better equipped they are to succeed in literacy learning and beyond.

Empowered Educators

Many educators and education leaders are not well prepared to teach reading, or lead those who teach reading. The Lexia LETRS Suite provides science of reading-based professional learning through three different courses of study designed for elementary educators, education leaders, and early childhood educators. Each course of study teaches the how, what, and why of literacy acquisition to educators to improve literacy instruction and positively impact long-term systemic change in literacy outcomes.

Why even trained teachers need support:

Learn More about Empowered Educators

Improved Outcomes

Lexia LETRS empowers educators by going beyond the essential components of literacy. Lexia LETRS gives teachers the skills they need to master how to teach the five essential components of literacy, plus writing, spelling, and oral language.

Lexia LETRS includes five essential elements for literacy success:

Science of reading based

Teaches the content of explicit instruction

Converts research to practice

Enhances educator and leader effectiveness

Transforms instruction

A Cambium Learning® Group Brand

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Professional Learning for Educators Grades Pre-K-5 | Lexia

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The Center for Effective Reading Instruction: CERI

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The Center for Effective Reading Instruction: CERI

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The Center for Effective Reading Instruction |

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The Center for Effective Reading Instruction

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To help candidates prepare for the certification exam, The Center for Effective Reading Instruction has partnered with Reading Rockets, the public broadcasting website, to offer supplemental information through their online First-year Teacher Training Modules.

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"We could teach almost every student to read by the end of first grade. So why aren't we doing it?"

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Working Smarter, Not Harder: What Teachers of Reading Need to Know and Be Able to Teach 

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Working Smarter, Not Harder: What Teachers of Reading Need to Know and Be Able to Teach 

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Dr. Carol Tolman, the co-author of LETRS, wrote this article.

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Bridging the Gap Between Science and Poor Reading in America By J. Richard Gentry Ph.D.

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Bridging the Gap Between Science and Poor Reading in America By J. Richard Gentry Ph.D.

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For nearly two decades, there has been a huge gap between the science of reading and instructional practices in America's classrooms. Reading scientists such as Mark Seidenberg, a researcher in cognitive psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, correctly attributes the problem to the failure of educators to pay attention to reading science (Seidenberg, 2017). With two decades of groundbreaking research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience and an explosion of new understandings about the architecture of the reading brain and how children learn to read, how is it that two-thirds of American fourth and eighth graders still read below grade level proficiency?

The answer harkens back to scientifically debunked practices indelibly planted more than three decades ago by the whole language movement. I was part of that movement, so I take the liberty to write about it! These same misunderstandings in reading education can also be traced back to the National Reading Panel report that came out during that same period when whole language dominated reading education. We now know what science says needs to be fixed.

The Missing Link

Mark Seidenberg touched on what's missing in an interview entitled "The Ignored Science That Could Help Close the Achievement Gap" in The Atlantic (Glatter, 2016). He's quoted as saying reading education is misdirected and ignores the science of how to teach children to read in the first place.

He's right. In schools that are failing, children are often not being taught to read in kindergarten and first grade. In Seidenberg's words, "That leaves all the stuff about how kids actually go from not reading to beginning reading to skilled reading out of the curriculum. So they [educators] emphasize 'literacy' and we [scientists] emphasize, I would say, the prerequisite: being able to read quickly and accurately with some basic skills under your belt." As Seidenberg puts it, "They focus on a high-level notion of literacy and assume that just being able to pick up the mechanics is easy."

What we've learned from brain science is that "picking up the mechanics" isn't easy. Humans are born with circuitry already in place for picking up spoken language; no one is born with reading circuity. Reading has to be taught.

Getting children to reading proficiency by the end of first grade and supporting the reading brain's continued development with ongoing foundational skills such as grade-by-grade growth in spelling is the missing link. With a few exceptions, all students should have the basic reading circuitry for proficient reading in place by the end of first grade-that is to say, they should independently read easy chapter books with comprehension and fluency. This is achievable under the care of teachers who have been well trained to teach reading even in high-poverty area schools.

Once children can read, they build their spoken language vocabularies and gain new concepts principally by reading and by exposure to an academic curriculum supported by good teaching. In addition to making sure that all kindergarten and first-grade teachers are trained to teach reading, how can science help us fix the few remaining whole language myths that continue to plague the teaching of reading?

Tracing the Missing Links in Reading Education to Whole Language Myths

Understanding where myths come from helps debunk them. Yet there is no need to denigrate whole language. Positive transformational changes in education advanced by whole language include the use of invented spelling, expectations for classrooms filled with good children's literature, efforts to motivate children to read, use of thematic units, the writing process approach, more time for reading in school, plus integrating reading and writing across the curriculum. These contributions to reading education notwithstanding, too many of today's educators hang on to five core principles of whole language that have been incontrovertibly debunked by science.

5 (Debunked) Whole Language Principles that Are Still in Use
Debunked Principle #1: Learning to read is as natural as learning to speak.
This principle, at the very core of whole language theory, has been debunked. The truth is that learning to read is not as natural as learning to speak. We all are born with built-in circuitry for speaking language but no one is born with built-in circuitry for reading. Brain science has proven that reading circuitry and spoken language circuity do not develop in the same way. We now know that speaking and reading share many processing domains and brain areas, but the actual brain development for speaking and reading is inherently different; the development of reading brain circuitry requires explicit instruction. Students do not simply "pick up mechanics" from reading and writing for their own purposes. For most kids, the foundational skills of reading have to be taught. Weighing in from a scientific perspective, renowned French cognitive neuroscientist Stanislis Dehaene did not mince words in his highly touted book, Reading In the Brain. He asserted that whole language "does not fit with the architecture of our visual brain" (2009, p. 195). Dehaene went on to say "Cognitive psychology directly refutes any notion of teaching via a "global" or "whole language method" (2009, p. 219).

Debunked Principle #2: Meaning always comes first in language (Goodman, 1986).

Some current classroom practices still reflect the whole language notion that meaning always comes first. As it turns out, word reading comes first in reading. A deep level of word knowledge-including having spelling representations in the brain-has to be taught. As you read this passage you can see the word dosseret in this sentence; you can read it in context as in "The dosseret is milky white." But unless you have the spelling in the word form area of your brain, which maps the visual image of dosseret on this page to the same word in your spoken language system that you know the meaning of, you can't comprehend dosseret. With "meaning comes first" theory, whole language gave meaning and syntax precedence in a three-cueing system; however, brain science flips that notion on its head. Given meaning, syntactic, or graphophonic cueing, it's the graphophonic cue that ignites the reading brain, that is to say, it is word reading-ability to read and write a word correctly and automatically-that comes first. Meaning clues and syntax clues are secondary at best.

If you hear the word dosseret and understand it, if you say dosseret correctly, if you know dosseret's meaning and, importantly, if you have the correct spelling representation of dosseret in memory, you will indeed comprehend it when you see it either isolated in print or in context. The fact that word reading comes first is supported in hundreds of published peer-reviewed studies that show skilled readers are able to rapidly recognize and read printed words, regardless of whether the words are presented in context or in isolation. When new or difficult words are encountered in context it is still the letter-sound associations that provide the first and most efficient route to reading, not the meaning or syntax from context.

Debunked Principle #3: Do not teach handwriting explicitly. Money for handwriting programs should instead be spent on children's literature (Goodman, 1986).

Research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience supports teaching handwriting in elementary school. For example, a number of brain scanning studies demonstrated how handwriting aids preschoolers in learning their letters (James & Englehardt, 2012; Longcamp, Anron, & Velay, 2005). Learning to write in manuscript sets up neural systems that underlie reading. Gimenez and others found higher handwriting quality correlating with gray matter volume and density signaling more efficient neural processing and higher skills and ability (Gimenez et al., 2014).

Debunked Principle #4: There is no pathology such as dyslexia (Goodman, 1986).

Dyslexia is certainly not a disease. But any idea advanced by whole language advocates and others who claim that there is no such thing as dyslexia have been debunked by science. Brain imaging irrefutably shows differences in processing in the reading circuity of children who are dyslexic versus normal readers. Some researchers even posit that dyslexia can be a gift with cognitive benefits. But in terms of learning to read and spell, there is no longer any doubt that this learning disability exists.

Debunked Principle #5: "There should be no special spelling curriculum or regular lesson sequences" (Goodman, Smith, Meredith, & Goodman, 1987, pp. 300-301).

Perhaps the most universally misunderstood aspect of the brain's reading architecture is the importance of correct spelling representations in the word form area of the brain. We now know that the word form area where representations of spelling are stored is critical to proficient reading. It also plays an important role in detecting students at risk from dyslexia. Yet the destructive clarion call of whole language advocates three decades ago to not use spelling books or not teach spelling explicitly and systematically is still resounding in many school districts and schools. Here are three scientifically unsound practices with spelling instruction still in use today.

1. No Spelling Instruction. As I travel across the country working with teachers in scores of districts or speaking at conferences, I hear the refrain over and over-"We don't really teach spelling." The weekly spelling unit of study has been replaced with test prep with no realization that the students would be better readers if we taught them to spell. "We don't have time for spelling" is scientifically unsound; reading circuitry is optimized with automatic word reading for fluency, which greatly benefits from retrieving knowledge of correctly spelled words from the brain's word form area. Compelling new research supports that teaching kids to spell in kindergarten and first grade, using techniques that support the use of invented spelling, not only increases end-of-first grade reading but also results in better conventional spellers (Ouellette & Sénéchal, 2017). A meta-analysis (Graham & Hebert, 2010), highlights connections between orthographic representations in the brain, spelling accuracy, and reading, all of which support the notion that spelling instruction is a way to improve reading in elementary school.

2. Haphazard Spelling Instruction. Haphazard "hit or miss" spelling instruction is found in hundreds of schools across North America that have no plan for teaching spelling, no specific grade-by-grade curriculum, or random and disorderly instruction within a school. In some schools teachers choose their own words pulling them from the internet while other teachers rarely get around to teaching spelling at all. Spelling components of mammoth reading programs are always hit or miss. They present the wrong words for the grade level and no grade-by-grade curriculum. Beyond that, they subordinate weekly spelling lessons by mixing them in with too much other stuff to cover in a week. The spelling component may compete with each of the following for the teachers time: a vocabulary and oral language component, a phonemic awareness component, a phonics and fluency component, a sight words component, a text-based comprehension component, and a grammar and writing component. Remarkably, these components all focus on different words with no integration, leaving students floundering as spellers.

