# data[].attributes.headline
Cortex in the Classroom: Advancing the Science of Reading in the Early Years

# data[].attributes.subject
Cortex in the Classroom: Advancing the Science of Reading in the Early Years

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Advancing Science of Reading in the Early Years - K–5 Literacy Program & Curriculum | Amplify CKLA

# data[].attributes.body
w/ Anita Archer--see her book here

# data[].attributes.body
molly@erinkentconsulting.com

# data[].attributes.headline
ICS Addis Ababa Curriculum Review Process

# data[].attributes.subject
ICS Addis Ababa Curriculum Review Process

# data[].attributes.headline
Proposed PHASE 1 Plan & Timeline for Language Arts Review

# data[].attributes.subject
Proposed PHASE 1 Plan & Timeline for Language Arts Review

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Proposed Year 1 Plan & Timeline for Language Arts (Review phase)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Login to Erin Kent Consulting community via email or SSO today.

# data[].attributes.headline
More than Spelling: Next Frontiers in the Science of Writing (K-8)

# data[].attributes.subject
More than Spelling: Next Frontiers in the Science of Writing (K-8)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Login to Erin Kent Consulting community via email or SSO today.

# data[].attributes.headline
Supporting Multilingual Learners in the Face of New Trends: Science of Reading and Translanguaging (K-8)

# data[].attributes.subject
Supporting Multilingual Learners in the Face of New Trends: Science of Reading and Translanguaging (K-8)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Login to Erin Kent Consulting community via email or SSO today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Login to Erin Kent Consulting community via email or SSO today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Teacher Friendly Guide to Reading Research.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
40 pg Presentation--user friendly!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Writing is a task as complex and multifaceted as reading-but it's often taught as a single skill. Discover how to plan and deliver comprehensive, explicit, and evidence-based writing instruction with this groundbreaking book, aligned with IDA's Structured Literacy approach and based on the latest research.: critical thinking, syntax (sentences), text structure, writing craft, and transcription (spelling and handwriting). Teachers of Grades 4-8 will get crystal-clear guidelines that demystify the process of helping students learn to write and write to learn across academic content areas. And with dozens of included templates, handouts, and other resources-available for download online-teachers will have all the tools they need to design and deliver explicit, high-quality writing instruction.

Joan Sedita's innovative Writing Rope weaves multiple skills and strategies into five fundamentals of a comprehensive writing curriculum

Perfect for professional development, this invaluable planning guide will help teachers apply the science of reading to the skill of writing-and help students master a critically important aspect of literacy.

TEACHERS WILL:

Learn the fundamentals of effective writing instruction. Get research-based background knowledge about writing development, the five components of the Writing Rope framework, the role of fluent transcription skills in proficient writing, and the intentional choices proficient writers make about writing craft.

Apply evidence-based practices in the classroom. Teach essential skills all students must learn to become proficient writers, focusing on critical thinking strategies for generating ideas and gathering information before writing, strategies for each stage of the writing process, syntactic awareness and sentence writing, paragraph writing, and skillful structuring of different types of text.

Help students "write to learn." Teach students how to use writing to enhance their learning across different content areas. Learn how to plan effective writing assignments in different content areas, and explicitly teach students skills for summarizing texts and writing about narrative and expository text.
PRACTICAL MATERIALS : Apply the Writing Rope framework to support your students' writing skills with classroom activities, Connect to Your Classroom questions, suggestions for scaffolding, a Writing Assignment Guide to use with any grade or content area, and 40+ reproducible instructional resources for students and teachers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Writing Rope: A Framework for Explicit Writing Instruction in All Subjects

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Writing Revolution - Empower teachers to help students

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By training educators in The Hochman Method©, The Writing Revolution (TWR) aims to help all students become proficient writers, readers, and critical thinkers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In 2022, a group of teachers and school leaders from 17 different primary schools across Australia participated in The Syntax Project, facilitated by Stephanie Le Lievre from Serpentine Primary School (WA).

Teachers were accepted into the project if they had experience with an explicit-instruction model and could demonstrate an understanding/experience with syntax level instruction.

All Lesson objectives were allocated to individuals based on experience/expertise and the grade they were currently teaching.

All lessons submitted went through a review process by one of our project moderators:

All lessons were created in teachers' own time. They are being shared freely to encourage professional collaboration amongst teachers and schools.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Syntax Project - The Grammar Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In 2022, a group of teachers and school leaders from 17 different primary schools across Australia participated in The Syntax Project, facilitated by Stephanie Le Lievre from Serpentine Primary School (WA). Teachers were accepted into the project if they had experience with an explicit-instruction model and could demonstrate an understanding/experience with syntax level instruction.

# data[].attributes.headline
"About 70% of the variation in reading and writing abilities are shared."

# data[].attributes.subject
"About 70% of the variation in reading and writing abilities are shared."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Blast from the Past: This entry first posted on February 23, 2017 and was reposted on September 16, 2023. Currently our children are suffering the aftereffects of the COVID tragedy. School leaders are looking for ways to regain learning loss caused by a lack of teaching. One of the strategies often considered in times like these is to simplify the curriculum - strip away what may not be essential to allow a greater focus on what needs to be accomplished. In that context, I would not be surprised to see some schools jettisoning writing in favor of the much-tested reading. The tendency to go that way may even be worsened by the current heavy emphasis on a "science of reading." What is important to recognize - this blog entry originally included reference to a great deal of research on the topic, research supporting the value of teaching reading and writing together -- is that combining reading and writitng is part of the science of reading. Now, several years later, I can say that the research evidence has continued to accumulate - providing more and more reason for the combined teaching of reading and writing. If you want better reading scores, the science of reading says do not neglect writing, nor dispatch it to someplace else in the curriculum. When you feel especially pressured to improve reading achievement, that is the time to embrace more tightly the combination of reading and writing. So today I was conducting a workshop. I was told the teachers wanted information about reading/writing connections. Easy, right? Then I was told that they departmentalize K-6! At every grade they have a reading teacher and a different writing teacher. Any thoughts, comments, best practices, or research that would go against or support this practice? I know what I believe to be correct but would love to have your opinions in this conversation. Shanahan response:
For the past several years I've been complaining about how schools are organizing themselves regarding reading and writing. These days, the most common elementary school organization seems to be the 90-minute reading block, with writing taught some other time of the day (if at all). And, in middle schools and high schools many schools have readers' and writers' workshops-managed by different teachers.

I think both of those schemes are dopey and counterproductive.

But you've found a structure that is even worse!

These folks sound like the type of people that would separate Romeo and Juliet... Yin and Yang....Lennon and McCartney... love and marriage... Bert and Ernie...spaghetti and meatballs... You get the idea.

Reading and writing are related in many ways. And, though teachers can take advantage of these relationships in ways that can improve achievement, doing that would be very difficult and inefficient when taught separately as in your example.

The combination of reading and writing doesn't just change instruction-it can affect the curriculum itself. For instance, the Common Core State Standards require teachers to teach kids how to combine reading and writing for various purposes.

I wondered if this is a CCSS state? (your letter didn't specify). If so, that would be one of my big questions-how are they teaching kids to write about reading? Perhaps those goals can be accomplished within this odd organizational plan, but that would require a great deal of cross-classroom planning (the kind of planning that tends to impinge on teachers' personal time-and that rarely happens, no matter what the theory).

Admittedly, I'm aware of no studies that directly measure the impact of such organization, and the organizational studies that do exist suggest that organizational plans usually don't matter much in terms of learning. I guess I could praise this district at least for teaching writing-there are still too many places that haven't figured out the need for that yet.

However, a major purpose for teaching writing is its strong impact on reading achievement. Recently, some administrators who had been discouraging writing in their districts contacted me. Their concern was that writing took up a lot of time and their state was heavily stressing reading achievement. Time devoted to writing would "obviously" interfere with reaching their reading goals. They wanted to know why I was telling their teachers that writing was a must.

I explained to them that there were several reasons behind my urgings.

First, research shows that reading and writing are closely aligned. That is, reading and writing depend upon many of the same skills, strategies, and knowledge-though those are deployed in different ways in reading and writing. In fact, about 70% of the variation in reading and writing abilities are shared.

For example, to read one must decode words. That means being able to look at the word, recognize its elements (letters and letter combinations), retrieve associated pronunciations for those letters, and to blend those into a word pronunciation. For that to work, of course, you have to do that very quickly-and eventually with little conscious attention.

In contrast, to write one must spell words. That means being able to listen to the pronunciation of a word, to recognize its elements (phonemes-that is language sounds), to retrieve letters that match those sounds, and to recognize whether they are combining properly to make a well-formed word. And, again, fluency is essential.

Decoding is arguably easier than spelling, but learning to both pronounce and spell words simultaneously helps to increase decoding fluency. It provides a kind of overlearning that enhances one's ability. The same argument can be made concerning phonological awareness, and the use of vocabulary, grammar, text structure, tone, and other text elements-and the same kinds of connections exist between the routines one uses to pull up background knowledge, to set purposes, to predict, and so on.

Given the extensive overlaps, it should be evident that combined instruction would be a lot more efficient. When a school is trying to accomplish higher achievement that kind of efficiency and teaching power is indispensable.

Second, reading and writing are communicative processes, and there are cross-modal benefits to be derived from having students engage in each. Readers, who are writers, can end up with insights about what authors are up to and how they exert their effects, something of great value in text interpretation. Likewise, writers by being readers, can gain insights into the needs of other readers. Imagine how that can help one to write better.

This kind of insight sharing is unlikely without some teacher guidance-and making those kinds of connections across reading and writing experiences depends on sharing those experiences with the students. It would be hard for a teacher to know what came up in the various shared reading experiences that took place in the other class.

Third, reading and writing can be used in combination to accomplish goals. The Common Core emphasizes two goals for such combining: using writing to improve learning from text and using the reading of multiple texts to improve the writing of syntheses or reports.

Steve Graham and Michael Hebert (201) carried out a meta-analysis of more than 100 studies in which students wrote about text. They found that writing in various ways about what one had read improved comprehension and learning, and it did so better than reading alone, reading and rereading, or reading and discussing.

Students should not just be writing about text, they should be learning how to write about text effectively: how to write to text models, how to write summaries, how to write extended critiques and analyses, and how to write syntheses.

So, my reading of the research says: Teach kids to write and use this instruction to improve reading achievement. Do it separately and you are leaving achievement points on the table. No question this could be accomplished by two different teachers, but what a complicated mess that makes of it. Simplify.

(Pass the popcorn and butter, I'm going to watch some Laurel and Hardy. Some things just go together).
References
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence of how writing can improve reading. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Shanahan, T. (2004). Overcoming the dominance of communication: Writing to think and learn. In T. L. Jetton and J. A. Dole (Eds.), Adolescent literacy research and practice. New York: Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T. (2008). Relations among oral language, reading, and writing development. In C.A. MacArthur, S. Graham, and J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 171-186). New York: Guilford Press.

Shanahan, T. (2015). Relationships between reading and writing development. In C.A. MacArthur, S. Graham, and J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 194-210). New York: The Guilford Press.

Tierney, R. J., and Shanahan, T. (1991). Research on the reading-writing relationship: Interactions, transactions, and outcomes. In R. Barr, M. L. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, and P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 246-280). New York: Longman.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Should We Combine Reading and Writing?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For the past several years I've been complaining about how schools are organizing themselves with regard to reading and writing.

# data[].attributes.headline
Excellent article with best practice checklist and handwriting speed norms

# data[].attributes.subject
Excellent article with best practice checklist and handwriting speed norms

# data[].attributes.body
Overview here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SRSD offers a practical set of strategies with embedded deliberate skill practice. It quickly enables teachers to see growth in both literacy outcomes, and student independence. Developed by Dr. Karen Harris & colleagues, SRSD is fueled by 35 years of research and innovation. thinkSRSD specializes in making it easy to schools to learn and sustain SRSD.

# data[].attributes.body
Many more examples and free webinars

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Writing Revolution is a member of Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Episode 3: When not to differentiate: A guide to small-group instruction, with Jamey Peavler

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Science of Reading:The Podcast guest, Jamey Peavler, shares findings for small-group instruction and balancing small- and whole-group work.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It's settled science: developing skilled readers can enhance students' lives. That's why renowned educators Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Diane Lapp wrote this resource with the urgency of a code blue in an ER-because too many children, for many reasons, struggle with learning to become strong readers.

Designed to be a one-stop shop for best practices, Teaching Reading is concise, encyclopedic, and essential. Thirteen interactive modules provide easy to read ideas to support you teaching every child to read very well. You will learn how to:

Focus on two critical aspects of reading-word recognition and language comprehension.

Select the best activities to support students in grades K-6 to learn letters and sound relationships.

Provide developing readers with the most effective oral, written, and reading experiences.

Recharge your confidence and craft with uplifting new research findings from neuroscience, cognitive science, and child development.

Clear up confusions about phonics progressions, reading fluency, morphology, text selection, grammar, and more.

Develop background knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension instruction.

Be up to date on how to help students attain deeper levels of comprehension by applying Theory of Mind and other cutting-edge ideas.

Reading is a thrilling but complex process. It involves a heady mix of skills, schema, self-concept, and social dimensions. To give all students the chance to reap its rewards, we need a go-big kind of resource. This is it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Like an animated encyclopedia, Teaching Reading delivers the latest evidence-based practices in 13-interative modules that will transform your instruction and reenergize your career.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
UFLI Foundations | UF Literacy Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The newest addition to Scholastic's "Science of Reading" collection is an early literacy handbook written by a teacher for teachers. This book is about decoding and phonics. Lindsey uses her impeccable body of research to create a powerful translational work interpreting reading science. She employs a scaffolded approach to teaching foundational skills, starting with decoding and oral language, moving through phonemic awareness and sound-spelling knowledge, and ending with fluency. Of particular value is the focus on bridging to practice: activities and lessons presented here can be used immediately in the classroom. The book is predicated on the "Essential Instructional Swap" of substituting ineffective activities for more effective, evidence-based routines. For example, "Fewer Rhymes, More Phonemes" and "Less Pointing to Text in Predictable Books, More Engaging in Shared Reading." The depth of research backing this text cannot be overstated. Lindsey refers to the findings of meta-analyses throughout, and the book sports a beefy and current reference section. VERDICT This title can be used as a handbook for professional educators; its clear organization and focused language will be useful for early literacy teachers.-Jennifer Townesα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

" Reading Above the Fray is a wonderful resource, a book I read from cover to cover. The scholarship is impeccable, citing the central and most impactful studies surrounding foundational skills and their importance to reading acquisition. Authored by a passionate educator, the book is rich in stories, lessons, activities, and ideas. It is a joy to read and will become a well-worn guide for teachers and students of reading!"Book Smart: How to , Julia masterfully connects the deep research base on how kids learn to read to what teachers can do tomorrow in their classrooms. What I love even more about the book is her focus on the joy of helping students develop the tools they need to achieve reading success."