3. Word Sorting Alone with Hypothesis Testing. Many teachers who continue to use commercial word sorting programs for spelling may not realize that they are using a 20-year-old whole language methodology that lacks support from today's science. This spelling methodology exhibits many inadequacies such as no grade-by-grade curriculum. Moreover, it is scientifically problematic when word sorting is utilized as a single strategy system (Sharp, Sinatra & Reynolds, 2008) as opposed to a multi-strategy system that mixes up instructional strategies over time and distributes practice in ways that are supported by cognitive psychology (Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013).

5 Science-Based Ways to Bridge the Gap

Fixing the gap between the science of reading and how we teach it is not rocket science-it's based on research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Here are five ways to bridge the missing link.

1. Assure that all kindergarten and first-grade teachers have been properly trained to teach beginning reading with an emphasis on the student's ability to read quickly and accurately.

2. Replace whole language practices with science-based practices such as an early focus on word reading.

3. Teach handwriting (i.e., manuscript beginning in kindergarten and cursive beginning in grade two or three).

4. Provide extra support for children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.

5. Teach spelling with research-based methodology in a grade-by-grade curriculum.

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Bridging the Gap Between Science and Poor Reading in America

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For nearly two decades, there has been a huge gap between the science of reading and instructional practices in America's classrooms. Reading scientists such as Mark Seidenberg, a researcher in cognitive psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, correctly attributes the problem to the failure of educators to pay attention to reading science (Seidenberg, 2017).

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An Example of the 90 Minute Reading Block

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Research shows that students need at least 90 minutes of uninterrupted reading instruction each day to become strong readers, and that this instruction must be systematic, explicit, scaffolded, and differentiated across the classroom.

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Free Phonics Materials from Open Source 

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Free Phonics Materials from Open Source 

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Free Phonics Materials for Teachers, Tutors, and Families Literacy is a civil right. The research supporting phonics is too strong to ignore. All families deserve access to high-quality phonics materials. Why Open Source Phonics? Many third, fourth, and older-grade students need more practice in order to master the phonics patterns needed to sound out new [...]

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Advanced Word Study: Incorporating Word Recognition in the Intermediate Classroom

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Advanced Word Study: Incorporating Word Recognition in the Intermediate Classroom

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From Ohio Department of Education

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Morphology Instructional Sequence for Grade 4 

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Morphology Instructional Sequence for Grade 4 

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Teacher Resource for Sequencing Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences 

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Teacher Resource for Sequencing Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondences 

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From Stephanie Stollar Consulting

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Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading

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Heart Word Magic from Really Great Reading

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Heart Word Magic - Read and Spell High Frequency Words | Really Great Reading

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Heart Word Magic - Help Students Learn to Read and Spell High-Frequency and Sight WordsHeart Word Magic is a complimentary teaching tool designed to help students learn to read and spell high-frequency words and sight words, particularly those that aren’t very decodable. Show your students the animations, then try these fun, hands-on free Student Practice

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Many common words present challenges to children because they are irregular in some way. An irregular word is a word that presents a challenge for decoding. These words contain elements that do not follow the most common letter-sound correspondences. Some words are permanently irregular. In these words, the sounds of the letters are unique to that word or to a very small number of words. Other words are temporarily irregular. This means that the student has not yet learned the letter-sound correspondences in the word.

Although irregular words can be challenging, there are effective methods for teaching them. The good news is that, in most common irregular words, only one or two letters don't adhere to expected phoneme-grapheme correspondences. This means children can learn to decode most of the word, and they only have to learn one or two letters "by heart." The Heart Words materials below can be used to teach irregular words this way. This approach can promote children's orthographic mapping.

Once an irregular word has been introduced and taught, which includes sounding out the decodable parts and recognizing the part(s) that need to be learned by heart, flash cards can be an effective tool for practice. For many readers, irregular words are committed to memory after only a few (1-4) exposures. A struggling reader may need 20 or more exposures to the same word before it can be recognized on sight.

Here's a helpful article about teaching irregular words.
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/new-model-teaching-high-frequency-words
Irregular "Heart" Words

This collection of "heart word"slides contains some words that are permanently irregular and others that are temporarily irregular. Each slide includes teacher guidance in the notes section to explain the irregularities in the word. You can also download and print these Heart Word Cards on card stock.
Heart Word Slides (PowerPoint) Heart Word Slides (Google Slides) Heart Word Tutorial
Irregular Word Cards

We also have traditional irregular or "hot" word flash cards and word slides for reviewing with children.
Irregular Word Flash Cards (PowerPoint) Irregular Word Flash Cards (Google Slides) Irregular Word Slides (Powerpoint) Irregular Word Slides (Google Slides)
Tutorials and Sample Lessons
Sample Lesson - Irregular Words

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Irregular and High Frequency Words | UF Literacy Institute

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Many common words present challenges to children because they are irregular in some way. An irregular word is a word that presents a challenge for decoding. These words contain elements that do not follow the most common letter-sound correspondences. Some words are permanently irregular.

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The Reading League: Reading Buddies TV Series 

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The Reading League: Reading Buddies TV Series 

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"A fun, foundational reading TV series for students PreK-3. The show instructs three important underlying components of skillful word reading: phonological awareness, letter names/sounds, and blending sounds to decode words accurately."

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The Reading League's Reading Buddies is an engaging foundational television series, based on the science of reading, that cleverly teaches underlying components of skillful word reading such as phonological awareness, letter names/sounds, and blending sounds to decode words.

The show features a hilarious talking dog named Dusty who, with the help of his best human friend Dott, is learning a new trick - how to read! They are joined by a kazoo-talking, robot assistant named Alphabott, and an adorable cast of human Alphabotteers. Together, they form an after-school reading club where Dusty explores letters and their sounds, social-emotional learning, and whatever else sparks his curiosity or desire for snacks! Each episode features a new "Alphabadge" for Dusty to earn, marking the progress of his reading journey. Together, along with the viewers, they are the "Reading Buddies!"

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A fun, foundational reading TV series for students PreK-3. The show instructs three important underlying components of skillful word reading: phonological awareness, letter names/sounds, and blending sounds to decode words accurately.

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Please [contact us](https://www.ted.com/contact) and let us know what happened.

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The Kastner Collection: Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI) - Wakelet

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This Wakelet includes professional learning presentations and resources related to Enhanced Core Reading Instruction (ECRI). ECRI was created at the University of Oregon Center on Teaching &amp; Learning. ECRI is a multi-tiered program (Tier 1 and Tier 2) featuring a series of teaching routines designed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of reading instruction in kindergarten, first and second grade.

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Setting Your Classroom Up for Success with the SoR Sound Walls

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Setting Your Classroom Up for Success with the SoR Sound Walls

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References

Click the "References" link above to hide these references.

Brady, S. (2011). Efficacy of phonics teaching for reading outcomes: Implications from Post-NRP research. In S. Brady, D. Braze, & C. Fowler (Eds.), Explaining individual differences in reading (pp. 69-96), London: Psychology Press.

Denton, C. A., Fletcher, J. M., Taylor, W. P., Barth, A. E., & Vaughn, S. (2014). An experimental evaluation of Guided Reading and explicit interventions for primary-grade students at-risk for reading difficulties. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 7(3), 268-293.

Ehri, L., Nunes, R. S., Stahl, S., & Willows, D. (2001). Systematic phonics instruction helps students learn to read: Evidence from the National Reading Panel's meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 71, 393-447.

Foorman, B., Beyler, N., Borradaile, K., Coyne, M., Denton, C. A., Dimino, J., Furgeson, J., Hayes, L., Henke, J., Justice, L., Keating, B., Lewis, W., Sattar, S., Streke, A., Wagner, R., & Wissel, S. (2016). Foundational skills to support reading for understanding in kindergarten through 3rd grade (NCEE 2016-4008). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (NCEE), Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from the NCEE website: http://whatworks.ed.gov

Kilpatrick, D. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

McCardle, P., & Chhabra, V. (Eds.). (2004). The voice of evidence in reading research. Baltimore, MD, Paul H. Brookes.

National Early Literacy Panel (NELP). (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child and Human Development.

Seidenberg, M. (2017). Language at the speed of sight: How we read, why so many can't, and what can be done about it. New York: Basic Books.

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Structured Literacy Instruction: The Basics

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Structured Literacy prepares students to decode words in an explicit and systematic manner. This approach not only helps students with dyslexia, but there is substantial evidence that it is effective for all readers. Get the basics on the six elements of Structured Literacy and how each element is taught.

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"The Writing Revolution (TWR) provides a clear method of instruction that you can use no matter what subject or grade level you teach. The model, also known as The Hochman Method, has demonstrated, over and over, that it can turn weak writers into strong communicators by focusing on specific techniques that match their needs and by providing them with targeted feedback."

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The Writing Revolution - Empower teachers to help students

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By training educators in The Hochman Method©, The Writing Revolution (TWR) aims to help all students become proficient writers, readers, and critical thinkers.

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The Kastner Collection: Effective Writing Practices - Wakelet

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This Waklet includes resources for supporting effective practices for student writing. This includes knowledge building instructional practices that align with transcription skills and composition skills. Research for developing effective writers is included on this Waklet.

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Advanced Word Study for Grades 3-5: Accelerated learning of multisyllabic word reading and morphology

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Advanced Word Study for Grades 3-5: Accelerated learning of multisyllabic word reading and morphology

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https://msachieves.mdek12.org/advanced-word-study-resource/

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What Works Clearninghouse: Practice Guides 

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What Works Clearninghouse: Practice Guides 

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A practice guide is a publication that presents recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. They are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts.

To search by Topic or Keyword, use the Practice Guide Search.

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A practice guide is a publication that presents recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. They are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts. To search by Topic or Keyword, use the Practice Guide Search.

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Shared Expertise on Structured Literacy and Student Success

Explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction in the essential elements of reading is key to helping all students learn to read. Structured Literacy is endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association's Board of Directors, and conforms to IDA's Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading.

Join us as respected thought leaders explore Structured Literacy and share teaching strategies surrounding its use. These insightful webinars will help you gain valuable knowledge on why Structured Literacy is essential to reading instruction, the key structures and content of structured literacy, common myths and misconceptions, procedures for teaching, and more. Register now!