- ANNE E. CUNNINGHAM, Professor, Learning Sciences and Human Development, University of California, Berkeley; author of Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers Letter Lessons and First Words: Phonics Foundations That Work

"This book speaks to something near and dear to my heart-the power of early literacy to lead to lifelong learning and immeasurable opportunities. With clarity and precision, Dr. Lindsey cuts through the distracting noise around reading instruction. Her book should be required reading in preservice and inservice programs. With it, we can chart a course forward to literacy for all."

- SHARIF EL-MEKKI, Chief Executive Officer, Center for Black Educator Development

"One of the best books I've read on decoding and phonics. With passion for teaching, Dr. Lindsey interprets reading science in ways that are directly transferable to the classroom. Her book is chock full of techniques, activities, and strategies-a veritable 'go-to' resource. This is exactly the kind of translational work the field needs!"

- SUSANNE NOBLES, Chief Academic Officer, ReadWorks

"Accessible, timely, and easy to use, this is a book that needed to be written for teachers, literacy coaches, and school administrators looking to develop efficient and effective literacy instruction. Dr. Lindsey simplifies the complexities of foundational skills instruction, synthesizes research by bridging it to practice, and provides routines that can be implemented the very next day. I predict it will become a primary resource that educators return to time and again."

- REBECCA MILES, Early Literacy Consultant and Coach Coordinator, Berrien Regional Educational Service Agency

"If you think a professional book about decoding and foundational skills can't be engaging, think again! Dr. Lindsey artfully combines wit, wisdom, and classroom realism with evidence-based routines that we can implement immediately. Most important, she centers each chapter on children, calling us to value and build upon the strengths, perspectives, and cultural assets they bring. This book is a win for educators and, by extension, the children and families they serve!"

- ANNIE PETROZZELLI SPEAR, Literacy Specialist, Consultant, and Author

"Elementary teachers have been waiting for this one! Dr. Lindsey explains not only the 'why' behind the essential elements of decoding, but also provides explicit guidance and routines to help any teacher swap out ineffective practices for more effective and efficient research-based ones. She makes it easy to align instruction to reading science
and teach 'above the fray.'"

- KATHARINE NOONAN, English Language Arts Instructional Coach, District of Columbia Public Schools
- HEIDI ANNE MESMER, Professor of Literacy Education, Virginia Tech; author of Reading Above the Fray

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reading Above the Fray: Reliable, Research-Based Routines for Developing Decoding Skills (The Science of Reading in Practice)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Julia Lindsey's evidence-backed routines help young readers decode words efficiently so they can spend more energy on comprehending--and enjoying--what they read! You'll find:1. need-to-know essentials of how kids learn to read.2. principles of high-quality foundational skills instruction.3. teac...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories [Hirsch Jr., E. D.] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hundreds of thousands of teachers have used this highly practical guide to help K-12 students enlarge their vocabulary and get involved in noticing, understanding, and using new words. Grounded in research, the book explains how to select words for instruction, introduce their meanings, and create engaging learning activities that promote both word knowledge and reading comprehension. The authors are trusted experts who draw on extensive experience in diverse classrooms and schools. Sample lessons and vignettes, children's literature suggestions, "Your Turn" learning activities, and a Study Guide for teachers enhance the book's utility as a classroom resource, professional development tool, or course text. The Study Guide can also be downloaded and printed for ease of use (www.guilford.com/beck-studyguide).

New to This Edition
*Reflects over a decade of advances in research-based vocabulary instruction.
*Chapters on vocabulary and writing; assessment; and differentiating instruction for struggling readers and English language learners, including coverage of response to intervention (RTI).
*Expanded discussions of content-area vocabulary and multiple-meaning words.
*Many additional examples showing what robust instruction looks like in action.
*Appendix with a useful menu of instructional activities.

See also the authors' Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples , which includes specific instructional sequences for different grade ranges, as well as Making Sense of Phonics, Second Edition: The Hows and Whys , by Isabel L. Beck and Mark E. Beck, an invaluable resource for K-3.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Amazon.com: Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction: 9781462508167: Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, Linda Kucan: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System--and How to Fix it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-and How to Fix it [Wexler, Natalie] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America's Broken Education System-and How to Fix it

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Stop for a moment and wonder: what's happening in your brain right now―as you read this paragraph? How much do you know about the innumerable and amazing connections that your mind is making as you, in a flash, make sense of this request? Why does it matter ?

The Reading Mind is a brilliant, beautifully crafted, and accessible exploration of arguably life's most important skill: reading. Daniel T. Willingham, the bestselling author of Why Don't Students Like School ?, offers a perspective that is rooted in contemporary cognitive research. He deftly describes the incredibly complex and nearly instantaneous series of events that occur from the moment a child sees a single letter to the time they finish reading. The Reading Mind explains the fascinating journey from seeing letters, then words, sentences, and so on, with the au

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Stop for a moment and wonder: what's happening in your brain right now―as you read this paragraph? How much do you know about the innumerable and amazing connections that your mind is making as you, in a flash, make sense of this request? Why does it matter ?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
READING IN THE BRAIN

Praise for Reading in the Brain

- The Wall Street Journal

"Fascinating . . . By studying the wet stuff inside our head, we can begin to understand why this sentence has this structure, and why this letter, this one right here, has its shape. . . . Eloquent . . . Provide[s] a wealth of evidence."

-Jonah Lehrer

"Dehaene's masterful book is a delight to read and scientifically precise."

"Combining research and narrative, Dehaene weaves a fascinating explanation of how the prefrontal cortex co-opted primeval neurological pathways to learn a uniquely human skill."

"The transparent and automatic feat of reading comprehension disguises an intricate biological effort, ably analyzed in this fascinating study. . . . This lively, lucid treatise proves once again that Dehaene is one of our most gifted expositors of science; he makes the workings of the mind less mysterious, but no less miraculous."

"Richly rewarding."

"[Dehaene] is that rare bird: a scientist who can write."

"Inspire[s] a sense of wonder at the complexity at the task readers are performing just by scanning from page to page."

-A.V. Club.com

-Oliver Sacks, M.D.

"In a moment when knowledge about the reading brain may be the key to its preservation, Stanislas Dehaene's book provides the next critical rung of that knowledge. He does this through insights gained from his own prolific research, through his comprehensive grasp of the neurosciences, and through his unique combination of common sense and wisdom that shines through every chapter."

-Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain

"Stanislas Dehaene takes us on a journey into the science of reading. We travel past firing neurons in monkeys, brain activation patterns in humans, people with brain damage, and culture as a whole. It's a proactive and enjoyable synthesis of a tremendous amount of information, with just the right balance between getting the facts right and making them accessible to lay readers."

-Joseph LeDoux, University Professor, New York University, and author of Synaptic Self and The Emotional Brain

-Dean Falk, author of Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants, and the Origins of Language

"The complicated partnership of eye and mind that transforms printed symbols into sound, music, and meaning, and gives rise to thought, is the subject of this intriguing study. It's a wondrous journey: like that of stout Cortez, like H. M. Stanley's search for Dr. David Livingstone, like the next stunning probe into outer space."

-Howard Engel, coauthor of The Man Who Forgot How to Read

Reading in the Brain

The New Science
of How We Read

STANISLAS DEHAENE

INTRODUCTION

The New Science of Reading

Withdrawn into the peace of this desert, along with some books, few but wise, I live in conversation with the deceased, and listen to the dead with my eyes

-FRANCISCO DE QUEVEDO

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

The reader's brain contains a complicated set of mechanisms admirably attuned to reading. For a great many centuries, this talent remained a mystery. Today, the brain's black box is cracked open and a true science of reading is coming into being. Advances in psychology and neuroscience over the last twenty years have begun to unravel the principles underlying the brain's reading circuits. Modern brain imaging methods now reveal, in just a matter of minutes, the brain areas that activate when we decipher written words. Scientists can track a printed word as it progresses from the retina through a chain of processing stages, each of which is marked by an elementary question: Are these letters? What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean?

On this empirical ground, a theory of reading is materializing. It postulates that the brain circuitry inherited from our primate evolution can be co-opted to the task of recognizing printed words. According to this approach, our neuronal networks are literally "recycled" for reading. The insight into how literacy changes the brain is profoundly transforming our vision of education and learning disabilities. New remediation programs are being conceived that should, in time, cope with the debilitating incapacity to decipher words known as dyslexia.

My purpose in this book is to share my knowledge of recent and little-known advances in the science of reading. In the twenty-first century, the average person still has a better idea of how a car works than of the inner functioning of his own brain-a curious and shocking state of affairs. Decision makers in our education systems swing back and forth with the changing winds of pedagogical reform, often blatantly ignoring how the brain actually learns to read. Parents, educators, and politicians often recognize that there is a gap between educational programs and the most up-to-date findings in neuroscience. But too frequently their idea of how this field can contribute to advances in education is only grounded in a few color pictures of the brain at work. Unfortunately, the imaging techniques that allow us to visualize brain activity are subtle and occasionally misleading. The new science of reading is so young and fast-moving that it is still relatively unknown outside the scientific community. My goal is to provide a simple introduction to this exciting field, and to increase awareness of the amazing capacities of our reading brains.

From Neurons to Education

Reading acquisition is a major step in child development. Many children initially struggle with reading, and surveys indicate that about one adult in ten fails to master even the rudiments of text comprehension. Years of hard work are needed before the clockwork-like brain machinery that supports reading runs so smoothly that we forget it exists.

Why is reading so difficult to master? What profound alterations in brain circuitry accompany the acquisition of reading? Are some teaching strategies better adapted to the child's brain than others? What scientific reasons, if any, explain why phonics-the systematic teaching of letter-to-sound correspondences-seems to work better than whole-word teaching? Although much still remains to be discovered, the new science of reading is now providing increasingly precise answers to all these questions. In particular, it underlines why early research on reading erroneously supported the whole-word approach-and how recent research on the brain's reading networks proves it was wrong.

Understanding what goes into reading also sheds light on its pathologies. In our explorations of the reader's mind and brain, you will be introduced to patients who suddenly lost the ability to read following a stroke. I will also analyze the causes of dyslexia, whose cerebral underpinnings are gradually coming to light. It is now clear that the dyslexic brain is subtly different from the brain of a normal reader. Several dyslexia susceptibility genes have been identified. But this is by no means a reason for discouragement or resignation. New intervention therapies are now being defined. Intensive retraining of language and reading circuits has brought about major improvements in children's brains that can readily be tracked with brain imaging.

Putting Neurons into Culture

One of the basic techniques in the neurobiologist's toolkit consists of "putting neurons in culture"-letting neurons grow in a petri dish. In this book, I call for a different "culture of neurons"-a new way of looking at human cultural activities, based on our understanding of how they map onto the brain networks that support them. Neuroscience's avowed goal is to describe how the elementary components of the nervous system lead to the behavioral regularities that can be observed in children and adults (including advanced cognitive skills). Reading provides one of the most appropriate test beds for this "neurocultural" approach. We are increasingly aware of how writing systems as different as Chinese, Hebrew, or English get inscribed in our brain circuits. In the case of reading, we can clearly draw direct links between our native neuronal architecture and our acquired cultural abilities-but the hope is that this neuroscience approach will extend to other major domains of human cultural expression.

The Mystery of the Reading Ape

There are good reasons why this deceptively simple question deserves to be called a paradox. We have discovered that the literate brain contains specialized cortical mechanisms that are exquisitely attuned to the recognition of written words. Even more surprisingly, the same mechanisms, in all humans, are systematically housed in identical brain regions, as though there were a cerebral organ for reading.

Following in Darwin's footsteps, Stephen Jay Gould provided many examples of the imperfect outcome of natural selection, including the panda's thumb.1 The British evolutionist Richard Dawkins also explained how the delicate mechanisms of the eye or of the wing could only have emerged through natural selection or are the work of a "blind watchmaker."2 Darwin's evolutionism seems to be the only source of apparent "design" in nature.

When it comes to explaining reading, however, Paley's parable is problematic in a subtly different way. The clockwork-like brain mechanisms that support reading are certainly comparable in complexity and sheer design to those of the watch abandoned on the heath. Their entire organization leans toward the single apparent goal of decoding written words as quickly and accurately as possible. Yet neither the hypothesis of an intelligent creator nor that of slow emergence through natural selection seems to provide a plausible explanation for the origins of reading. Time was simply too short for evolution to design specialized reading circuits. How, then, did our primate brain learn to read? Our cortex is the outcome of millions of years of evolution in a world without writing-why can it adapt to the specific challenges posed by written word recognition?

Biological Unity and Cultural Diversity

In the social sciences, the acquisition of cultural skills such as reading, mathematics, or the fine arts is rarely, if ever, posed in biological terms. Until recently, very few social scientists considered that brain biology and evolutionary theory were even relevant to their fields. Even today, most implicitly subscribe to a naïve model of the brain, tacitly viewing it as an infinitely plastic organ whose learning capacity is so broad that it places no constraints on the scope of human activity. This is not a new idea. It can be traced back to the theories of the British empiricists John Locke, David Hume, and George Berkeley, who claimed that the human brain should be compared to a blank slate that progressively absorbs the imprint of man's natural and cultural environment through the five senses.

This view of mankind, which denies the very existence of a human nature, has often been adopted without question. It belongs to the default "standard social science model"3 shared by many anthropologists, sociologists, some psychologists, and even a few neuroscientists who view the cortical surface as "largely equipotent and free of domain-specific structure."4 It holds that human nature is constructed, gradually and flexibly, through cultural impregnation. As a result, children born to the Inuit, to the hunter-gatherers of the Amazon, or to an Upper East Side New York family, according to this view, have little in common. Even color perception, musical appreciation, or the notion of right and wrong should vary from one culture to the next, simply because the human brain has few stable structures other than the capacity to learn.

Empiricists further maintain that the human brain, unhindered by the limitations of biology and unlike that of any other animal species, can absorb any form of culture. From this theoretical perspective, to talk about the cerebral bases of cultural inventions such as reading is thus downright irrelevant-much like analyzing the atomic composition of a Shakespeare play.

On the basis of these data, I propose a novel theory of neurocultural interactions, radically opposed to cultural relativism, and capable of resolving the reading paradox. I call it the "neuronal recycling" hypothesis. According to this view, human brain architecture obeys strong genetic constraints, but some circuits have evolved to tolerate a fringe of variability. Part of our visual system, for instance, is not hardwired, but remains open to changes in the environment. Within an otherwise well-structured brain, visual plasticity gave the ancient scribes the opportunity to invent reading.

A Reader's Guide

In forthcoming chapters, I will explain how neuronal recycling can account for literacy, its mechanisms in the brain, and even its history. In the first three chapters, I analyze the mechanisms of reading in expert adults. Chapter 1 sets the stage by looking at reading from a psychological angle: how fast do we read, and what are the main determinants of reading behavior? In chapter 2, I move to the brain areas at work when we read, and how they can be visualized using modern brain imaging techniques. Finally, in chapter 3, I come down to the level of single neurons and their organization into the circuits that recognize letters and words.

I tackle my analysis in a resolutely mechanical way. I propose to expose the cogwheels of the reader's brain in much the same way as the Reverend Paley suggested we dismantle the watch abandoned on the heath. The reader's brain will not, however, reveal any perfect clockwork mechanics designed by a divine watchmaker. Our reading circuits contain more than a few imperfections that betray our brain's compromise between what is needed for reading and the available biological mechanisms. The peculiar characteristics of the primate visual system explain why reading does not operate like a fast and efficient scanner. As we move our eyes across the page, each word is slowly brought into the central region of our retina, only to be exploded into a myriad of fragments that our brain later pieces back together. It is only because these processes have become automatic and unconscious, thanks to years of practice, that we are under the illusion that reading is simple and effortless.

The reading paradox expresses the indisputable fact that our genes have not evolved in order to enable us to read. My reasoning in the face of this enigma is quite simple. If the brain did not evolve for reading, the opposite must be true: writing systems must have evolved within our brain's constraints. Chapter 4 revisits the history of writing in this light, starting with the first prehistoric symbols and ending with the invention of the alphabet. At each step, there is evidence of constant cultural tinkering. Over many millennia, the scribes struggled to design words, signs, and alphabets that could fit the limits of our primate brain. To this day, the world's writing systems still share a number of design features that can ultimately be traced back to the restrictions imposed by our brain circuits.

Continuing on the idea that our brain was not designed for reading, but recycles some of its circuits for this novel cultural activity, chapter 5 examines how children learn to read. Psychological research concludes that there are not many ways to convert a primate brain into that of an expert reader. This chapter explores in some detail the only developmental trajectory that appears to exist. Schools might be well advised to exploit this knowledge to optimize the teaching of reading and mitigate the dramatic effects of illiteracy and dyslexia.

I will also go on to show how a neuroscientific approach can shed light on the more mysterious features of reading acquisition. For instance, why do so many children often write their first words from right to left? Contrary to the accepted idea, these mirror inversion errors are not the first signs of dyslexia, but a natural consequence of the organization of our visual brain. In a majority of children, dyslexia relates to another, quite distinct anomaly in processing speech sounds. The description of the symptoms of dyslexia, their cerebral bases, and the most recent discoveries concerning its genetic foundations are covered in chapter 6, while chapter 7 provides an insight into what mirror errors can tell us about normal visual recognition.

Finally, in chapter 8, I will return to the astonishing fact that only our species is capable of cultural inventions as sophisticated as reading-a unique feat, unmatched by any other primate. In total opposition to the standard social science model, where culture gets a free ride on a blank-slate brain, reading demonstrates how culture and brain organization are inextricably linked. Throughout their long cultural history, human beings progressively discovered that they could reuse their visual systems as surrogate language inputs, thus arriving at reading and writing. I will also briefly discuss how other major human cultural traits could be submitted to a similar analysis. Mathematics, art, music, and religion might also be looked on as evolved devices, shaped by centuries of cultural evolution, that have encroached on our primate brains.

How Do We Read?

Written word processing starts in our eyes. Only the center of the retina, called the fovea, has a fine enough resolution to allow for the recognition of small print. Our gaze must therefore move around the page constantly. Whenever our eyes stop, we only recognize one or two words. Each of them is then split up into myriad fragments by retinal neurons and must be put back together before it can be recognized. Our visual system progressively extracts graphemes, syllables, prefixes, suffixes, and word roots. Two major parallel processing routes eventually come into play: the phonological route, which converts letters into speech sounds, and the lexical route, which gives access to a mental dictionary of word meanings.

The existence of the text is a silent existence, silent until the moment in which a reader reads it. Only when the able eye makes contact with the markings on the tablet does the text come to active life. All writing depends on the generosity of the reader.

-ALBERTO MANGUEL, THE HISTORY OF READING

At first sight, reading seems close to magical: our gaze lands on a word, and our brain effortlessly gives us access to its meaning and pronunciation. But in spite of appearances, the process is far from simple. Upon entering the retina, a word is split up into a myriad of fragments, as each part of the visual image is recognized by a distinct photoreceptor. Starting from this input, the real challenge consists in putting the pieces back together in order to decode what letters are present, to figure out the order in which they appear, and finally to identify the word.

Over the past thirty years, cognitive psychology has worked on analyzing the mechanics of reading. Its goal is to crack the "algorithm" of visual word recognition-the series of processing steps that a proficient reader applies to the problem of identifying written words. Psychologists treat reading like a computer science problem. Every reader resembles a robot with two cameras-the two eyes and their retinas. The words we read are painted onto them. They first appear only as splotches of light and dark that are not directly interpretable as linguistic signs. Visual information must be recoded in an understandable format before we can access the appropriate sounds, words, and meanings. Thus we must have a deciphering algorithm, or a processing recipe akin to automatic character recognition software, which takes the pixels on a page as input and produces the identity of the words as output. To accomplish this feat, unbeknownst to us, our brain hosts a sophisticated set of decoding operations whose principles are only beginning to be understood.

The Eye: A Poor Scanner

The tale of reading begins when the retina receives photons reflected off the written page. But the retina is not a homogeneous sensor. Only its central part, called the fovea, is dense in high-resolution cells sensitive to incoming light, while the rest of the retina has a coarser resolution. The fovea, which occupies about 15 degrees of the visual field, is the only part of the retina that is genuinely useful for reading. When foveal information is lacking, whether due to a retinal lesion, to a stroke having destroyed the central part of the visual cortex, or to an experimental trick that selectively blocks visual inputs to the fovea, reading becomes impossible.6

The need to bring words into the fovea explains why our eyes are in constant motion when we read. By orienting our gaze, we "scan" text with the most sensitive part of our vision, the only one that has the resolution needed to determine letters. However, our eyes do not travel continuously across the page.7 Quite the opposite: they move in small steps called saccades. At this very moment, you are making four or five of these jerky movements every second, in order to bring new information to your fovea.

Even within the fovea, visual information is not represented with the same precision at all points. In the retina as well as in the subsequent visual relays of the thalamus and of the cortex, the number of cells allocated to a given portion of the visual scene decreases progressively as one moves away from the center of gaze. This causes a gradual loss of visual precision. Visual accuracy is optimal at the center and smoothly decreases toward the periphery. We have the illusion of seeing the whole scene in front of us with the same fixed accuracy, as if it were filmed by a digital camera with a homogeneous array of pixels. However, unlike the camera, our eye sensor accurately perceives only the precise point where our gaze happens to land. The surroundings are lost in an increasingly hazy blurriness (figure 1.1).8

Figure 1.1 The retina stringently filters what we read. In this simulation, a page from Samuel Johnson's The Adventurer (1754) was filtered using an algorithm that copies the decreasing acuity of human vision away from the center of the retina. Regardless of size, only letters close to fixation can be identified. This is why we constantly explore pages with jerky eye movements when we read. When our gaze stops, we can only identify one or two words.

One might think that, under these conditions, it is the absolute size of printed characters that determines the ease with which we can read: small letters should be harder to read than larger ones. Oddly enough, however, this is not the case. The reason is that the larger the characters, the more room they use on the retina. When a whole word is printed in larger letters, it moves into the periphery of the retina, where even large letters are hard to discern. The two factors compensate for each other almost exactly, so that an enormous word and a minuscule one are essentially equivalent from the point of view of retinal precision. Of course, this is only true provided that the size of the characters remains larger than an absolute minimum, which corresponds to the maximal precision attained at the center of our fovea. When visual acuity is diminished, for instance in aging patients, it is quite logical to recommend books in large print.

Because our eyes are organized in this way, our perceptual abilities depend exclusively on the number of letters in words, not on the space these words occupy on our retina.9 Indeed, our saccades when we read vary in absolute size, but are constant when measured in numbers of letters. When the brain prepares to move our eyes, it adapts the distance to be covered to the size of the characters, in order to ensure that our gaze always advances by about seven to nine letters. This value, which is amazingly small, thus corresponds approximately to the information that we can process in the course of a single eye fixation.

I shall then suppose, not that God who is supremely good and the fountain of truth, but some evil genius not less powerful than deceitful, has employed all his energy to deceive me; I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colors, figures, sound, and all other external things are naught but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity. I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things.

As soon as the eyes move, the computer discreetly refreshes the display. Its goal is to show the appropriate letters at the place where the person is looking, and strings of x's everywhere else:

Using this device, McConkie and Rayner made a remarkable and paradoxical discovery. They found that the participants did not notice the manipulation. As long as enough letters are presented left and right of fixation, a reader fails to detect the trick and believes that he is looking at a perfectly normal page of text.

This surprising blindness occurs because the eye attains its maximum speed at the point when the letter change occurs. This trick makes the letter changes hard to detect, because at this very moment the whole retinal image is blurred by motion. Once gaze lands, everything looks normal: within the fovea, the expected letters are in place, and the rest of the visual field, on the periphery, cannot be read anyway. McConkie and Rayner's experiment thus proves that we consciously process only a very small subset of our visual inputs. If the computer leaves four letters on the left of fixation, and fifteen letters on the right, reading speed remains normal.11 In brief, we extract very little information at a time from the written page. Descartes' evil genius would only have to display twenty letters per fixation to make us believe that we were reading the Bible or the U.S. Constitution!

Twenty letters is, in fact, an overestimate. We identify only ten or twelve letters per saccade: three or four to the left of fixation, and seven or eight to the right. Beyond this point, we are largely insensitive to letter identity and merely encode the presence of the spaces between words. By providing cues about word length, the spaces allow us to prepare our eye movements and ensure that our gaze lands close to the center of the next word. Experts continue to debate about the extent to which we extract information from an upcoming word-perhaps only the first few letters. Everyone agrees, however, that the direction of reading imposes asymmetry on our span of vision. In the West, visual span is much greater toward the right side, but in readers of Arabic or Hebrew, where gaze scans the page from right to left, this asymmetry is reversed.12 In other writing systems such as Chinese, where character density is greater, saccades are shorter and visual span is reduced accordingly. Each reader thus adapts his visual exploration strategy to his language and script.

Using the same method, we can also estimate how much time is needed to encode the identity of words. A computer can be programmed so that, after a given duration, all of the letters are replaced by a string of x's, even in the fovea. This experiment reveals that fifty milliseconds of presentation are enough for reading to proceed at an essentially normal pace. This does not mean that all of the mental operations involved in reading are completed in one-twentieth of a second. As we shall see, a whole pipeline of mental processes continues to operate for at least one-half second after the word has been presented. However, the initial intake of visual information can be very brief.

In summary, our eyes impose a lot of constraints on the act of reading. The structure of our visual sensors forces us to scan the page by jerking our eyes around every two or three tenths of a second. Reading is nothing but the word-by-word mental restitution of a text through a series of snapshots. While some small grammatical words like "the," "it," or "is" can sometimes be skipped, almost all content words such as nouns and verbs have to be fixated at least once.

These constraints are an integral part of our visual apparatus and cannot be lifted by training. One can certainly teach people to optimize their eye movement patterns, but most good readers, who read from four hundred to five hundred words per minute, are already close to optimal. Given the retinal sensor at our disposal, it is probably not possible to do much better. A simple demonstration proves that eye movements are the rate-limiting step in reading.13 If a full sentence is presented, word by word, at the precise point where gaze is focalized, thus avoiding the need for eye movements, a good reader can read at staggering speed-a mean of eleven hundred words per minute, and up to sixteen hundred words per minute for the best readers, which is about one word every forty milliseconds and three to four times faster than normal reading! With this method, called rapid sequential visual presentation, or RSVP, identification and comprehension remain satisfactory, thus suggesting that the duration of those central steps does not impose a strong constraint on normal reading. Perhaps this computerized presentation mode represents the future of reading in a world where screens progressively replace paper.

The Search for Invariants

Can you read, Lubin?

Yes, I can read printed letters, but I was never able to read handwriting.

-MOLIÈRE, GEORGES DANDIN

If perceptual invariance is a problem, it is because words are not always in the same location, in the same font, or in the same size. If they were, just listing which of the cells on the retina are active and which are not would suffice to decode a word, much like a black-and-white computer image is defined by the list of its pixels. In fact, however, hundreds of different retinal images can stand for the same word, depending on the form in which it is written (figure 1.2). Thus one of the first steps in reading must be to correct for the immense variety of those surface forms.

Figure 1.2 Visual invariance is one of the prime features of the human reading system. Our word recognition device meets two seemingly contradictory requirements: it neglects irrelevant variations in character shape, even if they are huge, but amplifies relevant differences, even if they are tiny. Unbeknownst to us, our visual system automatically compensates for enormous variations in size or font. Yet it also attends to minuscule changes in shape. By turning an "s" into an "e," and therefore "sight" into "eight," a single mark drastically reorients the processing chain toward entirely distinct pronunciations and meanings.

Several cues suggest that our brain applies an efficient solution to this perceptual invariance problem. When we hold a newspaper at a reasonable distance, we can read both the headlines and the classified ads. Word size can vary fiftyfold without having much impact on our reading speed. This task is not very different from that of recognizing the same face or object from a distance of two feet or thirty yards-our visual system tolerates vast changes in scale.

A second form of invariance lets us disregard the location of words on the page. As our gaze scans a page, the center of our retina usually lands slightly left of the center of words. However, our targeting is far from perfect, and our eyes sometimes reach the first or last letter without this preventing us from recognizing the word. We can even read words presented on the periphery of our visual field, provided that letter size is increased to compensate for the loss of retinal resolution. Thus size constancy goes hand in hand with normalization for spatial location.

Finally, word recognition is also largely invariant for character shape. Now that word processing software is omnipresent, technology that was formerly reserved to a small elite of typographers has become broadly available. Everyone knows that there are many sets of characters called "fonts" (a term left over from the time when each character had to be cast in lead at a type foundry before going to the press). Each font also has two kinds of characters called "cases," the UPPERCASE and the lowercase (originally the case was a flat box divided into many compartments where lead characters were sorted; the "upper case" was reserved for capital letters, and the "lower case" for the rest). Finally, one can choose the "weight" of a font (normal or bold characters), its inclination ( italics , originally invented in Italy), whether it is underlined or not, and any combination of these options . These well-calibrated variations in fonts, however, are nothing compared to the enormous variety of writing styles. Manuscript handwriting obviously takes us to another level of variability and ambiguity.