John Alexander

Literacy Culture Change: A Case Example

Wednesday, August 4 | 2:00 p.m. (CT)

Changing a school's literacy culture is difficult, especially when the change requires a deep examination of the weaknesses of an existing program. This webinar will explore a real-life example of how a school was able to make the shift from viewing the teaching of reading through a whole language lens to one of evidence and science. Participants will learn how the school made a systematic change in reading philosophy and adopted the components of an effective literacy program in just one year. The discussion will include an in-depth examination of student outcomes before and after the year of change.
Register Now

Dr. Louisa Moats

Explicit Language Teaching is the Heart of Structured Literacy

Renowned literacy expert and author Dr. Louisa Moats speaks to a topic that she knows intricately: Structured Literacy. Dr. Moats identifies the content and procedures for teaching Structured Literacy, and presents examples of how to teach phoneme awareness, morphological awareness, phoneme-grapheme correspondences, and syllable patterns within an explicit lesson framework.
Watch Now

Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling

Structured Literacy: Strategies for At-Risk and Struggling Readers

Structured Literacy approaches are receiving increasing attention for their effectiveness in helping at-risk and poor readers learn to read and write well. Join literacy expert Dr. Louise Spear-Swerling as she discusses the key features and content of Structured Literacy approaches, examines the myths surrounding Structured Literacy, and shares some examples of Structured Literacy activities and techniques that educators can use immediately in the classroom.

Attendees will learn:

Some ways that Structured Literacy (SL) approaches differ from other approaches to teaching literacy

Why SL approaches are especially valuable for at-risk and poor readers

Why incorporating certain features of SL into general education programs could benefit many children, not only poor readers

Some sample SL activities for teaching decoding, spelling, text reading, and written expression

We hope you will join us for this insightful webinar.
Watch Now

Structured Literacy Resources

Learn more about interventions for dyslexia, as well as programs and resources we offer that support Structured Literacy.
Learn More

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Voyager Sopris Learning Structured Literacy Webinars

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Explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction in the essential elements of reading is key to helping all students learn to read. Structured Literacy is endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association's Board of Directors, and conforms to IDA's Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading.

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Wonders Meets the Science of Reading Facebook Group

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Wonders Meets the Science of Reading Facebook Group

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Wonders Meets the Science of Reading has 4,411 members. This group was created with the intent of being a platform for bringing the Science of Reading to Wonders. I hope you are able to see many...

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? 

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? 

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Why do we ignore the data? Why are we okay with poor reading scores? ~Melissa Hostetter

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? | Melissa Hostetter | TEDxUofISpringfield

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Used with Nancy Young's permission
https://www.nancyyoung.ca/

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The Ladder of Reading & Writing

Would you like to use The Ladder of Reading & Writing in a presentation or in another context?
Please click HERE for permission guidelines and forms!

​

Click here for Nancy's
Synopsis of the 2023 Ladder of Reading & Writing Update

For the PNG version, right click on the image to the left, select "Save Image As" to download.

Note: Click for permission for use. here

Books, Articles & Videos Referencing "The Ladder of Reading" (2020)

Books, Articles & Videos Referencing "The Ladder of Reading" (2020)

Nancy's earlier Ladder of Reading was featured in numerous article and books, on many websites, and in countless presentations. If you previously obtained permission from Nancy to use her earlier work, please continue to follow her guidelines and use the 2021 update doing forward.

Nancy's Ladder of Reading (2020) is now featured in the following books:
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Secret Code Actions - Ladder of Reading And Writing

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The Ladder of Reading & Writing. Created by "Secret Code Actions" Author, Nancy Young.

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Enjoy these free, customizable Orton-Gillingham lesson templates on IMSE!

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Empowering educators with the literacy resources and training to help every child achieve reading success.

Trust Tools 4 Reading for the resources you need for your elementary classroom.

We're proud to welcome to our team:

Nova Williams Assistant Director of Learning Services-Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment

Mercer Island School District, WA

"I love the Kid Lips cards, Kids Lips Instructional Guide with the user-friendly lessons, and the Phoneme/Grapheme cards. Our teachers love them, too."

Erika Gordon Kindergarten Teacher

Kalispell, MT

"This class was amazing. It was encouraging to me in reminding me that what I was doing with my kindergarten was the right thing to do, even if others weren't doing it. And it gave me so, so, so many new things to try this next year. I appreciate all the extra articles that were linked and have printed and read almost all of them so far. What an amazing class. Thank you!"

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Tools 4 Reading provides great resources for your classroom such as Phoneme/Grapheme Card and Kid Lips.

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The What is the Science of Reading website was maintained by a coalition of educators dedicated to a firm definition of what the science of reading is, what it is not, and how all stakeholders can understand its potential to transform reading instruction.

The Reading League is proud to now provide administrative support and resources to continue the Defining Movement Coalition's mission to provide a firm definition of the term science of reading.

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The What is the Science of Reading website was maintained by a coalition of educators dedicated to a firm definition of what the science of reading is, what it is not, and how all stakeholders can understand its potential to transform reading instruction.

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(Note: This post has been updated on April 3, 2022.)

Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings). They then permanently store the connected sounds and letters of words (along with their meaning) as instantly recognizable words, described as "sight vocabulary" or "sight words".
Sight Words
A sight word is any word that a reader instantly recognizes and identifies without conscious effort. Adult competent readers have between 30,000 and 60,000 words that have been orthographically mapped in their sight vocabulary. As soon as one of these words is seen, it is unconsciously and instantly recognizable. This is what enables us to be efficient readers, able to focus on the meaning of what we read instead of on word reading. When words are stored as sight vocabulary words in long-term memory, a reader no longer has to decode words one at a time the way beginning readers do. While some orthographic mapping can begin earlier, most children start applying this skill in second and third grade. As we continue to read into adulthood, we continue to use orthographic mapping to grow our sight word vocabularies.

Because some high-frequency words (e.g., the, and, is, was, for, are) are essential to learning how to read, teachers of kindergarten and grade 1 typically provide explicit instruction to help students automatically read some of these words. Students are taught to read them as whole words at the same time that they are being taught how to decode most other words. However, once students are able to orthographically map, they will start to store high-frequency words as sight words on their own.
What is the mental process of orthographic mapping?
With orthographic mapping of a word, the letters we see with our eyes and the sounds we hear in that word get processed together as a sight word and are stored together in the brain. This is not the same as memorizing just the way a word looks. It is also important to remember that orthographic mapping is a mental process used to store and remember words. It is not a skill, teaching technique, or activity you can do with students (Kilpatrick, 2019). What can be taught are phonemic awareness and phonics skills which enable orthographic mapping.

With orthographic mapping, students connect something new with something they already know. Through listening and speaking, young students already know a word's pronunciation and meaning which is stored in their long-term memory. Students turn a written word into a sight word by attaching the phonemes in the word's pronunciation to the letter sequence of the word. The pronunciation of the word has to be broken into its phonemes, which is why having strong phonemic awareness skills is important. The word's letter sequence can become familiar (i.e., become a sight word) because the student can attach it to the already known pronunciation.

Kilpatrick (2019) provides examples similar to the following:

If a student knows the spoken word /bed/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. If he has good phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds (phonemes) /b/ /e/ /d/. Those sounds become the anchoring points for the word's printed sequence. The student can then attach each phoneme to its corresponding letter (spelling). The student is using the power of what he knows (the pronunciation) and attaching it like "superglue" to the printed word bed. This example has all single sound-letter correspondences.

If a student knows the spoken word /sheep/, its pronunciation is stored in long-term memory - he knows what it means and what it sounds like. Using phonemic awareness skills, he can pull the word apart into its individual sounds /sh/ /e/ /p/. The student then attaches each phoneme to its corresponding spelling. In this example, some of the sounds are represented by more than one letter.

In typically developing readers from grade 2 on who have orthographic mapping skills, they only need to see and read printed words one to four times before they become permanently stored as sight words for future instant recall (Reitsma, 1983 as cited in Kilpatrick, 2015). When a word becomes a sight word, as soon as it is seen its sound and meaning are immediately available. Having a significant amount of stored sight words is what enables fluency - quick and accurate reading where the reader is free to focus on making meaning from text.
How does orthographic mapping develop?
Three intersecting skills must be in place to enable orthographic mapping (Ehri, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015):

Highly proficient phonological and phonemic awareness

Automatic letter-sound correspondence knowledge

The ability to accurately and quickly decode a word by identifying its sounds letter by letter, and blending those sounds to read the word

Here's how Ehri (2014) explains the skills that need to be in place before orthographic mapping can take place:

"To form connections and retain words in memory, readers need some requisite abilities. They must possess phonemic awareness, particularly segmentation and blending. They must know the major grapheme-phoneme correspondences (letter-sound knowledge) of the writing system. Then they need to be able to read unfamiliar words on their own by applying a decoding strategy." Doing so "activates orthographic mapping to retain the words' spellings, pronunciations, and meanings in memory." (p. 7)

Kilpatrick (2015) describes three phases of word-reading development for children in the primary grades that are aligned with corresponding phonological skill development. As noted above in Ehri's quote, the ability to segment and blend phonemes is needed to support decoding and eventually orthographic mapping. Kilpatrick has proposed that advanced phonemic awareness activities focused on practice with phoneme manipulation might be helpful for students who are not able to orthographically map words; however, at this time there is not sufficient research to indicate that instruction focused on advanced phonemic awareness improves orthographic mapping.

Beginning readers in kindergarten and grade 1 are developing their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and basic phonemic awareness skills, and are beginning to learn phonic decoding. Before a student can orthographically map a word, the word first has to be identified. Young students identify the pronunciation of a word by using their letter-sound knowledge to determine each sound in the word, and then using their phonemic blending skills to blend those sounds to decode (sound out) the word.