In the face of all these variations, exactly how our visual system learns to categorize letter shapes remains somewhat mysterious. Part of this invariance problem can be solved using relatively simple means. The vowel "o," for instance, can easily be recognized, regardless of size, case, or font, thanks to its unique closed shape. Thus, building a visual o detector isn't particularly difficult. Other letters, however, pose specific problems. Consider the letter "r," for instance. Although it seems obvious that the shapes r, R, and all represent the same letter, careful examination shows that this association is entirely arbitrary-the shape e, for instance, might serve as well as the lowercase version of the letter "R." Only the accidents of history have left us this cultural oddity. As a result, when we learn to read, we must not only learn that letters map onto the sounds of language, but also that each letter can take on many unrelated shapes. As we shall see, our capacity to do this probably comes from the existence of abstract letter detectors, neurons that can recognize the identity of a letter in its various guises. Experiments show that very little training suffices to DeCoDe, At An EsSeNtIaLly NoRmAl SpEeD, EnTiRe SeNtEnCes WhOsE LeTtErS HaVe BeEn PrInTeD AlTeRnAtElY iN uPpErCaSe aNd In LoWeRcAsE.15 In the McConkie and Rayner "evil genius" computer, this letter-case alternation can be changed in between every eye saccade, totally unbeknownst to the reader!16 In our daily reading experience, we never see words presented in alternating case, but our letter normalization processes are so efficient that they easily resist such transformation.

In passing, these experiments demonstrate that global word shape does not play any role in reading. If we can immediately recognize the identity of "words," "WORDS," and "WoRdS," it is because our visual system pays no attention to the contours of words or to the pattern of ascending and descending letters: it is only interested in the letters they contain. Obviously, our capacity to recognize words does not depend on an analysis of their overall shape.

Amplifying Differences

Although our visual system efficiently filters out visual differences that are irrelevant to reading, such as the distinction between "R" and "r," it would be a mistake to think that it always discards information and simplifies shapes. On the contrary, in many cases it must preserve, and even amplify, the minuscule details that distinguish two very similar words from each other. Consider the words "eight" and "sight." We immediately access their very distinct meanings and pronunciations, but it is only when we look more closely at them that we realize that the difference is only a few pixels. Our visual system is exquisitely sensitive to the minuscule difference between "eight" and "sight," and it amplifies it in order to send the input to completely different regions of semantic space. At the same time, it pays very little attention to other much greater differences, such as the distinction between "eight" and "EIGHT."

Every Word Is a Tree

Our visual system deals with the problem of invariant word recognition using a well-organized system. As we shall see in detail in chapter 2, the flow of neuronal activity that enters into the visual brain gets progressively sorted into meaningful categories. Shapes that appear very similar, such as "eight" and "sight," are sifted through a series of increasingly refined filters that progressively separate them and attach them to distinct entries in a mental lexicon, a virtual dictionary of all the words we have ever encountered. Conversely, shapes like "eight" and "EIGHT," which are composed of distinct visual features, are initially encoded by different neurons in the primary visual area, but are progressively recoded until they become virtually indistinguishable. Feature detectors recognize the similarity of the letters "i" and "I." Other, slightly more abstract letter detectors classify "e" and "E" as two forms of the same letter. In spite of the initial differences, the reader's visual system eventually encodes the very essence of the letter strings "eight" and "EIGHT," regardless of their exact shape. It gives these two strings the same single mental address, an abstract code capable of orienting the rest of the brain toward the pronunciation and meaning of the word.

What does this address look like? According to some models, the brain uses a sort of unstructured list that merely provides the sequence of letters E-I-G-H-T. In others, it relies on a very abstract and conventional code, akin to a random cipher by which, say, [1296] would be the word "eight" and [3452] the word "sight." Contemporary research, however, supports another hypothesis. Every written word is probably encoded by a hierarchical tree in which letters are grouped into larger-sized units, which are themselves grouped into syllables and words-much as a human body can be represented as an arrangement of legs, arms, torso, and head, each of which can be further broken down into simple parts.

A good example of the mental decomposition of words into relevant units can be found if we dissect the word "unbuttoning." We must first strip off the prefix "un" and the familiar suffix or grammatical ending "ing." Both frame the central element, the word inside the word: the root "button." All three of these components are called "morphemes"-the smallest units that carry some meaning. Each word is characterized, at this level, by how its morphemes are put together. Breaking down a word into its morphemes even allows us to understand words that we have never seen before, such as "reunbutton" or "deglochization" (we understand that this is the undoing of the action of "gloching," whatever that may be). In some languages, such as Turkish or Finnish, morphemes can be assembled into very large words that convey as much information as a full English sentence. In those languages, but also in ours, the decomposition of a word into its morphemes is an essential step on the path that leads from vision to meaning.

A lot of experimental data show that, very quickly and even downright unconsciously, our visual system snips out the morphemes of words. For instance, if I were to flash the word "departure" on a computer screen, you would later say the word "depart" slightly faster when confronted with it. The presentation of "departure" seems to preactivate the morpheme [depart], thus facilitating its access. Psychologists speak of a "priming" effect-the reading of a word primes the recognition of related words, much as one primes a pump. Importantly, this priming effect does not depend solely on visual similarity: words that look quite different but share a morpheme, such as "can" and "could," can prime each other, whereas words that look alike but bear no intimate morphological relation, such as "aspire" and "aspirin," do not. Priming also does not require any resemblance at the level of meaning; words such as "hard" and "hardly," or "depart" and "department," can prime each other, even though their meanings are essentially unrelated.17 Getting down to the morpheme level seems to be of such importance for our reading system that it is willing to make guesses about the decomposition of words. Our reading apparatus dissects the word "department" into [depart] + [ment] in the hope that this will be useful to the next operators computing its meaning.18 Never mind that this does not work all the time-a "listless" person is not one who is waiting for a grocery list, nor does sharing an "apartment" imply that you and your partner will soon live apart. Such parsing errors will have to be caught at other stages in the word dissection process.

Our visual system has learned to treat these groups of letters as bona fide units, to the point where we no longer pay attention to their actual letter content. Let us do a simple experiment to prove this point. Examine the following list of words and mark those that contain the letter "a":

Did you feel that you had to slow down, ever so slightly, for the last three words, "coat," "please," and "meat"? They all contain the letter "a," but it is embedded in a complex grapheme that is not pronounced like an "a." If we were to rely only on letter detectors in order to detect the letter "a," the parsing of the word into its graphemes would not matter. However, actual measurement of response times clearly shows that our brain does not stop at the single-letter level. Our visual system automatically regroups letters into higher-level graphemes, thus making it harder for us to see that groups of letters such as "ea" actually contain the letter "a."20

The nature of these constituents remains a hot topic in research. It would appear that multiple levels of analysis can coexist: a single letter at the lowest level, then a pair of letters (or "bigram," an important unit to which we will return later), the grapheme, the syllable, the morpheme, and finally the whole word. The final point in visual processing leaves the word parsed out into a hierarchical structure, a tree made up of branches of increasing sizes whose leaves are the letters.

Reduced to a skeleton, stripped of all its irrelevant features like font, case, and size, the letter string is thus broken down into the elementary components that will be used by the rest of the brain to compute sound and meaning.

The Silent Voice

Writing-this ingenious art to paint words and speech for the eyes.

-GEORGES DE BRÉBEUF (FRENCH POET, 1617-1661)

When he paid a visit to Ambrose, then bishop of Milan, Augustine observed a phenomenon that he judged strange enough to be worth noting in his memoirs:

When [Ambrose] read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.22

In the middle of the seventh century, the theologian Isidore of Seville similarly marveled that "letters have the power to convey to us silently the sayings of those who are absent." At the time, it was customary to read Latin aloud. To articulate sounds was a social convention, but also a true necessity: confronted with pages in which the words were glued together, without spaces, in a language that they did not know well, most readers had to mumble through the texts like young children. This is why Ambrose's silent reading was so surprising, even if for us it has become a familiar experience: we can read without articulating sounds.

Nowadays, a consensus has emerged: in adults, both reading routes exist, and both are simultaneously active. We all enjoy direct access to word meaning, which spares us from pronouncing words mentally before we can understand them. Nevertheless, even proficient readers continue to use the sounds of words, even if they are unaware of it. Not that we articulate words covertly-we do not have to move our lips, or even prepare an intention to do so. At a deeper level, however, information about the pronunciation of words is automatically retrieved. Both the lexical and phonological pathways operate in parallel and reinforce each other.

There is abundant proof that we automatically access speech sounds while we read. Imagine, for instance, that you are presented with a list of strings and have to decide whether each one is a real English word or not. Mind you, you only have to decide if the letters spell out an English word. Here you go:

You perhaps hesitated when the letters sounded like a real word-as in "demon," "carpet," or "knee." This interference effect can easily be measured in terms of response times. It implies that each string is converted into a sequence of sounds that is evaluated like a real word, even though the process goes against the requested task.23

Mental conversion into sound plays an essential role when we read a word for the first time-say, the string "Kalashnikov." Initially, we cannot possibly access its meaning directly, since we have never seen the word spelled out. All we can do is convert it into sound, find that the sound pattern is intelligible, and, through this indirect route, come to understand the new word. Thus, sounding is often the only solution when we encounter a new word. It is also indispensable when we read misspelled words. Consider the little-known story by Edgar Allan Poe called "The Angel of the Odd." In it, a strange character mysteriously intrudes into the narrator's apartment, "a personage nondescript, although not altogether indescribable," and with a German accent as thick as British fog:

"Who are you, pray?" said I, with much dignity, although somewhat puzzled; "how did you get here? And what is it you are talking about?"

"Az vor ow I com'd ere," replied the figure, "dat iz none of your pizzness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat I tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I com'd here for to let you zee for yourzelf. . . . Look at me! Zee! I am te Angel ov te Odd."

"And odd enough, too," I ventured to reply; "but I was always under the impression that an angel had wings."

"Te wing!" he cried, highly incensed, "vat I pe do mit te wing? Mein Gott! Do you take me vor a shicken?"

In reading this passage we return to a style we had long forgotten, one that dates back to our childhood: the phonological route, or the slow transformation of totally novel strings of letters into sounds that miraculously become intelligible, as though someone were whispering them at us.

What about everyday words, however, that we have already met a thousand times? We do not get the impression that we slowly decode through mental enunciation. However, clever psychological tests show that we still activate their pronunciation at a nonconscious level. For instance, suppose that you are asked to indicate which of the following words refer to parts of the human body. These are all very familiar words, so you should be able to focus on their meaning and neglect their pronunciation. Try it:

Perhaps you felt the urge to respond to the word "hare," which sounds like a body part. Experiments show that we slow down and make mistakes on words that sound like an item in the target category.24 It is not clear how we could recognize this homophony if we did not first mentally retrieve the word's pronunciation. Only an internal conversion into speech sounds can explain this type of error. Our brain cannot help but transform the letters "h-a-r-e" into internal speech and then associate it with a meaning-a process that can go wrong in rare cases where the string sounds like another well-known word.

Of course, this imperfect design is also what grants us one of the great pleasures of life: puns, or the "joy of text," as the humorist Richard Lederer puts it. Without the gift of letter-to-sound conversion, we would not be able to enjoy Mae West's wisecrack ("She's the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong") or Conan Doyle's brother-in-law's quip ("there's no police like Holmes"). Without Augustine's "silent voice," the pleasure of risqué double entendres would be denied us:

An admirer says to President Lincoln, "Permit me to introduce my family. My wife, Mrs. Bates. My daughter, Miss Bates. My son, Master Bates."

"Oh dear!" replied the president.25

Further proof that our brain automatically accesses a word's sound patterns derives from subliminal priming. Suppose that I flash the word "LATE" at you, immediately followed by the word "mate," and ask you to read the second word as fast as you can. The words are shown in a different case in order to avoid any low-level visual resemblance. Nevertheless, when the first word sounds and spells like the second, as in this example, we would observe a massive acceleration of reading time, in comparison with a situation where two words are not particularly related to one another ("BOWL" followed by "mate"). Part of this facilitation clearly arises from similarity at the level of spelling alone. To flash "MATH" eases recognition of "mate," even though the two strings sound quite different. However, crucially, even greater facilitation can be found when two words share the same pronunciation ("LATE" followed by "mate"), and this sound-based priming works even when spelling is completely different ("EIGHT" followed by "mate"). Thus, pronunciation seems to be automatically extracted. As one might expect, however, spelling and sound are not encoded at the same time. It takes only twenty or thirty milliseconds of word viewing for our brain to automatically activate a word's spelling, but an additional forty milliseconds for its transformation into sound, as revealed by the emergence of sound-based priming.26

Simple experiments thus lead us to outline a whole stream of successive stages in the reader's brain, from marks on the retina to their conversion into letters and sounds. Any expert reader quickly converts strings into speech sounds effortlessly and unconsciously.

The Limits of Sound

Covert access to the pronunciation of written words is an automatic step in reading, but this conversion may not be indispensable. Speech-to-sound conversion is often slow and inefficient. Our brain thus often tries to retrieve a word's meaning using a parallel and more direct pathway that leads straight from the letter string to the associated entry in the mind's lexicon.

To boost our intuition about the direct lexical route, we have to consider the plight of a make-believe reader who would only be able to mentally enunciate written words. It would be impossible for him to discriminate between homophonic words like "maid" and "made," "raise" and "raze," "board" and "bored," or "muscles" and "mussels." Purely on the basis of sound, he might think that serial killers hate cornfields, and that one-carat diamonds are an odd shade of orange. The very fact that we readily discern the multiple meanings of such homophonic words shows that we are not obliged to pronounce them-another route is available that allows our brain to solve any ambiguity and go straight to their meaning.

I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-devise companions; such rackers of orthography, as to speak dout , fine, when he should say doubt ; det , when he should pronounce debt -d, e, b, t, not d, e, t: he clepeth a calf, cauf ; half , hauf ; neighbour vocatur nebor ; neigh abbreviated ne . This is abhominable-which he would call abbominable : it insinuateth me of insanie.

English is an abominably irregular language. George Bernard Shaw pointed out that the word "fish" might be spelled ghoti : gh as in "enough," o as in "women," and ti as in "lotion"! Shaw hated the irregularities of English spelling so much that in his will he provided for a contest to design a new and fully rational alphabet called "Shavian." Unfortunately, it never met with much success, probably because it departed too much from all other existent spelling systems.27

Of course, Shaw's example is far-fetched: no one would ever read ghoti as "fish," because the letter "g," when placed at the beginning of a word, is always pronounced as a hard g or a j , never as an f . Likewise, Shakespeare notwithstanding, in present-day English the letters "alf" at the end of a word are always pronounced af , as in "calf" and "half." If letters are taken in context, it is often possible to identify some higher-order regularities that simplify the mapping of letters onto sounds. Even then, however, exceptions remain numerous-"has" and "was," "tough" and "dough," "flour" and "tour," "header" and "reader," "choir" and "chair," "friend" and "fiend." For most irregular words, the recovery of pronunciation, far from being the source of word comprehension, seems to depend on its outcome: it is only after we have recognized the identity of the word "dough" that we can recover its sound pattern.

The Hidden Logic of Our Spelling System

One may wonder why English sticks to such a complicated spelling system. Indeed, Italians do not meet with the same problems. Their spelling is transparent: every letter maps onto a single phoneme, with virtually no exceptions. As a result, it only takes a few months to learn to read. This gives Italians an enormous advantage: their children's reading skills surpass ours by several years, and they do not need to spend hours of schooling a week on dictation and spelling out loud. Furthermore, as we shall discuss later, dyslexia is a much less serious problem for them. Perhaps we should follow Italy's lead, burn all our dictionaries and desine a noo speling sistem dat eeven a θree-yia-old tchaild cood eezilee reed.

Nevertheless, before any revisions can be made, it is essential to fully understand the hidden logic of our spelling system. Spelling irregularities are not just a matter of convention. They also originate in the very structure of our language and of our brains. The two reading routes, either from spelling to sound or from spelling to meaning, place complex and often irreconcilable constraints on any writing system. The linguistic differences between English, Italian, French, and Chinese are such that no single spelling solution could ever suit them all. Thus the abominable irregularity of English spelling appears inevitable. Although spelling reform is badly needed, it will have to struggle with a great many restrictions.

First of all, it is not clear that English spelling, like Italian, could attribute a single letter to each sound, and a fixed sound to each letter. It would not be a simple thing to do because the English language contains many more speech sounds than Italian. The number of English phonemes ranges from forty to forty-five, depending on speakers and counting methods, while Italian has only thirty. Vowels and diphthongs are particularly abundant in English: there are six simple vowels (as in bat , bet , bit , but , good , and pot ), but also five long vowels (as in beef , boot , bird , bard , and boat ) and at least seven diphthongs (as in bay , boy , toe , buy , cow , beer , bear ). If each of those sounds were granted its own written symbol, we would have to invent new letters, placing an additional burden on our children. We could consider the addition of accents to existing letters, such as ã, õ, or ü. However, it is entirely utopian to imagine a universal alphabet that could transcribe all of the world's languages. Such a spelling system does exist: it is called the International Phonetic Alphabet and it plays an important role in technical publications by phonologists and linguists. However, this writing system is so complex that it would be ineffective in everyday life. The International Phonetic Alphabet has 170 signs, some of which are particularly complex . Even specialists find it very hard to read fluently without the help of a dictionary.

In order to avoid learning an excessive number of symbol shapes, languages with a great many phonemes, such as English and French, all resort to a compromise. They indicate certain vowels or consonants using either special characters such as ü, or groups of letters like "oo" or "oy." Such peculiarities, which are unique to any given language, are far from being gratuitous embellishments: they play an essential role in the "mental economy" of reading, and have to find their place in any kind of spelling reform.

For the sake of argument, we can try to imagine what a purely phonetic writing system would look like-one that Voltaire might have considered ideal. When we speak, we alter the pronunciation of words as a function of the sounds that surround them. It would be disastrous if spelling were to reflect the obtuse linguistic phenomena of so-called coarticulation, assimilation, and resyllabification, of which most speakers are usually unaware. A matter of context would end up having the same word spelled differently. Should we, for instance, use distinct marks for the various pronunciations of plurals? Should we spell "cap driver," under the pretext that the sound b , when followed by a d , tends to be pronounced like a p ? At one extreme, should we factor in the speaker's accent ("Do you take me vor a shicken?"). This would be apsurd (yes, we do pronounce this word with a p sound). The prime goal of writing is to transmit meaning as efficiently as possible. Any servile transcription of sounds would detract from this aim.

The Impossible Dream of Transparent Spelling

Rivalry between reading for sound and reading for meaning is true the world over. All writing systems must somehow manage to address this problem. Which compromise is best depends on the language to be transcribed. Life would certainly be easier if English spelling were as easy to learn as Italian or German. These languages, however, benefit from a number of characteristics that make them easy to transcribe into writing. In Italian as in German, words tend to be long, often made up of several syllables. Grammatical agreement is well marked by resonant vowels. As a result, homonyms are quite rare. Thus, a purely regular transcription of sounds is feasible. Italian and German can afford a fairly transparent spelling system, where almost every letter corresponds to a unique sound.

Of course, it is more difficult to learn to read Chinese than to learn to read Italian. Several thousand signs have to be learned, as opposed to only a few tens. These two languages thus fall at the two extremities of a continuous scale of spelling transparency, where English and French occupy intermediate positions.29 In both English and French, words tend to be short, and homophones are therefore relatively frequent ("right," "write," "rite"). To accommodate these constraints, English and French spelling rules include a mixture of phonetic and lexical transcription-a source of difficulty for the writer, but simplicity for the reader.

In brief, we have only just begun to decipher the many constraints that shape the English spelling system. Will we ever be able to reform it? My own personal standpoint on this score is that drastic simplification is inevitable. We owe it to our children, who waste hundreds of hours at this cruel game. Furthermore, some of them may never recover, handicapped for life by dyslexia or simply because they were raised in underprivileged or multilingual families. These are the real victims of our archaic spelling system. My hope is that the next generation will have become so used to abridged spelling, thanks to cell phones and the Internet, that they will cease to treat this issue as taboo and will muster enough willpower to address it rationally. However, the problem will never be resolved by a simple decree that instates phonological spelling. English will never be as simple as Italian. The dream of regular spelling is something of an illusion, as has been pointed out in a pamphlet that has been circulating in Europe for some time:

Figure 1.3 Spelling irregularities are not as irrational as they seem. For instance, although Chinese writing uses up to twenty or thirty different characters for the same syllable, the redundancy is far from pointless. On the contrary, it is very helpful to Chinese readers because the Chinese language includes a great many homophones-words that sound alike but have different meanings, like the English "one" and "won." Here, an entire Chinese story was written with the sound "shi"! Any Chinese reader can understand this text, which would clearly be impossible if it were transcribed phonetically as "shi shi shi . . ." Chinese characters disambiguate sounds by using distinct characters for distinct meanings. Similarly, homophony explains why English sticks to so many different spellings for the same sounds ("I scream for ice cream").

The European Union commissioners have announced that agreement has been reached to adopt English as the preferred language for European communications, rather than German, which was the other possibility. As part of the negotiations, the British government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five-year phased plan for what will be known as Euro English (Euro for short).

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c." Sertainly, sivil servants will resieve this news with joy. Also, the hard "c" will be replaced with "k." Not only will this klear up konfusion, but typewriters kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced by "f." This will make words like "fotograf" 20 per sent shorter.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read [Dehaene, Stanislas] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Reading in the Brain: The New Science of How We Read

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan is a bilingual speech and language pathologist, a certified teacher, dyslexia therapist, certified academic language therapist and a qualified instructor. She is the President of the Valley Speech Language and Learning Center in Brownsville, Texas and works with the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation and Statistics at the University of Houston. Elsa has spent the last 2 decades working with national research teams designing assessments and interventions for English learners who struggle with learning to read. She has a passion for ensuring that every child in schools across the world has access to a highly qualified educator who can implement effective language and literacy instruction to diverse populations. Elsa has also dedicated her time and expertise to many organizations. She serves as the Chairperson of the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, she is a Past-Vice- Chairperson of the International Dyslexia Association, Past Chairperson of the Texas State Board for Speech Pathology and Audiology and Past Chairperson of the Texas State Dyslexia Advisory Board. She has also served as a board member of the Academic Language Therapy Association, Southwest Regional Education Laboratory and Texas Comprehensive Center at the American Institutes for Research. Elsa has served her local community as Co-Founder of Brownsville READS! She is recognized for her reading reform efforts at the local, state, national and international levels. Elsa has written many scholarly articles, curricular programs, and book chapters related to language and literacy development among English learners. It is her hope that pre-service teachers will have the opportunity to learn evidence-based practices for teaching literacy to all students, including those who are English learners and struggle with learning to read. Elsa has been recognized for her dedication to persons with dyslexia. She is the recipient of the Margaret Byrd Rawson Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Dyslexia Association, the Dr. Luke Waites Award of Service to persons with Dyslexia by the Academic Language Therapy Association and the Champion of Dyslexia Award by the Texas Education Agency.

Dr. Carlson is Associate Research Professor and Associate Director of Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston. She has 25 years of experience and expertise in exploratory, evaluative, and randomized controlled trials (RCT) research. She has served as a principal investigator and co-principal investigator on several large-scale program project grants examining the development of language, literacy, and math skills in school-age students and English learners; the mediating effects of effective instruction, teacher knowledge, and professional development programs; and the efficacy of several language and literacy intervention programs.>.

Dr. Cavazos conducts research and provides technical assistance to states and districts. She assists districts and schools in preparing teachers to effectively work with culturally and linguistically diverse learners with and without exceptionalities. Her extensive experience centers on the intersection of culture, language, and disabilities and providing linguistic and academic interventions for English learners and students in special education. Dr. Cavazos holds a Ph.D. in multicultural special education from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Cheesman, who has worked in the field of dyslexia education since 1990, earned credentials as a Qualified Instructor of Academic Language Therapists at Columbia University and is certified as a Dyslexia Therapist by the International Dyslexia Association (IDA). She has presented lectures and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, and Kuwait. An active member of the Global Partners of IDA, Dr. Cheesman received a Fulbright Specialist Grant to develop Institutional Accreditation Standards for dyslexia organizations worldwide.

Dr. Reutebuch holds a doctorate in special education with experience directing large-scale intervention, evaluation, and, professional development projects. She has served as a classroom teacher and reading coach before transitioning into higher education. Her areas of research include reading difficulty/disability in children and youth, including those targeting English learners and individuals with autism.

Ms. Rico is a bilingual educator who works at the Valley Speech Language and Learning Center and Saint Mary's School in Brownsville, Texas. Her expertise includes working with English learners who experience reading difficulties. Most recently, she has specialized in educational technology to incorporate a hybrid model of instruction. She has also served as a co-editor for curriculum designed to meet the language and literacy needs of bilingual students.

Dr. Tridas is the Director of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics at Pediatric Epilepsy & Neurology Specialists. He is Clinical Associate Professor in Pediatrics at the Morsani College of Medicine at the University of South Florida, a member of the National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities, and Past President of the International Dyslexia Association. He provides consultation services in areas related to child development and behavior, nationally and internationally.

Ms. Lovelace-Gonzalez is an educational diagnostician and a certified Academic Language Therapist with 30 yearsâ€™ experience in public schools. She previously served for 5 years as the state Dyslexia Consultant for Texas. Ms. Lovelace-Gonzalez recently served on the Texas Education Agency Statewide committee for the 2018 update of the State Dyslexia Handbook.

Mr. Nieser is a project manager for the Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston. He has more than 30 years of experience in elementary, bilingual education. He has worked on numerous projects that focus on various aspects of early literacy. He has presented at national and local bilingual conferences and is a national trainer for the Tejas LEE (Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2010) and Esperanza early reading instruments (Valley Speech Language and Learning Center, 2015).

Dr. Pollard-Durodola is a professor in the Early Childhood, Multilingual, and Special Education Department of the School of Education at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Her scholarship attends to the prevention/intervention of language and literacy difficulties (Spanish/English) among students at risk of academic difficulties. Central to her scholarship is developing intervention curricula that build on validated instructional design principles, evaluating their impact on the language and reading development of struggling readers, and investigating how to improve the quality of language/literacy practices of teachers and parents of English learners. She is interested in bridging research and practice by examining the feasibility/usability of research-based practices. She has published in peerreviewed journals such as Exceptional Children; Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness; The Elementary School Journal; Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools; and Bilingual Research Journal

Sharon Vaughn, Ph.D., H.E. Hartfelder/Southland Corp. Regents Chair in Human Development and Executive Director, The Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk, University of Texas at Austin, Sanchez Building, 1912 Speedway, Austin, Texas 78712

Sharon Vaughn is the executive director of The Meadows Center, an organized research unit at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the recipient of the American Education Research Association Special Interest Group Distinguished Researcher Award, the International Reading Association Albert J. Harris Award, the University of Texas Distinguished Faculty Award, and the Jeannette E. Fleischner Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Learning Disabilities from the Council for Exceptional Children. She is the author of more than 35 books and 250 research articles. Vaughn is currently the principal investigator on several research grants from the Institute for Education Sciences, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the U.S. Department of Education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction [Cardenas-Hagan Ed.D. CCC/SLP CDT CALT, Elsa, Vaughn Ph.D., Sharon] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Literacy Foundations for English Learners: A Comprehensive Guide to Evidence-Based Instruction

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For each of these seven must haves, Wiley shares lessons, routines, word lists, tips for ELL and advanced learners, and advice on pitfalls to avoid regarding pacing, decodable texts, transition time, and more.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Fresh Look at Phonics, Grades K-2: Common Causes of Failure and 7 Ingredients for Success (Corwin Literacy)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A Fresh Look at Phonics, Grades K-2: Common Causes of Failure and 7 Ingredients for Success (Corwin Literacy)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rethinking Instruction in Phonological Awareness: Focus on What Matters!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The importance of phoneme awareness for acquiring the alphabetic principle and for learning to read has been documented since the 1970s, gaining broad recognition when the National Reading Panel Report was published in 2000. Since then, instruction to foster phonological awareness has become routinely recommended for the early grades.

However, the widespread practice in schools is to target awareness of larger phonological structures such as words, syllables, and onset-rimes before focusing on phonemes, with attention to the phoneme not occurring until well into kindergarten or first grade.

During this hour-long webinar, Dr. Susan Brady will examine studies that raise questions regarding whether following this "continuum" is necessary and/or beneficial for students. She also discusses:
- The developmental sequence of phoneme awareness
- The importance of conducting phoneme awareness activities with letter knowledge and handwriting
- The benefits of this approach for all students

Watch this webinar to deepen your understanding of how and when to teach phonemic awareness to set students up for reading success.