Once these skills are proficient, typically by grade 3, orthographic mapping usually develops for the majority of students simply by interacting with letters and words. However, many students with word-reading difficulties do not develop orthographic mapping. They therefore have greater difficulty developing the sight word vocabulary needed for fluent reading and will likely stay disfluent and hesitant readers unless they receive intervention that builds proficiency in phonemic awareness (in particular segmenting and blending) and phonics and decoding skills (Kilpatrick, 2015; Parker, 2019). It is difficult for them to get beyond having to decode most words when they read.
Implications for Teaching: Explicit Phonemic Awareness and Phonics Instruction Leads to Orthographic Mapping
Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction help students use the alphabetic principle to learn relationships between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language. As noted in the word-reading development chart above, developing early phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness of initial sounds, should be a focus of PreK and kindergarten instruction to develop basic letter-sound correspondence knowledge. As students move through kindergarten and grade one, a focus on blending and segmenting of phonemes in written words develops phonic decoding skills which must be in place for orthographic mapping. Some kindergarten and grade 1 students may be able to start completing simple phoneme manipulation tasks, such as deleting or substituting initial sounds in words.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCE: After this post first appeared, Joan Sedita presented a webinar titled "The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read." It is now a free, archived webinar at the Keys to Literacy website. Click here to access.
References

Ehri, L. C. (1998). Grapheme-phoneme knowledge is essential to learning to read words in English. In J. L. Metsala & L. C. Ehri (Eds.), Word recognition in beginning literacy (p. 3-40). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Ehri, L.C. (2014) Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading 18(1).

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2015). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Kilpatrick, D.A. (2019). Assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Online course. Colorado Department of Education. Retrieved from: https://sitesed.cde.state.co.us/course/view.php?id=132#section-1

Parker, S. (2019). Sight words, orthographic mapping, and self-teaching. Stephen Parker blog post, April 22, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.parkerphonics.com/post/sight-words-orthographic-mapping-and-self-teaching

Reitsma, P. (1983). Printed word learning in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 36, 321-339.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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The Role of Orthographic Mapping in Learning to Read - Keys to Literacy

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Every word has three forms - its sounds (phonemes), its orthography (spelling), and its meaning. Orthographic mapping is the process that all successful readers use to become fluent readers. Through orthographic mapping, students use the oral language processing part of their brain to map (connect) the sounds of words they already know (the phonemes) to the letters in a word (the spellings).

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Keys to Literacy recently introduced a new professional development program titled Keys to Emergent Literacy for Pre-K educators which caused me to review resources related to preschool literacy instruction. A short piece in Psychology Today titled "5 Science-Based Tips for Promoting Literacy in Preschool" (Gentry, 2020) reminded me of the importance of providing developmentally appropriate and research-based literacy instruction to preschoolers.

The article recommends the following science-based tips:

Science says to build your child's oral language: Building a large preschool vocabulary is an important early step on the pathway to literacy, before the child begins reading words. Read aloud offers an excellent opportunity to provide exposure to rich language experiences and engage in fun activities to build language as part of a daily routine.

Science says to use the "Own Name Effect": Teaching preschoolers to read and write their own first name is a research-based learning activity for promoting literacy. Children have a proclivity for learning to read and write their own names and high-frequency words such as Mom and Dad.

Science says teach the alphabet early: There are several alphabet learning effects. It's easier for preschoolers to learn letters that sound like the letter name (e.g., the sound /b/ and the letter b), and the beginning or end of the alphabet are generally learned more quickly and easily than middle-of-the-alphabet letters.

Science says engage preschoolers with the sounds in words (phonemic awareness): The ability to identify, blend, segment, and manipulate the sounds in words is important for learning to read. Engaging activities for developing phonemic awareness should be integrated on a regular basis.

Science says to start early: Many pre-reading skills are easier to learn in the preschool years. For example, young children learn the letter names and sounds of consonants easier when they are mastered earlier in the children's oral language development.

The Keys to Emergent Literacy PD totals 16 hours and is organized into four modules (4 hours each) that are aligned to preschool literacy research: 1) Print Knowledge, 2) Phonological Awareness, 3) Vocabulary, 4) Oral Language.

Despite being 10 years old, the report of the National Early Literacy Panel (2009) titled Developing Early Literacy offers more detailed recommendations for preschool literacy activities based on a meta-analysis of research. The authors determined that there are six variables that are highly correlated with later literacy, particularly literacy acquisition in primary grades:

alphabet knowledge: knowledge of the names and sounds associated with printed letters

phonological awareness: the ability to detect, manipulate, or analyze the auditory aspects of spoken language, independent of meaning (including the ability to distinguish or segment words, syllables, or phonemes).

rapid automatic naming (RAN): the ability to rapidly name a sequence of random letters or digits

writing or writing name: the ability to write letters in isolation on request or to write one's own name

phonological memory: the ability to remember spoken information for a short period of time

In addition, five early literacy skills were also moderately correlated with later literacy achievement, including teaching

concepts of print: knowledge of print conventions (left-right, front-back) and concepts (book cover, author, text)

print knowledge: a combination of alphabet knowledge, concepts of print and early decoding

reading readiness: a combination of alphabetic knowledge, concepts of print, vocabulary, memory, and phonological awareness

oral language: the ability to produce or comprehend spoken language, including vocabulary and grammar

visual processing: the ability to match or discriminate visually presented symbols

Here are some additional resources with instructional suggestions that support preschool, emergent literacy:

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Pre-K Literacy Instruction - Keys to Literacy

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Keys to Literacy recently introduced a new professional development program titled Keys to Emergent Literacy for Pre-K educators which caused me to review resources related to preschool literacy instruction. A short piece in Psychology Today titled "5 Science-Based Tips for Promoting Literacy in Preschool" (Gentry, 2020) reminded me of the importance of providing developmentally appropriate and research-based literacy instruction to preschoolers.

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Enhancing Alphabet Knowledge Instruction: Research Implications and Practical Strategies for Early Childhood Educators 

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Enhancing Alphabet Knowledge Instruction: Research Implications and Practical Strategies for Early Childhood Educators 

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What it takes to be a literacy education changemaker: Kareem Weaver

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What it takes to be a literacy education changemaker: Kareem Weaver

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In this episode, Susan Lambert sits down with Kareem Weaver to discuss change management for educators implementing the Science of Reading. Kareem Weaver is a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and a leader of the organization Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate (FULCRUM). He was also an award-winning teacher and administrator in Oakland, California, and Columbia, South Carolina. Kareem discusses what the Science of Reading is at the simplest level and why it's important that educators are undivided in backing the research. He goes on to give an impassioned plea to educators to come together, because this is an issue that impacts all kids. Kareem also highlights the importance of meeting educators where they are and realizing that change cannot happen if teachers aren't given the tools and support they need first. Lastly, Kareem calls for systemic changes to education so that teachers can do their jobs in a way that is balanced, sustainable, and ultimately benefits the students.

Quotes:
"In order to save our kids and to get them competitive in the information age, they have to be able to access information. And so we've got to focus on literacy." -Kareem Weaver
Show Notes:
FULCRUM: Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate

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s4-e14: what it takes to be a literacy education changemaker: kareem weaver

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‎Science of Reading: The Podcast: S4-E14: What it takes to be a literacy education changemaker: Kareem Weaver on Apple Podcasts

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In this episode, Susan Lambert sits down with Kareem Weaver to discuss change management for educators implementing the Science of Reading. Kareem Weaver is a member of the Oakland NAACP Education Committee and a leader of the organization Full and Complete Reading is a Universal Mandate (FULCRUM)....

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This website was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, Award No. H326L180002. David Emenheiser serves as the project officer. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or polices of the U.S. Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S.

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Critical Elements of Classroom and Small-Group Instruction Promote Reading Success in All Children

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Critical Elements of Classroom and Small-Group Instruction Promote Reading Success in All Children

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We specialize in partnering with schools and districts to build custom implementation support plans. Including planning, training, and ongoing support

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Turning It Around: New Madrid, MO Administrators Share Their Recipe for Literacy Success

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Turning It Around: New Madrid, MO Administrators Share Their Recipe for Literacy Success

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‎Ed Leaders In Literacy Podcast: Turning It Around on Apple Podcasts

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In this episode, we chat with New Madrid, MO principal Angie Hanlin and Superintendent Dr. Sam Duncan about their work to raise literacy rates in their school district.

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Lane, OK: Exposing and Learning from Success

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Lane, OK: Exposing and Learning from Success

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A small, kindergarten-through-8 th-grade district in rural Oklahoma, Lane was identified by Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, as one of the few districts in the country that "grow" its students almost six academic years in five calendar years ( Chicago, profiled in Season 1, is another). Since he identified it, Lane has improved its absolute achievement considerably.

When Karin Chenoweth visited she heard from teachers and administrators that its improvement process started when its former superintendent visited a nearby high-performing high-poverty district and realized that he hadn't understood how important early learning and early reading instruction is. He began sending teachers to learn from nearby Cottonwood and they upped their reading instruction game. Today, years later, the two districts, both located in the Choctaw Nation, continue to learn from each other.

Hear directly from teachers and administrators in both Lane and Cottonwood as they talk about what they have learned from each other and how improvement takes place.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | RSS

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Lane, OK: Exposing and Learning from Success - The Education Trust

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A small, kindergarten-through-8th-grade district in rural Oklahoma, Lane was identified by Sean Reardon, Professor of Poverty and Inequality at Stanford University, as one of the few districts in the country that "grow" its students almost six academic years in five calendar years (Chicago, profiled in Season 1, is another).

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PhonicsPlay comics are decodable comics featuring familiar characters from PhonicsPlay along with some new friends. They are short, simple, silly comics that can be viewed on screen or printed out. They aim to provide opportunities for children to rehearse the precise knowledge and skills that they learn in school each week. Mostly though, they were created to make my own children smile.

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Free decodable comics for applying phonics skills.

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Many children with literacy difficulties find it hard to blend phonemes together. Word Chains games allow a child to focus on sounds without the distraction of graphemes, as each sound is represented by a counter. A single phoneme is changed and the child 're-blends' to make a new word. The Word Chain lists progress from simple CVC words, like 'dog' and 'cat', to more complex words with initial and final blends, like 'stand' and 'crisp'. This allows targeted practice of a very specific skill in just a few minutes.

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Blending Phonemes - Word Chains - Dyslexic Logic

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Resources and word-chains (also called word ladders or word chains) to support teaching blending skills for children with poor phonological awareness, from basic CVC blends to CCVCC words with long and short medial vowels.