# data[].attributes.headline
Reading Done Right : Phonemic Awareness PK

# data[].attributes.subject
Reading Done Right : Phonemic Awareness PK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sounds First Phonemic Awareness Program

The Best for All Sounds First Curriculum is a 4-year sequence of daily phonemic awareness lessons, both basic and advanced, designed for use in pre-K through 2nd grade. They are easily modified for use with older students who might need reinforcement. For more information, read the overview for each grade at the beginning of the first set of lessons. These lively 15-minutes-a-day lessons were developed as an Open Educational Resource for the Tennessee Department of Education in the spring of 2020 by a team led by Meredith and David Liben. These are freely available for use, adaptation, and reproduction under a Creative Commons Non Commercial License.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Best for All Sounds First Curriculum is a 4-year sequence of daily phonemic awareness lessons, both basic and advanced, designed for use in pre-K through 2nd grade. They are easily modified for use with older students who might need reinforcement. For more information, read the overview for each grade at the beginning of the first set of lessons.

# data[].attributes.headline
Beginning Reading and Cognitive Load Theory

# data[].attributes.subject
Beginning Reading and Cognitive Load Theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mental activity that places significant demands on working memory is like mental juggling."
H. Lee Swanson

What is Cognitive Load Theory?

'Cognitive load theory' (CLT) is a theory about instruction that may help you to understand why the reading progress of some students is slower than expected. CLT was developed by John Sweller, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of New South Wales, Australia, and is based on what we know about two kinds of memory (working memory and long-term memory) and two kinds of knowledge (primary and secondary). It sounds a bit heavy (pardon the pun!), but it is relatively easy to understand and has important implications for the effective teaching of reading skills.

For many years we have known that instruction is most effective when it is designed with the limitations of the learner's working memory capacity in mind. If we undermine or overload working memory, the likelihood of learning will decrease. This blog explains CLT and its application to reading instruction, particularly phonics instruction in the early years.

From short-term to long-term memory

The processing of information has three main parts: sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory. If attention is paid to sensory input, for example, sounds (such as phonemes), or visual images, such as graphemes (letters), it is transferred from sensory memory to short-term memory.

Short-term memory is housed in the prefrontal cortex of the brain where small amounts of information can be stored for up to 30 seconds.

If that information is rehearsed or repeated often enough, it will be transferred into long-term memory in the hippocampus, an area deeper in the brain.

For example, when you are given a message to pass on but don't have a piece of paper on which to write it at hand, you probably repeat it over and over to yourself until you find paper or the person to whom the message must be given.

Working memory

Short-term memory is a part of working memory. Repeating a sequence of letters straight after you have heard it requires only short-term memory. Blending the sounds represented by those letters into a word requires working memory. All novel information is processed by working memory. Working memory works with, and is able to manipulate, that information.

Working memory is an executive function system (a set of cognitive processes necessary for the control of behaviour) that controls attention, use of cognitive strategies and retrieval of information from long-term memory. All the components of working memory are in place by age 4.

Working memory requires conscious effort and is fragile. Almost all information in working memory is lost after about twenty seconds, unless it is constantly rehearsed (think of our example of remembering a message). If the information is lost, it cannot be retrieved. It must be inputted again. Students with a learning disability often have low working memory.

According to Baddeley's working memory model, there are three main components to working memory. One is a 'phonological loop' which processes speech and other sounds. The other is a 'visuo-spatial sketchpad' that processes text and other visual information.

Working memory is limited, in both capacity and duration. Capacity normally increases steadily from the age of 4 until the age of about 14. The average 5-6 year old can hold and manipulate about 2 distinct items of information in working memory. Capacity peaks in young adulthood, with a 13-15 year-old able to hold, on average, 5 items in working memory. Most adults have a capacity of 7, plus or minus 2.

Long-term memory

If we want to retain new information permanently, it must be transferred from short-term, working memory to long-term memory, which is virtually limitless - very large amounts of information can be stored in long-term memory permanently. When learning to read, decoding an unfamiliar word requires a significant amount of conscious processing and working memory. Reading a familiar word already in the mental lexicon (in long-term memory) does not.

Learned information is stored in cognitive structures called 'schemas'. These provide a system for organising and storing elements of information, according to how they will be used. We construct new schemas in working memory so they can be integrated into existing knowledge in long-term memory. We make schemas of everything, with all the bits of relevant information grouped together.

With sufficient rehearsal and application, these schemas can become automated, for example, the schema of 'driving a car' or 'reading'. Automated schemas are not consciously processed in working memory so automaticity is an important goal in reading instruction.

Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and Reading Instruction

'Cognitive load' is the amount of information processing required to complete a learning task. Look at this 'simple' sentence presented to a 4 year old:

In reading this sentence, on top of knowing each sound to match the letters, the child also has to:

1. Recognise the capital 'D' as a way to represent the sound /d/.

2. Deal with the letter-sound correspondences in the tricky word 'the' - a voiced /th/ and a schwa sound.

3. Work out that two letters can represent a sound, i.e. the 'ck'.

4. Know what to do with a full stop.

That's quite a lot of information to deal with!

The load can affect the ability to process new information and to construct knowledge in long-term memory. A high cognitive load puts pressure on working memory, making information more difficult to attend to, rehearse and remember. Because working memory is fragile, with a limited capacity and duration, transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory is essential for learning to occur. Consequently, instructional design and methods should support working memory, minimise the load placed on it and facilitate the transfer of information to long-term memory.

The 3 types of cognitive load

CLT distinguishes between three types of cognitive loads on the cognitive system - intrinsic, extrinsic and germane.

Intrinsic load refers to the load imposed by inherent complexity of what is to be learned - the 'what I have to be able to do' of the task - as well as the knowledge of the learner.

Extrinsic load refers to the load created by the way in which information is presented and the instructional procedure which must be followed - the 'conditions under which I do it', such as the complexity of instructions, the pace of instruction, time constraints or distractions in the environment.

Germane load refers to the effort or working memory required to process information and create schema. It is linked to the intrinsic load - the more complex the task, or the more novel the information, the higher the germane load.

Primary and secondary knowledge

Primary knowledge is knowledge we acquire unconsciously, for example, the ability to listen to, understand and speak the language of the home. It is knowledge that we have evolved to acquire without instruction. Our brains are hardwired for listening and speaking. Outside the classroom, most of what we learn is primary, for example, general problem solving.

Secondary knowledge is acquired only with conscious effort and expert teaching and thus often learned in the classroom. Our brains are not hardwired for reading and writing (these are human creations), therefore the ability to read and write with phonics requires secondary knowledge - it is rarely 'discovered'; it must be explicitly taught and actively learned. Reading and writing are processes that place a significant intrinsic load on the working memory of the learner because they require conscious effort.

The intrinsic load of the reading process

'Expert' readers process multiple elements in parallel in working memory during a reading task. Dr. Hollis Scarborough identifies eight 'strands' or elements in skilled reading and how they come together in her Reading Rope model. In the following video, Dr. Scarborough explains this model of understanding the reading process.

According to educational psychologist John Sweller, information that has been organised and stored in long-term memory has different characteristics than the same information prior to it being stored in short-term memory. Words are processed by the skilled reader unconsciously as a single element retrieved from long-term memory. Essentially, most words are 'sight words' for an adult reader, decoded so quickly that they're recognized almost automatically.

Most children begin school as 'novice' readers, with little or no word recognition or literacy knowledge, and with background knowledge and other language skills dependent largely on the amount of oral language experience in the home. Most of what they are learning is unfamiliar, so the intrinsic load of Scarborough's 8-strand reading process is high. Remember, at that age, their working memory capacity is only 2-3 items.

Children starting school typically rely heavily on visual-spatial working memory due to their lack of phonological awareness. The phonological loop has to be 'switched on' and the children explicitly taught the sound structure of words, so that they can construct schema for the concepts of word, rhyme, syllable, sound etc. They then have to construct schemas for the squiggles on a page that represent sounds.

Novices need to use thinking skills; experts use knowledge."

Sweller et al, 2011, p21.

The novice reader has to process the written word in working memory as multiple, interacting elements because the written word has not yet been stored as a single element in long-term memory. In decoding unknown words, letter-sound correspondences must be recalled to convert the letters in a word into sounds. Each sound has to be held in working memory while the next is identified. The sounds must all be held in working memory while they are blended to form a word.

Each word has to be held in working memory while the next is sounded out (these are our 'balls in the air'). Those words must then be combined into phrases and sentences. In his 1999 publication, 'Cognitive research can inform reading education', Charles Perfetti said that the cognitive load of word decoding is a key barrier to comprehension, creating a 'reading bottleneck'. When a student can decode fluently, the cognitive load is minimised, making it easier for the student to process what has been read, retain vocabulary, link ideas etc. Check out this little girl's 'reading bottleneck' at 25 seconds where the cognitive load of decoding is so great she forgets the meaning of 'sun'!

Some Instructional Design Methods Drawn From CLT

Explicit teaching

In order to reduce working memory load and facilitate transfer of secondary information to long-term memory, instruction provided by teachers should be explicit and direct. In explicit teaching the teacher shows the student what to do and how to do it, rather than expecting the student to discover or construct knowledge for himself. Have a look at the features that make a great explicit phonics lesson.

The teacher decides the learning intentions and success criteria for a lesson, makes these transparent to the students, demonstrates them by modelling, evaluates if students understand what they have been told by checking for understanding, and retells them what they have been told by tying it all together with closure."
Hattie 2009, p. 206.

Instructional sequencing

The cognitive load resulting from a complex task can be reduced by breaking it down into smaller, simpler components. Novices, in particular, benefit from having material presented in this way, with plenty of opportunity to practise after each step. The individual elements of information should be taught in sequence, in isolation before presenting all of the elements and their interactions.

Learners should start with work on simple learning tasks. The more expertise they acquire, the more complex the tasks they will be able to work on.

Multisensory instruction

Effective working memory capacity can be increased by using both visual and auditory working memory rather than either processor alone, consequently instruction should be multisensory. Movement enhances working memory so this should be incorporated where possible, e.g. tapping syllables on your lap or moving a counter into a phoneme frame for each phoneme heard.

Worked examples

CLT emphasises the importance of using worked examples that show learners how to carry out new tasks. A worked example is essentially a step-by-step demonstration that reduces a complex process to single actions. This reduces the intrinsic cognitive load.

Guided practice and fading

The 'I do, we do, you do' gradual release model of instruction provides the guided practice that reduces working memory load and facilitate transfer of information to long-term memory.

Spacing

It appears that working memory capacity depletes after heavy use and recovers after rest. Therefore, if learning is spaced with rest periods between learning episodes, it is superior when compared with the same learning time massed without rest periods.

Minimising the split-attention effect

When a learner is presented with two simultaneous instances of the same type of stimulus, the two compete for attention and the extrinsic cognitive load is increased. To avoid the split-attention effect, teachers should allow students to focus on a single visual or auditory source of information at any given time.

Putting the instructional methods into practice

What can we do as teachers to help students manage cognitive load?
Prior to instruction:

1. Pre-test to determine the student's current knowledge and skill level. In the Phonics Hero Teacher Account you will find many free assessment materials.

2. Evaluate the intrinsic and germane loads of reading a particular text and try to reduce the load e.g. by identifying letter-sound correspondences, tricky words and vocabulary that could be unfamiliar to a student. The best decodable readers list new correspondences, words containing these and tricky words on the first or last pages of the text for you.

3. Reduce or remove any possible extraneous load on working memory such as lengthy/complex explanations or instructions, time restrictions, auditory or visual distractions in the classroom.

During instruction:

1. Begin instruction at a point of familiarity, activating prior knowledge. For example, revise previously learned letter-sound correspondences or words with a game. Phonics Hero supplies teachers with free access to their games for use on the interactive whiteboard with a group of students.

2. Pre-teach:

3. Make sure that students have sufficient background knowledge to access the meaning of the text. It is easier for them to process information if they can link it to existing schemas. Talk about key concepts, new vocabulary, etc.

4. Move systematically from the simple to the complex to support schema formation. The structure of Phonics Hero helps teachers to teach the logic of the alphabetic code. Students learn that one letter can represent a sound (e.g. 'c' can represent /k/) before learning that two or more letters can represent a sound. (e.g. 'ck' can represent /k/). The most common representations are taught before the less common (e.g. 'q' can represent /k/.

5. Use explicit instruction to teach new content and skills. Synthetic phonics programs do not ask students to read words they have not been explicitly taught. It is not appropriate to embed phonics instruction in text reading or to expect a student to use multiple cues such as context or pictures to decode text.

6. Model/demonstrate strategies e.g. correct pronunciation of sounds, blending or segmenting a word into syllables

7. Use a consistent lesson structure so that the learner can attend to the intrinsic load of the content: review; statement of learning intentions and success criteria; I do, we do, you do, application; reflection. Download the free lesson plan template.

8. Make learning multi-sensory to allow use of both visual-spatial and verbal working memory. Phonics Hero is multi-modal.

9. Provide worked examples and problems with partial solutions e.g. sound buttons or dashes to indicate the number of sounds in a word or a longer dash for a digraph or trigraph.

10. Present oral and visual information together, to facilitate use of both visual and verbal working memory. The best electronic books highlight each word as it is read to the student.

11. Cut out non-essential information e.g. decorative graphics. We need to direct student attention to the information they need. The images on each screen of a Phonics Hero game are kept simple.

12. Provide multiple practice opportunities in order to develop automaticity.

The games of Phonics Hero are an ideal tool for repeated practice as each game is unique, maintaining student enjoyment during repeated use of knowledge and skills.

Students need the opportunity to practise applying information to new contexts once they have learned it. Application is a crucial step in phonics instruction that sometimes gets forgotten. The goal of reading is comprehension, so once the child can decode words, he or she should be applying that skill to decodable readers.

Encourage repeated reading as this helps the student to develop automaticity and fluency, reducing the load on working memory and freeing it up for comprehension. For example, take a look at teacher Stephanie Brighton's blog on how she reduced the cognitive load of home readers in the early stages of learning to read.

13. Encourage students to visualise what they have read (drawing on paper or in their mind's eye). This encourages them to draw information out of their long-term memory and review what they have learnt/read.

No-Prep Phonics Lessons and Cognitive Load Theory

Phonics Hero's click-and-go Phonics Lessons help you put all of these methods into practice. Our no-prep Phonics Lessons are designed to lessen the cognitive load of phonics learning on students and also lessen the cognitive load of preparing a great phonics lesson on teachers! Take a look at this tour of a blending lesson to see it in action:

Start a Trial of Phonics Lessons with a Teacher Account

From One Teacher to Another...