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Articulation Instruction: The Connection to Orthographic Mapping

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Articulation Instruction: The Connection to Orthographic Mapping

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Detailed App Breakdown - CLICK HERE

Kids - and adults - everywhere are becoming great at reading and handwriting with our Apps. Our Apps are excellent for emerging readers and English language learners. EBLI Apps combine important cognitive research on how children learn to read with innovative activities in an immersive learning experience. Our app develops confident readers by helping learners to progressively build necessary reading and writing skills including:

- Segmenting: pulling letter sounds apart
- Blending: pushing letter sounds together
- Peterson Handwriting: correct letter formation
- Fluency: reading smoothly with inflection
- Words are made up of sounds
- Teaching the most common spelling for each sound (each 1 letter spelling has a sound that it most commonly represents)
- Words must be read from left to right
- Letters must be written from top to bottom, and from left to right
- 1, 2, 3, or 4 letters can spell 1 sound
- Repetition of what was learned in order for learner to become accurate and automatic
- Progressing to reading smoothly while accurately reading all the words

For complete descriptions and information, see and download our Apps in the App Store

The EBLI apps are available for Android in Google Play

The EBLI apps are available for Kindle Fire tablets on

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Kids - and adults - everywhere are becoming great at reading and handwriting with our Apps. Our Apps are excellent for emerging readers and English language learners. EBLI Apps combine important cognitive research on how children learn to read with innovative activities in an immersive learning experience.

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Become a catalyst for change in education. Dive into the Science of Reading with our FREE presentation and resources, co-created with 100+ dedicated educators like you.

Ready to put your learning into practice?

Keep scrolling and grab the resource bundles below to start transforming your classroom!

If you're looking for worksheets that you had previously accessed on the page, make sure to check out our new free Resource Bundles below.

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Become a catalyst for change in education. Dive into the Science of Reading with our FREE presentation and resources, co-created with 100+ dedicated educators like you. If you're looking for worksheets that you had previously accessed on the page, make sure to check out our new free Resource Bundles below.

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Scarborough’s Reading Rope | Really Great Reading

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[row][oneHalf][/oneHalf][oneHalf]What is Scarborough’s Reading Rope?In 2001, Dr. Hollis Scarborough created the Reading Rope using pipe cleaners to convey how the different “strands” of reading are all interconnected yet independent of one another. For many students, learning to read is a challenge. Scarborough’s Rope captures the complexity of learning to read. Scarborough’s

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Aouad, J. and Savage, R. (2009). The component structure of preliteracy skills: Further evidence for the simple view of reading. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 24 (2), 183-200.

Catts, H., Adlof, S., and Weismer, S. (2006). Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 278-293.

Gough, P., Hoover, W., and Patterson, C. (1996). Some observations on a simple view of reading. In C. Cornoldi and J. Oakhill (eds.), Reading comprehension difficulties: Processes and intervention (pp. 1-13). Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

*Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10.

Hoover, W. and Gough, P. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 127-160.

*Kamhi, A. (2007). Knowledge deficits: the true crisis in education. ASHA Leader, 12 (7), 28-29.

*These articles are short and easy to read.

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The Simple View of Reading is a formula demonstrating the widely accepted view that reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. Research studies show that a student's reading comprehension score can be predicted if decoding skills and language comprehension abilities are known.

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Listen to this audio documentary on the Educate podcast. Subscribe now.

Molly Woodworth was a kid who seemed to do well at everything: good grades, in the gifted and talented program. But she couldn't read very well.

"There was no rhyme or reason to reading for me," she said. "When a teacher would dictate a word and say, 'Tell me how you think you can spell it,' I sat there with my mouth open while other kids gave spellings, and I thought, 'How do they even know where to begin?' I was totally lost."

Woodworth went to public school in Owosso, Michigan, in the 1990s. She says sounds and letters just didn't make sense to her, and she doesn't remember anyone teaching her how to read. So she came up with her own strategies to get through text.

Strategy 1: Memorize as many words as possible. "Words were like pictures to me," she said. "I had a really good memory."

Strategy 2: Guess the words based on context. If she came across a word she didn't have in her visual memory bank, she'd look at the first letter and come up with a word that seemed to make sense. Reading was kind of like a game of 20 Questions: What word could this be?

Strategy 3: If all else failed, she'd skip the words she didn't know.

Most of the time, she could get the gist of what she was reading. But getting through text took forever. "I hated reading because it was taxing," she said. "I'd get through a chapter and my brain hurt by the end of it. I wasn't excited to learn."

No one knew how much she struggled, not even her parents. Her reading strategies were her "dirty little secrets."

Woodworth, who now works in accounting, 1 says she's still not a very good reader and tears up when she talks about it. Reading "influences every aspect of your life," she said. She's determined to make sure her own kids get off to a better start than she did.

That's why she was so alarmed to see how her oldest child, Claire, was being taught to read in school.

As long as this disproven theory remains part of American education, many kids will likely struggle to learn how to read.

A couple of years ago, Woodworth was volunteering in Claire's kindergarten classroom. The class was reading a book together and the teacher was telling the children to practice the strategies that good readers use.

The teacher said, "If you don't know the word, just look at this picture up here," Woodworth recalled. "There was a fox and a bear in the picture. And the word was bear, and she said, 'Look at the first letter. It's a "b." Is it fox or bear?'"

Woodworth was stunned. "I thought, 'Oh my God, those are my strategies.' Those are the things I taught myself to look like a good reader, not the things that good readers do," she said. "These kids were being taught my dirty little secrets."

She went to the teacher and expressed her concerns. The teacher told her she was teaching reading the way the curriculum told her to.

Woodworth had stumbled on to American education's own little secret about reading: Elementary schools across the country are teaching children to be poor readers - and educators may not even know it.

For decades, reading instruction in American schools has been rooted in a flawed theory about how reading works, a theory that was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists, yet remains deeply embedded in teaching practices and curriculum materials. As a result, the strategies that struggling readers use to get by - memorizing words, using context to guess words, skipping words they don't know - are the strategies that many beginning readers are taught in school. This makes it harder for many kids to learn how to read, and children who don't get off to a good start in reading find it difficult to ever master the process. 2

A shocking number of kids in the United States can't read very well. A third of all fourth-graders can't read at a basic level, and most students are still not proficient readers by the time they finish high school.
Percentage of U.S. fourth-graders below basic level in reading
When kids struggle to learn how to read, it can lead to a downward spiral in which behavior, vocabulary, knowledge and other cognitive skills are eventually affected by slow reading development. 3 A disproportionate number of poor readers become high school dropouts and end up in the criminal justice system. 4

The fact that a disproven theory about how reading works is still driving the way many children are taught to read is part of the problem. School districts spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on curriculum materials that include this theory. Teachers are taught the theory in their teacher preparation programs and on the job. As long as this disproven theory remains part of American education, many kids will likely struggle to learn how to read.
Percentage of U.S. 12th-graders proficient in reading
The origins

The theory is known as "three cueing." The name comes from the notion that readers use three different kinds of information - or "cues" - to identify words as they are reading.

The theory was first proposed in 1967, when an education professor named Ken Goodman presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City.

In the paper, 5 Goodman rejected the idea that reading is a precise process that involves exact or detailed perception of letters or words. Instead, he argued that as people read, they make predictions about the words on the page using these three cues:

graphic cues (what do the letters tell you about what the word might be?)

syntactic cues (what kind of word could it be, for example, a noun or a verb?)

semantic cues (what word would make sense here, based on the context?)

Goodman concluded that:

Skill in reading involves not greater precision, but more accurate first guesses based on better sampling techniques, greater control over language structure, broadened experiences and increased conceptual development. As the child develops reading skill and speed, he uses increasingly fewer graphic cues.

Goodman's proposal became the theoretical basis for a new approach to teaching reading that would soon take hold in American schools.

Previously, the question of how to teach reading had focused on one of two basic ideas.

One idea is that reading is a visual memory process. The teaching method associated with this idea is known as "whole word." The whole word approach was perhaps best embodied in the "Dick and Jane" books that first appeared in the 1930s. The books rely on word repetition, and pictures to support the meaning of the text. The idea is that if you see words enough, you eventually store them in your memory as visual images.

The other idea is that reading requires knowledge of the relationships between sounds and letters. Children learn to read by sounding out words. This approach is known as phonics. It goes way back, popularized in the 1800s with the McGuffey readers.

These two ideas - whole word and phonics - had been taking turns as the favored way to teach reading until Goodman came along with what came to be known among educators as the "three-cueing system."

In the cueing theory of how reading works, when a child comes to a word she doesn't know, the teacher encourages her to think of a word that makes sense and asks: Does it look right? Does it sound right? If a word checks out on the basis of those questions, the child is getting it. She's on the path to skilled reading.

Teachers may not know the term "three cueing," but they're probably familiar with "MSV." M stands for using meaning to figure out what a word is, S for using sentence structure and V for using visual information (i.e., the letters in the words). MSV is a cueing idea that can be traced back to the late Marie Clay, a developmental psychologist from New Zealand who first laid out her theories about reading in a dissertation in the 1960s. 6

Clay developed her cueing theory independently of Goodman, but they met several times and had similar ideas about the reading process. Their theories were based on observational research. They would listen to children read, note the kinds of errors they made, and use that information to identify a child's reading difficulties. For example, a child who says "horse" when the word was "house" is probably relying too much on visual, or graphic, cues. A teacher in this case would encourage the child to pay more attention to what word would make sense in the sentence.

Goodman and Clay believed that letters were the least reliable of the three cues, and that as people became better readers, they no longer needed to pay attention to all the letters in words. "In efficient word perception the reader relies mostly on the sentence and its meaning and some selected features of the forms of words," Clay wrote. 7 For Goodman, accurate word recognition was not necessarily the goal of reading. The goal was to comprehend text. 8 If the sentences were making sense, the reader must be getting the words right, or right enough.

These ideas soon became the foundation for how reading was taught in many schools. Goodman's three-cueing idea formed the theoretical basis of an approach known as "whole language" that by the late 1980s had taken hold throughout America. 9 Clay built her cueing ideas into a reading intervention program for struggling first-graders called Reading Recovery. It was implemented across New Zealand in the 1980s and went on to become one of the world's most widely used reading intervention programs. 10

But while cueing was taking hold in schools, scientists were busy studying the cognitive processes involved in reading words. And they came to different conclusions about how people read. 11

Scientists take on three cueing

It was the early 1970s, and Keith Stanovich was working on his doctorate in psychology at the University of Michigan. He thought the reading field was ready for an infusion of knowledge from the "cognitive revolution" that was underway in psychology. Stanovich had a background in experimental science and an interest in learning and cognition due in part to the influence of his wife, Paula, who was a special education teacher.

Stanovich wanted to understand how people read words. 12 He knew about Goodman's work and thought he was probably right that as people become better readers, they relied more on their knowledge of vocabulary and language structure to read words and didn't need to pay as much attention to the letters.

So, in 1975, Stanovich and a fellow graduate student set out to test the idea in their lab. They recruited readers of various ages and abilities and gave them a series of word-reading tasks. Their hypothesis was that skilled readers rely more on contextual cues to recognize words than poor readers, who probably weren't as good at using context.

They couldn't have been more wrong.

"To our surprise, all of our research results pointed in the opposite direction," Stanovich wrote. "It was the poorer readers, not the more skilled readers, who were more reliant on context to facilitate word recognition." 13

The skilled readers could instantly recognize words without relying on context. Other researchers have confirmed these findings with similar experiments. It turns out that the ability to read words in isolation quickly and accurately is the hallmark of being a skilled reader. This is now one of the most consistent and well-replicated findings in all of reading research. 14

Other studies revealed further problems with the cueing theory: 15

Skilled readers don't scan words and sample from the graphic cues in an incidental way; instead, they very quickly recognize a word as a sequence of letters. That's how good readers instantly know the difference between "house" and "horse," for example.

Experiments that force people to use context to predict words show that even skilled readers can correctly guess only a fraction of the words; this is one reason people who rely on context to identify words are poor readers.

Weak word recognition skills are the most common and debilitating source of reading problems. 16

The results of these studies are not controversial or contested among scientists who study reading. The findings have been incorporated into every major scientific model of how reading works.

But cueing is still alive and well in schools.

Picture Power!

It's not hard to find examples of the cueing system. A quick search on Google, Pinterest or Teachers Pay Teachers turns up plenty of lesson plans, teaching guides and classroom posters. One popular poster has cute cartoon characters to remind children they have lots of strategies to use when they're stuck on a word, including looking at the picture (Eagle Eye), getting their lips ready to try the first sound (Lips the Fish), or just skipping the word altogether (Skippy Frog).

There are videos online where you can see cueing in action. In one video posted on The Teaching Channel, 17 a kindergarten teacher in Oakland, California, instructs her students to use "picture power" to identify the words on the page. The goal of the lesson, according to the teacher, is for the students to "use the picture and a first sound to determine an unknown word in their book."

The class reads a book together called "In the Garden." On each page, there's a picture of something you might find in a garden. It's what's known as a predictable book; the sentences are all the same except for the last word.

The children have been taught to memorize the words "look," "at," and "the." The challenge is getting the last word in the sentence. The lesson plan tells the teacher to cover up the word with a sticky note.

In the video, the wiggly kindergarteners sitting cross-legged on the floor come to a page with a picture of a butterfly. The teacher tells the kids that she's guessing the word is going to be butterfly. She uncovers the word to check on the accuracy of her guess.

"Look at that," she tells the children, pointing to the first letter of the word. "It starts with the /b/ /b/ /b/." The class reads the sentence together as the teacher points to the words. "Look at the butterfly!" they yell out excitedly.

This lesson comes from "Units of Study for Teaching Reading," more commonly known as "reader's workshop." 18 According to the lesson plan, this lesson teaches children to "know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words." 19

But the children were not taught to decode words in this lesson. They were taught to guess words using pictures and patterns - hallmarks of the three-cueing system.

The author of Units of Study for Teaching Reading, Lucy Calkins, often refers to cueing in her published work. 20 She uses the term MSV - the meaning, structure and visual idea that originally came from Clay in New Zealand.

Then there is Fountas and Pinnell Literacy, started by Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, teachers who learned the MSV concept from Clay in the 1980s. 21

Fountas and Pinnell have written several books about teaching reading, including a best-seller about a widely used instructional approach called "Guided Reading." They also created a reading assessment system that uses what are called "leveled books." 22 Children start with predictable books like "In the Garden" and move up levels as they're able to "read" the words. But many of the words in those books - butterfly, caterpillar - are words that beginning readers haven't been taught to decode yet. One purpose of the books is to teach children that when they get to a word they don't know, they can use context to figure it out.

When put into practice in the classroom, these approaches can cause problems for children when they are learning to read.

'That is not reading'

Margaret Goldberg, a teacher and literacy coach in the Oakland Unified School District, remembers a moment when she realized what a problem the three-cueing approach was. She was with a first-grader named Rodney when he came to a page with a picture of a girl licking an ice cream cone and a dog licking a bone.

The text said: "My little dog likes to eat with me."

But Rodney said: "My dog likes to lick his bone."

Rodney breezed right through it, unaware that he hadn't read the sentence on the page.

Goldberg realized lots of her students couldn't actually read the words in their books; instead, they were memorizing sentence patterns and using the pictures to guess. One little boy exclaimed, "I can read this book with my eyes shut!"

"Oh no," Goldberg thought. "That is not reading."

Goldberg had been hired by the Oakland schools in 2015 to help struggling readers by teaching a Fountas and Pinnell program called "Leveled Literacy Intervention" that uses leveled books and the cueing approach. 23

Around the same time, Goldberg was trained in a program that uses a different strategy for teaching children how to read words. The program is called "Systematic Instruction in Phonological Awareness, Phonics, and Sight Words," or SIPPS. 24 It's a phonics program that teaches children how to sound out words and uses what are known as "decodable books." Most words in the books have spelling patterns that kids have been taught in their phonics lessons.

Goldberg decided to teach some of her students using the phonics program and some of her students using three cueing. And she began to notice differences between the two groups of kids. "Not just in their abilities to read," she said, "but in the way they approached their reading."

Goldberg and a colleague recorded first-graders talking about what makes them good readers.

One video shows Mia, on the left, who was in the phonics program. Mia says she's a good reader because she looks at the words and sounds them out. JaBrea, on the right, was taught the cueing system. JaBrea says: "I look at the pictures and I read it."

Courtesy of Margaret Goldberg, Oakland Unified School District

It was clear to Goldberg after just a few months of teaching both approaches that the students learning phonics were doing better. "One of the things that I still struggle with is a lot of guilt," she said.

She thinks the students who learned three cueing were actually harmed by the approach. "I did lasting damage to these kids. It was so hard to ever get them to stop looking at a picture to guess what a word would be. It was so hard to ever get them to slow down and sound a word out because they had had this experience of knowing that you predict what you read before you read it."

Goldberg soon discovered the decades of scientific evidence against cueing. 25 She was shocked. She had never come across any of this science in her teacher preparation or on the job.

And she started to wonder why not.

Balanced Literacy

People have been arguing for centuries about how children should be taught to read. The fight has mostly focused on whether to teach phonics.

The whole language movement of the late 20th century was perhaps the zenith of the anti-phonics argument. 26 Phonics instruction was seen as tedious, time-consuming and ultimately unnecessary. Why? Because - according to the three-cueing theory - readers can use other, more reliable cues to figure out what the words say. 27

Marilyn Adams came across this belief in the early 1990s. She's a cognitive and developmental psychologist who had just written a book summarizing the research on how children learn to read. 28 One big takeaway from the book is that becoming a skilled reader of English requires knowledge of sound-spelling correspondences. 29 Another big takeaway is that many kids were not being taught this in school.

Soon after the book was published, Adams was describing her findings to a group of teachers and state education officials in Sacramento, California. She was sensing discomfort and confusion in the room. "And I just stopped and said, 'What is it that I'm missing?'" she recalled. "'What is it that we need to talk about? Help me.'"

A woman raised her hand and asked: "What does this have to do with the three-cueing system?" Marilyn didn't know what the three-cueing system was. "I think I blew all of their fuses that I did not [know what it was] since this was so fundamental to being an elementary reading teacher," she said. "How could I present myself to them as an expert on reading and not know about this?"

The teachers drew her a Venn diagram of the three-cueing system. It looked something like this:

Adams thought this diagram made perfect sense. The research clearly shows that readers use all of these cues to understand what they're reading.

But Adams soon figured out the disconnect. Teachers understood these cues not just as the way readers construct meaning from text, but as the way readers actually identify the words on the page. And they thought that teaching kids to decode or sound out words was not necessary.

"The most important thing was for the children to understand and enjoy the text," Adams said. "And from that understanding and joy of reading, the words on the page would just pop out at them."

She would explain to teachers at every opportunity that explicitly teaching children about the relationships between sounds and letters is essential to ensure all kids get off to a good start in reading. But she got tons of pushback from teachers. "They didn't want to teach phonics!" she recalled in frustration.

In 1998, Adams wrote a book chapter about how the three-cueing system conflicts with what researchers have figured out about reading. She hoped it would help put three cueing to rest. 30

By this time, the scientific research on reading was gaining traction. In 2000, a national panel convened by Congress to review the evidence on how to teach reading came out with a report. 31 It identified several essential components of reading instruction, including vocabulary, comprehension and phonics. The evidence that phonics instruction enhances children's success in learning how to read was clear and compelling. National reports on reading a few years later in the United Kingdom and Australia came to the same conclusion. 32

"When I got into the classroom and someone told me to use this practice, I didn't question it."-Stacey Cherny

Eventually, many whole language supporters accepted the weight of the scientific evidence about the importance of phonics instruction. They started adding phonics to their books and materials and renamed their approach "balanced literacy."

But they didn't get rid of the three-cueing system.

Balanced literacy proponents will tell you their approach is a mix of phonics instruction with plenty of time for kids to read and enjoy books. But look carefully at the materials and you'll see that's not really what balanced literacy is mixing. Instead, it's mixing a bunch of different ideas about how kids learn to read. It's a little bit of whole word instruction with long lists of words for kids to memorize. It's a little bit of phonics. And fundamentally, it's the idea that children should be taught to read using the three-cueing system.

And it turns out cueing may actually prevent kids from focusing on words in the way they need to become skilled readers.

Mapping the words

To understand why cueing can get in the way of children's reading development, it's essential to understand how our brains process the words we see.

Reading scientists have known for decades that the hallmark of being a skilled reader is the ability to instantly and accurately recognize words. 33 If you're a skilled reader, your brain has gotten so good at reading words that you process the word "chair" faster than you process a picture of a chair. 34 You know tens of thousands of words instantly, on sight. How did you learn to do that?

It happens through a process called "orthographic mapping." 35 This occurs when you pay attention to the details of a written word and link the word's pronunciation and meaning with its sequence of letters. 36 A child knows the meaning and pronunciation of "pony." The word gets mapped to his memory when he links the sounds /p/ /o/ /n/ /y/ to the written word "pony."

That requires an awareness of the speech sounds in words and an understanding of how those sounds are represented by letters. 37 In other words, you need phonics skills.