Many of these instructional recommendations derived from Cognitive Load Theory are just good, common-sense teaching practice. And yet, I still see teachers using implicit and whole language teaching in reading instruction in classrooms filled with distractions. I encourage you to trial at least one of the recommendations discussed in this blog and monitor the impact on the reading performance of your students. You can do more in depth reading on working memory on the links below:
Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 261-292.
Cognitive Load Theory: Research That Teachers Really Need to Understand from the New South Wales' Department for Education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cognitive Load Theory and Phonics Instruction | Phonics Hero

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What does Cognitive Load Theory have to do with phonics? Teacher Shirley Houston offers insight and top tips to reduce cognitive load in phonics lessons.

# data[].attributes.body
"Students need varying amounts of explicit instruction and practice to become skilled at decoding. Guided reading and predictable texts don’t offer many opportunities to blend words, so students who need lots of practice fall farther and farther behind.

Differentiated instruction with decodable texts in the primary grades closes an achievement gap that might otherwise become insurmountable. The sooner children learn how to lift the words off the page, the sooner they can access great literature."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Drudgery (and Beauty) of Decodable Texts | Reading Rockets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I was determined to undo the bad reading habits my students had developed during guided reading. I exchanged a leveled reading program for one with decodables and used a diagnostic phonics assessment to regroup my students. For some students, cracking the code was easy Students with strong phonemic awareness linked the sounds they heard in spoken words to the letter patterns I taught.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
To be skilled readers students need to be proficient in both the Word Recognition strand (phonemic awareness, decoding, letter-sound knowledge, orthographic mapping) but also the Language Comprehension strand. Efficient reading cannot be achieved without both. Children need to be developing their decoding skills at the same time as their language is developing and be provided with higher-level fiction and non fiction texts, content, syntax and language, than they are able to read themselves.
So how do we do this?
Every day, within the literacy block, there is 30 minutes of explicitly teaching the alphabetic code and a further 30 minutes is based on the language comprehension side of things. This is where teachers read high quality fiction and non-fiction texts TO the children for the whole class, where students are being explicitly taught higher level (Tier 2 and Tier 3) vocabulary, language structures and building critical background knowledge.
Why is this so important?
As children are in the early stages of learning to read, in a structured literacy approach, students are explicitly taught the alphabetic code in a sequential, systematic approach to letter- sound correspondences. They are taught that individual sounds can be blended to words to read and that words can be segmented into individual sounds (phonemes) to spell. They are taught this explicitly with the support of decodable text that provides opportunities to practice the skills learnt. Students are provided with decodable books that support their reading journey.

However, as we know, students need to be proficient in both Word Recognition and Language comprehension and if we only focus on the Word Recognition strand, students will not be able to comprehend what they read because the vocabulary and syntax will be too advanced.

This is the same situation for a child that takes longer than their peers to grasp decoding or a child with a diagnosis of dyslexia. The child must still provided opportunities to access high level content and skills like verbal reasoning, inference and explicit teaching of high level vocabulary in a supported and oral context; so that when the gap has closed in terms of decoding, the child will still be able to access age appropriate language structures to comprehend texts read.
What are some high impact approaches for building language comprehension Teacher Read Alouds:
Teacher read alouds are an instructional practice where teachers read to the students texts that are of a higher complexity than what students can read. In the older years, this may also consist of a novel, which may also be read by the students as they follow along. The benefits of read-alouds are many because teachers can expose students to high level vocabulary, grammar structures, that they would not have had the opportunity to encounter in texts read at their own reading level. The Australian Reading Spine has some excellent examples of texts to read to children based on age: link here and the International Literacy Association has another literature spine that is worth a look link here
Choral Reading:
Choral reading is an evidence-based approach to all students in the classroom reading aloud in unison. The benefits here are that even the less experienced readers have the opportunity to read out loud in a supportive environment because the whole class are reading. This is a great strategy also for building reading fluency, with prosody (expression), as students are reading along with their teacher with an interactive whiteboard or text, which is modelling skilled reading.
Repeated Reading:
Repeated reading has been identified as a highly effective approach, with an effect size of 0.67 (Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017) for building reading fluency in readers that have already grasped the alphabetic principle. This can be done as a whole class following on with a short passage of either fiction or non-fiction, or can be done in mixed ability pairs. This process is repeated 3-4 times with the students (or weaker readers) listening to the teacher or stronger reader read the passage, which is then read by the students or weaker reader. It is recommended these passages are between 50-250 words in length so that the students can hold the pattern of the fluent reading modelled for them in their working memory.

Explicit teaching of time connectives to improve language complexity:

It is really important that we explicitly teach the meanings of time connectives as they can completely change the meaning of a text and derail the comprehending process. For example, and and also- have an additive form; before, after and meanwhile refer to time; because and so have a causal effect; and but, although and have have a contrast effect on a sentence. An excellent way to teach this is through sentence combining of two simple sentences with one connective to combine them. Eg Paul went for a swim. (because/so/while) He was hot. Which connectives make sense?
Mixed ability pairs for cooperative learning and scaffolding:
During literacy lessons, it is important we are building in ample opportunities for oral language. This can be achieved through simple cooperative learning activities such as Think, Pair Share and using mini whiteboards through a lesson in mixed ability pairs. The impact of this is significant for our students that may be experiencing difficulties as they have a partner at a higher level of ability. This is particularly important also for our EALD students.
Explicit vocabulary instruction:
A varied and large vocabulary base is essential for successful reading comprehension. It is recommended that we are explicitly teaching 10 words that are considered Tier 2 and Tier 3 (words of higher level complexity and subject specific vocabulary, respectively), in order for students to know the amount of words that are required to be proficient readers.
Content level instruction in unit blocks to build background knowledge:
Teaching literacy through two week literacy blocks is a high impact approach to teaching a range of topics to build domain knowledge essential for background knowledge in comprehending texts in the later years. Although this takes a little bit of time to get started in the school, the first step would be to map out the cross curricular topics across the year and backward map the topics that can be taught in an explicit approach in literacy. The best thing is that in time it can free up some of the very busy timetable as much of the non-fiction content is being covered in the literacy block. Year Overview planner example
Questioning the Author approach for high level reading comprehension:
Questioning the Author is an evidence based content approach to building reading comprehension. Based on the work of Beck, McKeown and Sandora, it is a powerful approach for enhancing reading comprehension and engagement. Throughout their book, there are examples of how to unpack a text before reading to students and identify places that may confuse students, while also preparing open ended 'queries' that guides discussion about the text. The reasoning behind this approach is that often by the time students have finished listening to a text, at some point along the way, their meaning has been lost, so completing comprehension tasks after the reading, is often a wasted opportunity. I highly recommend their text: Robust Comprehension Instruction with Questioning the Author.
Reading comprehension strategy instruction including summarisation, inference and question generation:
Reading strategy instruction research over the past 20 years has debunked the need for endless strategy instruction. In fact, beyond 15 hours of strategy instruction is unnecessary according to some researchers. However, students do benefit from explicit teaching in the skills of summarisation, inferencing and generating questions about a text while reading. These skills have high effect sizes in improving reading comprehension.
What about the older primary years?
The fundamental ideas of the reading rope apply to all primary year levels because it is not until approximately Year 8 during the proficient reader phase that the reading comprehension is comparable to a student's listening comprehension. Up until this point, students still need to be exposed to higher level texts than they are comfortable reading to ensure we are continuing to build background knowledge, sophisticated knowledge of syntax and Tier 3 vocabulary. This can be done through class novels, news articles and non-fiction content.
What about if a child is struggling with the language comprehension?
When it comes to intervention, sometimes a students struggles stem from the language comprehension side of things, rather than the word recognition strand; although many students that have difficulties, experience both. The challenge for us is to ensure our intervention approaches address both if this is the case.

An excellent intervention recommended by David Kilpatrick for addressing language comprehension difficulties is the 'Developing Language and Literacy Program- Effective Interventions in the early Years' by Carroll, Bowyer-Crane, Duff, Hulme & Snowling, 2011. It is identified as a comprehensive program for improving both word-level reading and language comprehension difficulties.

Language comprehension is an essential aspect of the literacy block, in developing successful readers. When we consider that by the time our students come to school, there is a difference of 290,000 words each child has been exposed by the age of five, depending on if they have not been read to at all, or if they have been read 1 book per day from birth. This leaves a huge task for us as educators to close the gap between each child's literature and language experiences. A significant part of this solution is to implement engaging, high impact language comprehension approaches from the first day of school.

I would love to hear how your school teaches the language comprehension strand of the rope!
Online masterclasses:
Teachers: Take your literacy assessments, instruction and approaches in preventing and responding to reading difficulties to the next level with the High Impact Reading Instruction and Intervention online masterclass!

School leaders: Be the leader of your school's next literacy success chapter! Leading Literacy Impact Masterclass
Find Out More

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How do we teach the Language Comprehension strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
To be skilled readers students need to be proficient in both the Word Recognition strand (phonemic awareness, decoding, letter-sound knowledge, orthographic mapping) but also the Language Comprehension strand. Efficient reading cannot be achieved without both.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although we may not be aware of it, we do not skip over words, read print selectively, or recognize words by sampling a few letters of the print, as whole language theorists proposed in the 1970s. Reading is accomplished with letter-by-letter processing of the word.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Reading Brain Research (also see SoR Video Section-->)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Reading Brain Research (also see SoR Video Section-->)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Reading is a relatively new cultural development. While there were some people who could read dating back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC, it was not until after the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's that large numbers of the population in many countries learned to read. The human brain did not evolve to be able to read the way it did for spoken language. In order to read, the brain has to learn to re-purpose brain functions that were developed over thousands of years for other, more basic needs. Dehaene (2009) describes it this way:

"The brain circuitry inherited from our primate evolution is co-opted to the task of recognizing printed words - the brain's existing neural networks are "recycled" for reading. Because of something called brain plasticity, during brain development a range of brain circuits can adapt for new uses. When we learn a new skill such as reading, we recycle some of our old brain circuits."
What parts of the brain are involved in reading?
There is no specific place in the brain that we use to read. Reading involves multiple processes that tap into different regions of the brain. Advances in neuroscience since the 1980's have enabled scientists to unravel the principles underlying the brain's reading circuits. Brain imaging using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) enables researchers to create images that reveal information about brain anatomy and activity while reading. It reveals the parts of the brain that activate when we read.

People who become experienced readers use and integrate several regions of their brain, primarily in the left hemisphere including (Cunningham & Rose; Eden; Hudson et al., 2016):

The parietal-temporal region (towards the back) which does the job of breaking a written word into its sounds (i.e., word analysis, sounding out words).

The occipital-temporal region (at the back) where the brain stores the appearance and meaning of words (i.e., letter-word recognition, automaticity, and language comprehension). This is critical for automatic, fluent reading so that a reader can quickly identify words without having to sound each one out.

The frontal region (at the front) which allows a person to speak (i.e., processing speech sounds as we listen and speak).

It is important to remember that while different regions can be identified in terms of playing certain roles in the reading process, multiple parts of the brain during reading are in constant collaboration. Seidenberg (2018) notes that some scientists hold the view that "each major type of information during reading is supported by a network of brain structures rather than localized to a single area and that each brain area is responsive to and participates in the processing of multiple types of information." (p. 204)
The Brain Changes as We Learn to Read
Every child's brain has to change the way it functions as the child learns to read. For most students, instruction and practice during the primary grades is sufficient to "train" the regions in the brain to learn to read. Brain imaging research has revealed anatomical and functional changes in typically developing readers as they learn to read (Turkeltaub et al., 2003 as cited in Eden). Cunningham and Rose note that activation patterns in areas of the brain will be different depending on a student's reading ability.

"For example, beginning readers show more activity in the parietal-temporal (word analysis) region while more experienced readers become increasingly active in the occipital-temporal (word recognition) region. Rich language experiences early in life contribute to making the brain more receptive to the acquisition of reading skills (skills such as phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition)."
What does brain imaging reveal about struggling readers?
Cunningham and Rose point out that the brain scans of struggling readers show that the patterns of activity are notably different (more scattered than those of strong readers). The pathways for language and cognition are not as efficient and established, so the work of reading is harder for the child even though he or she is trying just as hard.

For children with dyslexia, their brains often do not develop in a way that makes them efficient readers. Brain imaging studies have found that the reading process works differently in the brains of dyslexics because there is a neurological cause of dyslexia. Dyslexic readers show under-activation in areas where they are weaker and over-activation in other areas in order to compensate. Instead of using the parts of the brain in the left hemisphere (which is designed to process language), dyslexics who struggle to read use different parts of the right hemisphere which is not efficient (Hudson, High, Otaiba, 2007; Eden, 2016).

Shaywitz et al. (2002) found that children who were good decoders had more activation in the areas important for reading in the left hemisphere and less in the right hemisphere than children with dyslexia. Furthermore, many people with dyslexia often show greater activation in the lower frontal areas of the brain, possibly because their frontal regions may compensate for problems in the regions in the back of the brain (Shaywitz, 2003). The visual above illustrates how the dyslexic brain is activated more in the frontal region, while the non-dyslexic brain is activated in several parts of the left hemisphere.
Can we rewire the brain through instruction?
The good news for people with dyslexia is that their brains will "rewire" themselves if reading instruction is provided that explicitly teaches phonological awareness and decoding skills. The brain has plasticity through our lifetime which means our brains are able to change in order to learn new things. Cunningham and Rose suggest that two variables contribute to strengthening neural pathways that allow students to become strong and successful readers:

Deliberate practice. Students need to hear and read many different kinds of texts as often as possible.

Intense instruction. In order to prepare the brain for the increasingly complex texts they will encounter in school, most students need intense instruction toward early mastery of core reading skills - like phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension.

Brain imaging studies have shown that when dyslexics are taught to read (and given sufficient practice to become automatic with decoding), their brains create new circuits that connect the language processing parts of the brain with the visual processing part - the same as brains of non-dyslexics. Neuroscientist Guinevere Eden (2016) notes that difficulty mapping language to print is at the heart of dyslexia, and if that skill is addressed through intervention, it gives students the key they need to read. She notes that imaging studies have shown a change in the brain after intervention that targets these skills has occurred and reading is improved. This is not only true for young students, but also for adult dyslexic non-readers. Brain plasticity allows the brain to learn and change even as we get older. The big difference is that the older the student, the more intense the instruction and practice needs to be. The sooner that intervention can be provided, the better.

References

Cunningham, A. & Rose, D. This is your brain on reading. Retrieved from https://www.hmhco.com/products/iread/pdfs/EdWeek_OpEd5_brain_on_reading.pdf

Dehaene, S. (2009). Reading in the brain. New York, Penguin Group.