Here's what happens when a reader who has good phonics skills comes to a word she doesn't recognize in print. She stops at the word and sounds it out. If it's a word she knows the meaning of, she has now linked the spelling of the word with its pronunciation. If she doesn't know the meaning of the word, she can use context to try to figure it out.

By about second grade, a typically developing reader needs just a few exposures to a word through understanding both the pronunciation and the spelling for that word to be stored in her memory. 38 She doesn't know that word because she memorized it as a visual image. She knows that word because at some point she successfully sounded it out.

The more words she stores in her memory this way, the more she can focus on the meaning of what she's reading; she'll eventually be using less brain power to identify words and will be able to devote more brain power to comprehending what she's reading. 39

But when children don't have good phonics skills, the process is different.

"They sample from the letters because they're not good at sounding them out," said David Kilpatrick, a psychology professor at SUNY Cortland and the author of a book about preventing reading difficulties. 40 "And they use context."

In other words, when people don't have good phonics skills, they use the cueing system.

"The three-cueing system is the way poor readers read," said Kilpatrick.

And if teachers use the cueing system to teach reading, Kilpatrick says they're not just teaching children the habits of poor readers, they are actually impeding the orthographic mapping process. 41

"The minute you ask them just to pay attention to the first letter or look at the picture, look at the context, you're drawing their attention away from the very thing that they need to interact with in order for them to read the word [and] remember the word," Kilpatrick said. In this way, he said, three cueing can actually prevent the critical learning that's necessary for a child to become a skilled reader.

In many balanced literacy classrooms, children are taught phonics and the cueing system. Some kids who are taught both approaches realize pretty quickly that sounding out a word is the most efficient and reliable way to know what it is. Those kids tend to have an easier time understanding the ways that sounds and letters relate. They'll drop the cueing strategies and begin building that big bank of instantly known words that is so necessary for skilled reading.

But some children will skip the sounding out if they're taught they have other options. Phonics is challenging for many kids. The cueing strategies seem quicker and easier at first. And by using context and memorizing a bunch of words, many children can look like good readers - until they get to about third grade, when their books begin to have more words, longer words, and fewer pictures. Then they're stuck. They haven't developed their sounding-out skills. Their bank of known words is limited. Reading is slow and laborious and they don't like it, so they don't do it if they don't have to. While their peers who mastered decoding early are reading and teaching themselves new words every day, the kids who clung to the cueing approach are falling further and further behind. 42

These poor reading habits, once ingrained at a young age, can follow kids into high school. Some kids who were taught the cueing approach never become good readers. Not because they're incapable of learning to read well but because they were taught the strategies of struggling readers.

'So what if they use the picture?'

Once Margaret Goldberg discovered the cognitive science evidence against cueing, she wanted her colleagues in the Oakland school district to know about it too.

Over the past two years, Goldberg and a fellow literacy coach named Lani Mednick have been leading a grant-funded pilot project to improve reading achievement in the Oakland schools. 43

They have their work cut out for them. Nearly half the district's third-graders are below grade level in reading. Goldberg and Mednick want to raise questions about how kids in Oakland are being taught to read.

They meet every couple weeks with literacy coaches from the 10 elementary schools in the pilot program. They read and discuss articles about the scientific research on reading. At a meeting in March, the coaches watched the video of the "picture power" lesson.

"This teacher meant well," Mednick said to the coaches after they watched the lesson. "It seemed like she believed this lesson would ensure her students would be on the road toward reading."

Mednick wanted the coaches to consider the beliefs about reading that would lead to the creation of a lesson like "picture power." The Oakland schools purchased the Units of Study for Teaching Reading series, which includes the "picture power" lesson, as part of a balanced literacy initiative the district began about 10 years ago. The district also bought the Fountas and Pinnell assessment system.

The coaches saw right away that "picture power" was designed to teach kids the cueing system. But they said many teachers don't see any problem with cueing. After all, one of the cues is to look at the letters in the word. What's wrong with teaching kids lots of different strategies to figure out unknown words? 44

"I remember before we started looking at the science and everything, I thought to myself, 'Reading is so hard for kids, so what if they use the picture?'" said Soraya Sajous-Brooks, the early literacy coach at Prescott Elementary School in West Oakland. "Like, use everything you've got."

But she's come to understand that cueing sends the message to kids that they don't need to sound out words. Her students would get phonics instruction in one part of the day. Then they'd go reader's workshop and be taught that when they come to a word they don't know, they have lots of strategies. They can sound it out. They can also check the first letter, look at the picture, think of a word that makes sense.

Teaching cueing and phonics doesn't work, Sajous-Brooks said. "One negates the other."

Goldberg and Mednick want to show the district there's a better way to teach reading. Schools in the pilot project used grant money to buy new materials that steer clear of the three-cueing idea. Two charter school networks in Oakland are working on similar projects to move their schools away from cueing.

To see what it looks like, I visited a first-grade classroom at a charter school in Oakland called Achieve Academy. 45

One part of the day was explicit phonics instruction. 46 The students were divided into small groups based on their skill level. They met with their teacher, Andrea Ruiz, at a kidney-shaped table in a corner of the classroom. The lowest-level group worked on identifying the speech sounds in words like "skin" and "skip." The highest-level group learned how verbs like "spy" and "cry" are spelled as "spied' and 'cried" in the past tense.

There were also vocabulary lessons. 47 The entire class gathered on a rug at the front of the classroom to talk about a book Ms. Ruiz read out loud to them. One of the words in the book was "prey."

"What animals are a chameleon's prey?" Ms. Ruiz asked the children. "Or we can also ask, what animals do chameleons hunt for food?"

The kids turned and talked to each other. "A chameleon's prey are bugs and insects and other chameleons and mice and birds," a little boy explained to his classmate. "That's it."

Other vocabulary words these first-graders had learned were posted on cards around the classroom. They included: wander, persevere, squint and scrumptious. The kids weren't expected to read those words yet. The idea is to build their oral vocabulary so that when they can read those words, they know what the words mean.

This comes straight from the scientific research, which shows that reading comprehension is the product of two things. 48 First, a child needs to be able to sound out a word. Second, the child needs to know the meaning of the word she just sounded out. So, in a first-grade classroom that's following the research, you will see explicit phonics instruction and also lessons that build oral vocabulary and background knowledge. And you will see kids practicing what they've been taught.

After their vocabulary lesson, the kids did "buddy reading." They retreated to various spots around the classroom to read books to each other. I found Belinda sitting on an adult chair at the back of the classroom, her little legs swinging. Across from her was her buddy Steven, decked out in a yellow and blue plaid shirt tucked neatly into his jeans. He held the book and pointed to the words while Belinda read.

"Ellen /m/," Belinda paused, sounding out the word "meets." She was reading a decodable book about some kids who visit a farm. Almost all of the words in the book contain spelling patterns she'd been taught in her phonics lessons.

"I am a farm here," Belinda read.

Steven did a double-take. "A farmer here," he said gently. Steven's job as Belinda's reading buddy was to help her if she missed a word or got stuck. But that didn't happen much because Belinda had been taught how to read the words. She didn't need any help from the pictures, either. She barely glanced at them as she read.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with pictures. They're great to look at and talk about, and they can help a child comprehend the meaning of a story. Context - including a picture if there is one - helps us understand what we're reading all the time. But if a child is being taught to use context to identify words, she's being taught to read like a poor reader.

Many educators don't know this because the cognitive science research has not made its way into many schools and schools of education. 49

Ruiz didn't know about this research until the Oakland pilot project. "I didn't really know anything about how kids learn to read when I started teaching," she said. It was a relief when she came to Oakland and the curriculum spelled out that kids use meaning, structure and visual cues to figure out words. "Because I came from not having anything, I was like, 'Oh, there's a way we should teach this,'" she said.

I heard this from other educators. Cueing was appealing because they didn't know what else to do.

"When I got into the classroom and someone told me to use this practice, I didn't question it," said Stacey Cherny, a former teacher who's now principal of an elementary school in Pennsylvania. She says many teachers aren't taught what they need to know about the structure of the English language to be able to teach phonics well. She says phonics can be intimidating; three cueing isn't.

Another reason cueing holds on is that it seems to work for some children. But researchers estimate there's a percentage of kids - perhaps about 40 percent - who will learn to read no matter how they're taught. 50 According to Kilpatrick, children who learn to read with cueing are succeeding in spite of the instruction, not because of it.

Goldberg hopes the pilot project in Oakland will convince the district to drop all instructional materials that include cueing.

When asked about this, the Oakland superintendent's office responded with a written statement that there isn't enough evidence from the pilot project to make curriculum changes for the entire district and that the Oakland schools remain committed to balanced literacy.

Oakland's situation is no different from many other districts across the country that have invested millions of dollars in materials that include cueing.

"It feels like everyone's trusting somebody else to have done their due diligence," Goldberg said. "Classroom teachers are trusting that the materials they're being handed will work. The people who purchase the materials are trusting if they were on the market, that they will work. We're all trusting, and it's a system that is broken."

'My science is different'

If cueing was debunked decades ago by cognitive scientists, why is the idea still in materials that are being sold to schools?

One answer to that question is that school districts still buy the materials. Heinemann, the company that publishes the Fountas and Pinnell and Lucy Calkins' products that the Oakland schools use, earned somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 million in 2018, according to earnings reports. 51

I wanted to know what the authors of those materials make of the cognitive science research. And I wanted to give them a chance to explain the ideas behind their work. I wrote to Calkins, Fountas and Pinnell and asked for interviews. They all declined. Heinemann sent a statement that said every product the company sells is informed by extensive research.

I also asked Ken Goodman for an interview. It's been more than 50 years since he first laid out the three-cueing theory in that 1967 paper. I wanted to know what he thinks of the cognitive science research. Of the major proponents of three cueing I reached out to, he was the only one who agreed to an interview.

I visited Goodman at his home in Tucson, Arizona. He's 91. He uses a scooter to get around, but he's still working. He just finished a new edition of one of his books.

When I asked him what he makes of the cognitive science research, he told me he thinks scientists focus too much on word recognition. He still doesn't believe accurate word recognition is necessary for reading comprehension.

"Word recognition is a preoccupation," he said. "I don't teach word recognition. I teach people to make sense of language. And learning the words is incidental to that."

He brought up the example of a child who comes to the word "horse" and says "pony" instead. His argument is that a child will still understand the meaning of the story because horse and pony are the same concept.

I pressed him on this. First of all, a pony isn't the same thing as a horse. Second, don't you want to make sure that when a child is learning to read, he understands that /p/ /o/ /n/ /y/ says "pony"? And different letters say "horse"?

He dismissed my question.

"The purpose is not to learn words," he said. "The purpose is to make sense."

Cognitive scientists don't dispute that the purpose of reading is to make sense of the text. But the question is: How can you understand what you are reading if you can't accurately read the words? And if quick and accurate word recognition is the hallmark of being a skilled reader, how does a little kid get there?

Goodman rejected the idea that you can make a distinction between skilled readers and unskilled readers; he doesn't like the value judgment that implies. He said dyslexia does not exist - despite lots of evidence that it does. 52 And he said the three-cueing theory is based on years of observational research. In his view, three cueing is perfectly valid, drawn from a different kind of evidence than what scientists collect in their labs.

"My science is different," Goodman said.

This idea that there are different kinds of evidence that lead to different conclusions about how reading works is one reason people continue to disagree about how children should be taught to read. It's important for educators to understand that three cueing is based on theory and observational research and that there's decades of scientific evidence from labs all over the world that converges on a very different idea about skilled reading.

The cognitive science does not provide all the answers about how to teach children to read, but on the question of how skilled readers read words, scientists have amassed a huge body of evidence.

Goldberg thinks it's time for educators across the country to take a close look at all the materials they use to teach reading.

"We should look through the materials and search for evidence of cueing," she said. "And if it's there, don't touch it. Don't let it get near our kids, don't let it get near our classrooms, our teachers."

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How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers

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For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't know there's anything wrong with it.

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Science of Reading Research & Resources Notebook

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Science of Reading Research & Resources Notebook

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This is a collection of resources to help you get started on the Science of Reading.

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Science of Reading Research & Resources Notebook Jessica Jarrett

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Leveling students: Why we do it, why we shouldn't, and what we should do instead- Dr. Matt Burns

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Sonday System Parent Empowerment Kits K-5 

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Sonday System Parent Empowerment Kits K-5 

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Sonday System Essentials is the simplest way to bring proven multisensory phonics instruction to kindergarten through 5th grade general education students.

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The Sonday System is a comprehensive line of materials designed to help educators provide multisensory reading instruction to students from pre-K through 8th grade reading levels. The Kirkwood School District began using Sonday resources with all K-5 students in August 2021, specifically in support of phonics and word study skills.

Recognizing the potential impact of COVID disruptions on students' growth, Winsor Learning made a series of Sonday System resources available to parents during the pandemic. These empowerment kits equip parents/guardians with everything needed to teach three weeks of Sonday reading lessons to your child, potentially for continued engagement over the summer months. We have also made these resources available below.

Some children may benefit from "backing up" to lessons from a previous grade, just as some may benefit from skipping forward.

As noted on Sonday's website, the correct pronunciation of sounds is critical to those helping students at home. We encourage you to visit their website to listen to the pronunciation guides for alphabet sounds and blends.

Sonday System lessons are grounded in Orton-Gillingham methodology and reflect 40+ years of research in the science of reading. Sonday System resources are also endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association. The K-5 scope and sequence for lessons can be viewed below.

Sunday System Score & Sequence (rev 2022)

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Sonday System - Kirkwood School District

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Sonday System - Kirkwood School District

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Science of Reading decodables generated for each student and an AI tutor which gives students feedback as they read.

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At the Core Knowledge Foundation, we strive to provide excellent service to each person who calls or emails us with questions about our instructional materials and/or to purchase these materials. The months of July, August, and September are especially busy for us. If you are ready to order materials, we strongly encourage you to do so through our Core Knowledge Store. And, if you are placing an order with a Purchase Order (PO) for a school, please be sure to attach your PO to the order.

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Related Curriculum

CKLA follows our approach to knowledge-based schooling, outlined in the Core Knowledge Sequence. It allows students to build and deepen their knowledge grade by grade and to make cross-curricular connections across subjects.

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CKLA follows our approach to knowledge-based schooling, outlined in the Core Knowledge Sequence. It allows students to build and deepen their knowledge grade by grade and to make cross-curricular connections across subjects.

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"To support states’ and districts’ efforts to equip and deploy literacy coaches, ExcelinEd partnered with The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) to develop the Fundamentals of Literacy Coaching professional learning resource. This free resource is intended to be used by state and district leaders who are responsible for building the capacity for a cadre of literacy coaches. The modules are informed by reading research and adult learning theory and integrate opportunities for collaboration and dialogue among colleagues."

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Overview

The adoption and deployment of literacy coaches trained in the science of reading is one of ExcelinEd's 18 fundamental principles of a comprehensive early literacy policy. Literacy coaches serve a critical role in supporting teachers by providing job-embedded professional development and working directly with teachers to improve classroom practice and, ultimately, student reading achievement.

To support states' and districts' efforts to equip and deploy literacy coaches, ExcelinEd partnered with The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) to develop the Fundamentals of Literacy Coaching professional learning resource. This free resource is intended to be used by state and district leaders who are responsible for building the capacity for a cadre of literacy coaches. The modules are informed by reading research and adult learning theory and integrate opportunities for collaboration and dialogue among colleagues. The Fundamentals of Literacy Coaching resource includes the necessary components to equip literacy coaches with the essential knowledge and skills to become successful literacy leaders and contribute to the improvement of reading instruction and student achievement.

This resource is divided into two (2) parts. Part I includes modules 1-3: 1) Applying Principles and Practices that Foster a Positive Culture, 2) Applying Effective Pedagogy and Andragogy, and 3) Data to Inform Professional Learning. Part II (to be released in November 2024) will include modules 4-6: 4) Planning, Implementing, and Analyzing Literacy Instruction, 5) Growing Professionally, and 6) Planning and Implementing Coaching. The session delivery times range in length from 120 to 175 minutes.

Please view the following video to hear a special welcome and introduction from Dr. Kymyona Burk, ExcelinEd's Senior Policy Fellow for Early Literacy.

Please view the following introduction video to learn more about this resource and how to effectively plan for implementation.

Module 1: Applying Principles and Practices that Foster a Positive Culture

Module 2: Applying Effective Pedagogy and Andragogy

Module 3: Collecting Data to Inform Professional Learning

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Overview The adoption and deployment of literacy coaches trained in the science of reading is one of ExcelinEd's 18 fundamental principles of a

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A morpheme is an element of speech which carries meaning. These include prefixes, base words and suffixes. Download these printable morpheme cards with Anglo-saxon, Greek and Latin morphemes. These resources can be used for word building activities which focus on word families and Latin word structure. Such activities are perfect for upper primary/secondary students.

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For years, the most urgent and persistent request we heard from the teachers we work with was for a more effective and more easily implemented program for foundational skills instruction.

While most language arts standards include learning targets for foundational reading skills for kindergarten through second grade, they are not detailed enough to build a day-by-day sequence of instruction. While most schools have an abundance of resources in the form of book rooms, basal readers, and a variety of intervention program kits, there is typically insufficient guidance for how, when, and with whom to use these materials.

In response to this persistent need, our team developed UFLI Foundations, a program that includes the necessary professional learning, resources, and scaffolding for teachers to deliver high-quality instruction in foundational reading skills.

This is how UFLI Foundations was born.

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UFLI Foundations | UF Literacy Institute

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For years, the most urgent and persistent request we heard from the teachers we work with was for a more effective and more easily implemented program for foundational skills instruction. While most language arts standards include learning targets for foundational reading skills for kindergarten through second grade, they are not detailed enough to build a day-by-day sequence of instruction.

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This has links to all PowerPoint/Slides lessons.

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Lesson Resources

The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

Some of the companion lesson resources you will find below include:

Lesson slide decks (in PowerPoint and Google Slide formats)

Decodable passages

Homework sheets

Games and activities for additional practice

We have grouped the lessons into smaller units so you can access these resources more easily. Scroll down to use the buttons below to find the resources for each lesson or groups of lessons.

Please note that we are still building out these free resources, and we will be editing this page over the next few weeks. We wanted you to be able to access some materials as soon as possible, but be sure to come back later to see the rest!
New to UFLI Foundations? Learn about its development, check out a sample lesson plan, view the scope and sequence, and more.

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The UFLI Foundations Toolbox contains all the lesson resources to accompany the lesson plans provided in the UFLI Foundations manual. (Don't have a manual yet? Click here to order one) Every lesson has companion resources that will help you implement the lessons efficiently, effectively, and consistently.

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This link has compiled lesson resources by grade level, such as decodable, home practice, roll and reads, and fluency checks for grades 1 and 2.

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The Sound Wall materials provided here align with the UFLI Foundations lessons. Included in the UFLI Sound Wall set are the following:

phoneme cards with mouth pictures to represent the articulatory gesture associated with each phoneme,

labels for the sound wall displays, including the place and manner of articulation for consonants, and

grapheme cards that can be added to the sound wall one at a time, as the grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught.

We have also provided printable version of the Individual Sound wall charts. You may choose to glue them into a file folder for each student or print them front/back to laminate. These may also be enlarged and printed as posters if your classroom space does not allow for the full UFLI Sound Wall displays.
Individual Sound Wall: Consonants Individual Sound Wall: Vowels

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Printable Resources | UF Literacy Institute

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The Sound Wall materials provided here align with the UFLI Foundations lessons. Included in the UFLI Sound Wall set are the following: phoneme cards with mouth pictures to represent the articulatory gesture associated with each phoneme, labels for the sound wall displays, including the place and manner of articulation for consonants, and grapheme cards that can be added to the sound wall one at a time, as the grapheme-phoneme correspondences are taught.

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This PDF provides a thorough review of the skills taught in lessons 8-110. It can be used as homework or as an additional resource for Tier 2.

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UFLI Tier 2 Small Group Lesson Plan Template 

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UFLI Tier 2 Small Group Lesson Plan Template 

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University of Florida College of Education

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The creators and instructors at the University of Florida Literacy Institute moderate this group.

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UFLI Foundations Community: Building Strong Readers | Facebook

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This group is for users of the UFLI Foundations program to ask questions, provide ideas and suggestions, and share success stories.

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Literacy Through Language - Morphology Instruction

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Morphology is the binding agent between phonology, orthography, and semantics. English is morpho-phonemic, meaning it represents both morphology and phonology within spellings; however, morphology is a central organizing element of written language. Because of this, the morphological structure of