Eden, G.F. Dyslexia and the brain. International Dyslexia Society. Retrieved from https://app.box.com/s/q2cjihwikwncohy3vmv747h04md6eevn

Eden, G.F. (2016). Dyslexia and the brain. YouTube video. Posted by Understood, Oct 14, 2016. Retrieve from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrF6m1mRsCQ

Hudson,
N., Scheff, J., Tarsha, M., & Cutting, L.E. (2016). Reading comprehension
and executive function: Neurobiological findings. Perspectives on Language
and Literacy, Spring 2016.

Hudson, R.F., High, L. Al Otaiba, S. (2007). Dyslexia and the brain: What does current research tell us? The Reading Teacher, 60(6), 506-515.

Seidenberg, M. (2018). Language at the speed of sight. New
York: Basic Books.

Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming
dyslexia. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Shaywitz, B.A., Shaywitz,
S.E., Pugh, K.R., Mencl, W.E., Fulbright, R.K., Skudlarksi, P., et al. (2002).
Disruption of posterior brain systems for reading in children with
developmental dyslexia. Biological
Psychiatry, 52, 101-110.

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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the Brain Learns to Read - Keys to Literacy

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reading is a relatively new cultural development. While there were some people who could read dating back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC, it was not until after the Industrial Revolution in the 1800's that large numbers of the population in many countries learned to read.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How the Brain Learns to Read - Prof. Stanislas Dehaene

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blending Sounds in Syllables with Autumn, Kindergartner

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mastering Short Vowels and Reading Whole Words with Calista, First Grader

# data[].attributes.headline
Six Shifts Videos (Shifting the Balance)

# data[].attributes.subject
Six Shifts Videos (Shifting the Balance)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the last couple of blogs, we've unpacked these three questions about decodable texts: Who really needs decodable texts, anyway? What is a decodable text, really? How many decodable texts do I need? If you missed those posts, you can catch up here and here. As...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the last couple of blogs, we've unpacked these three questions about decodable texts: Who really needs decodable texts, anyway? What is a decodable text, really? How many decodable texts do I need? If you missed those posts, you can catch up here and here. As...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Science of Reading: The Podcast, hosted by Susan Lambert, delivers the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Listen today!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast

Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast elevates important contributions to the educational community, with the goal of inspiring teachers, informing practice, and celebrating people in the community who have influenced teaching and literacy to the betterment of children. The podcast features people whose life stories are compelling and rich in ways that are instructive to us all. The podcast will focus on literacy as we know it (reading and writing) but will also connect to other "literacies" that impact children's learning; for example, emotional, physical, and social literacies as they apply to teachers and children.
Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast is taking a short break following our June 2022 episode.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast elevates important contributions to the educational community, with the goal of inspiring teachers, informing practice, and celebrating people in the community who have influenced teaching and literacy to the betterment of children.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Well, hello! If you are watching with me on Facebook, you are seeing the video recording of Episode 34 of the Triple R Teaching podcast, where we help educators reflect, refine, and recharge so they're excited for the next day in the classroom. My name is Anna Geiger and I am your host. You may know me from my website, The Measured Mom, as well as my online courses, and my membership site.

Today, I want to start the podcast by telling you a little bit of a story. A few months ago, I had joined a Facebook group to learn more about teaching reading. It was actually a science of reading Facebook group. After spending a half an hour in the group, reading through comments, reading discussions, checking out resources, I was starting to feel not so good. I was getting sort of a tightness in my chest. I was starting to feel scared, my stomach hurt, and I had to get out of that group because it was starting to bring up a whole bunch of feelings in me that just didn't feel good. I actually opened Slack, which is a communication tool I use for my team, and this is what I wrote, "I just need to talk to someone. I am so scared. I've been doing a lot of research about the science of reading and it's completely overwhelming. It feels like everything I believed in is wrong, but it worked for so many kids and it worked for my own kids. Can't be 100% wrong, right? Now I feel like I have to completely rethink everything. I'm so confused. Please. I'm really worried and upset inside. I know this sounds over the top, but I feel so much responsibility to get this right!"

The fact is that what I had read in the group was concerning to me. There was a lot of heated discussion back and forth. There was a lot of judgment. There were a lot of big discussions, a lot of black and white thinking, it HAS to be THIS way! It scared me, and so I had to be careful about how often I was in the group so that it wasn't causing this visceral reaction inside of me. I needed to slowly get used to the group.

Now it's a couple of months later and I actually go there multiple times a day and love the things that I'm learning. But when we first hear something that feels different than what we've thought in the past, it can feel scary! It's true that a lot of what I was reading in there did not align with the things I learned in undergrad, graduate school, and the things that I've taught teachers to do.

Here's the good news though! What I've learned over the last few months- everything I believed and taught is NOT wrong! Even if you're in a shift in your teaching, the same is true for you. It's not completely black and white, but there are so many exciting things that we have to learn these days about how kids learn to read. Making shifts in the way that we teach can reach even more students, which at the end of the day is what we're all excited to do.

It has kind of felt like Christmas around here lately because I have been getting new professional books about teaching reading every day. So, if you can see, here's just one stack of books that I've gotten in the past few weeks. Then I'll move my chair, and now you can see behind me a whole stack of books and all that paper. The first couple inches of that are papers that I've printed from online journals so I can study more about how our brains learn to read and what implications that has for how we teach reading in the classroom. I'm looking particularly at kindergarten, first, and second grade.

So yes, I was really scared at first and really doubting myself. But the more I studied, the more I realized that there are so many wonderful things we were doing and so many more wonderful things we can do as we make shifts in our thinking and our practice!

This episode is actually launching a series on the podcast all about the science of reading, in particular, how it relates to how we teach reading in kindergarten, first, and second grade. I am so excited to be doing this series with you!

I recently sent an email out to my newsletter list and I told my people that in college I had an all nighter once. I stayed up all night so I could study for a really hard test, and I had two papers the next day. It was a failure. I did not get a happy grade in the test, even though I thought I was well prepared, because I needed a lot more sleep. Ever since then, I don't do all nighters, but I still love studying and researching.

This is just such a great time to be learning about teaching reading because lots and lots of stuff is becoming available to us. Just in the last couple of years a lot of new books have been written about the science of reading and the implications that it has for our classrooms. I cannot wait to start sharing that information with you.

Here's a little bit of a glimpse of what's coming. We're going to be starting next week, talking about The Reading Wars in America, how those started in the 1800s and where we're at today and what that means for us. We're going to talk about some of the basics when it comes to the science of reading. If you've done any study in that at all, you've probably heard of things like the simple view of reading, orthographic mapping, and Scarborough's Reading Rope. We're going to talk about all those things, but in a really simple, easy to access way. We're going to talk about phonics and the primary role, the BIG role this has, and why it's always the front seat of all of these discussions. It's certainly not all that the science of reading is about, but it's a big deal! We're going to talk about how to teach phonics, ideas for making it interesting in your classroom, and what kind of books our students should be using as we teach them to read. We'll review phonological and phonemic awareness a little bit, but as you know, we've already been doing that on the podcast for the last few weeks. We're going to talk also about comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, and we're going to get really practical about what all of this means for how you teach every day.

So not only have I been reading a lot of books and papers, but I've also had a lot of conversations. In the evenings after my kids went to bed, I've talked to a reading psychologist, a school principal, a few reading specialists, some classroom teachers, and I have more conversations scheduled. This has been a really exciting time for me to learn more about how we can improve how we teach to reach even more kids, and I hope that you're going to join me for the ride!

Starting next week, we'll be here again with the first episode in our series, "All About the Science of Reading".

I want to let you know one more thing before I go. And that is, I've got a survey that I would love to invite you to take. Particularly if you teach any kids in kindergarten, first, or second grade. You can find the survey at themeasuredmom.com/readingsurvey. You can tell me what questions you have about the science of reading, or what challenges you're facing right now as you teach reading so we can address some of those things in this series. Thanks again for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next week here on Triple R Teaching.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Introduction to the science of reading podcast series

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
TRT Podcast#34: Introducing our science of reading podcast series I've been pouring over the science of reading research, and I'm making shifts in how I approach teaching reading. You're invited to join me on this exciting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Our Podcasts - Knowledge Matters Campaign

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎„Melissa and Lori Love Literacy ™“ auf Apple Podcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Science of Reading: The Podcast will deliver the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Via a conversational approach, each episode explores a timely topic related to the science of reading.

Science of Reading: The Podcast will deliver the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Via a conversational approach, each episode explores a timely topic related to the science of reading.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎„Science of Reading: The Podcast" auf Apple Podcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Science of Reading: The Podcast will deliver the latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Via a conversational approach, each episode explores a timely topic related to the science of reading.

# data[].attributes.headline
Determining the Right Literacy Intervention: Using Assessment to Guide your Course: Podcast

# data[].attributes.subject
Determining the Right Literacy Intervention: Using Assessment to Guide your Course: Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Narrator: Welcome to EDVIEW360.

Dr. Susan Smartt: We've got to make sure that what we're doing is effective and is working, and if not, we have to determine what's the next best step for the student based on the data.

Narrator: You just heard from author and reading expert, Dr. Susan Smartt. Dr. Smartt is our guest today on EDVIEW360.

Pam Austin: Hello, this is Pam Austin. Welcome back to the EDVIEW360 podcast series. We are so excited to have you with us today. I'm conducting today's podcast from my native New Orleans, LA. Today, we are excited to welcome a respected educator, researcher, and author who has dedicated her career to reading success for every child, Dr. Susan Smartt.

Let me tell you a bit more about Dr. Smartt before we get started with our conversation. As a senior research associate at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Smartt engaged in research, writing, and teaching focused on improving teacher preparation in reading. Previously, she was a national literacy consultant with state departments, teacher preparation programs, and local school districts focusing on school reform, reading intervention for low-performing schools, using data to inform practice, developing Response to Intervention initiatives, and implementing scientifically based literacy programs.

Dr. Smartt owned and directed a reading clinic for more than 20 years. She has been a classroom teacher, a reading coach, a reading specialist, and a principal. She was an early contributor to the development of LETRS ® and past president of the Tennessee branch of the International Dyslexia Association ®. Currently, Dr. Smartt tutors and provides advocacy services for students with dyslexia. Welcome Dr. Smartt.

SS: Thank you, Pam. Great to be with you.

PA: It's awesome to have you. Let's get started. In your experience, you've worked with countless students in classrooms in your quest to help all students learn to read, with an emphasis on those with reading challenges including dyslexia. Tell us a bit about your career path and why in your opinion, accurate assessment is the essential tool to seeing every student succeed.

SS: Oh, that's a great question, Pam. Thank you. It's loaded. You know I like to talk about myself, so I will go back five decades and tell you the beginning of this literacy journey. I started in the early '70s. In my early teaching experience, I had a fifth-grade class with 43 students in it, and of those 43 students, five could read on a pre-primer level. Back then, we used the Dolch word list and we could sort through flashcards and find out exactly how many words our students could recognize, and five of my students only knew five sight words or Dolch words. That started this journey. I had been educated at one of the best teacher prep universities and was ready to go and change the world, and yet when I got these 5, 10, 11, and 12 year olds who couldn't read, that started this entire journey. Since then, I've always asked: Why do some kids have so much trouble learning to read and how do we determine the best way, the most effective way to teach struggling readers?

That was the beginning and since that time, I've asked that question and learned more and more and the research has enlightened us to begin to get more direction and assessment has been, I think the key that helps us identify where those kids are struggling and why they're struggling, and then being able to pinpoint exactly where the intervention comes.

So, I started in that classroom. I decided that more degrees would help me understand how kids learn to read better. So, I did a master's degree in reading and special ed and spent my time doing miscue analysis, counting those and getting in trouble for answering the wrong questions when asked how to help struggling readers because I would say: "Well, let's have them read nonsense words." And my professor would say: "Oh, Susan, Susan, if reading for meaning is the answer, why would you have them read nonsense words?"

That was probably in the maybe later '70s when whole language was so prominent, and that's the way that I was trained at that time, even though I had gotten phoneme correspondence classes at Florida State before that. So, I went through that period of time. I finished that degree, went over to Vanderbilt Medical Center, worked in child psychiatry. My job there was to do assessment. So, all of the students who came in to be inpatients needed to be evaluated. I started and continued my journey and assessment there.

After my time at Vanderbilt University in that kind of setting, I went into private practice and I began to see kids, all kinds of students with reading difficulties, and I continued my quest to try to understand it more and more each year, each decade that came along. And then probably around 2003, I got exposed to DIBELS. I got to go down to Florida. At that time, Florida was doing a statewide training of all their teachers in DIBELS. So, I got that training and that seemed to clarify some of my questions. If we could have a really quick instrument to screen all kids and identify those who were at risk and then pinpoint the instruction, gosh, that made a lot of sense.

After that, I went and did The Reading First and went around the country doing training, both in assessment and intervention, helped with the beginning of LETRS with assessment. And so, all of those years together have brought me to this point where I write books about it now, and I have written some books trying to help early teachers understand the importance of assessment and how it can provide a road map for what we do in the classroom.

That's a quick overview of the five decades, Pam, how I got started and where I am now, and how I'm just convinced that assessment gives us a really clear road map and the best way to help kids.

PA: Wow. Susan, that was five decades in a nutshell.

PA: The beginning only wanting to know why, why some of your students struggling and continuing to ask the why. Only to discover that assessment is the key, right?

SS: Absolutely. Helps us with so much.

PA: Right, definitely. You mentioned DIBELS is that avenue, which is now Acadience ® with Dr. Roland Good and Dr. Ruth Kaminski. I can see you've had experience with that form of assessment myself. You recently shared a quote from Charles Dickens as you described the landscape of literacy across America today by saying, and I quote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," from The Tale of Two Cities.

PA: Tell me why this resonates with you and how it applies to reading instruction.

SS: Well, Pam, you probably experienced this too. When we talk to educators, we hear their excitement about there's so much we know now. We know so much more about how the brain learns to read. We've got brain imaging. We've got five decades of research that's consensus research. So, we've got so much more information than we've ever had. It's at our fingertips on social media anytime of the day. But on the other hand, the worst of times we have unprecedented challenges as educators. We have growing workloads, we have less time to provide the students with individual attention. We have politicians who've never studied literacy or the science of learning telling us how we can teach. We are trying to accelerate from the learning loss that we've had.

We've got summer school going on, we've got lots of tutoring going on, students with such divergent needs, too few resources, and teacher shortages. So, on the one hand, it's the best of times because of the knowledge that we've acquired. It's a really challenging time for educators as well. Sec. Cardona (U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. Miguel Cardona) said a few weeks ago, although we've got all of this going on and divisiveness as well politically related to educators, all through it all, you as educators focus on what matters most. Educators are continuing to focus their attention on their students, and I think that captures it really well, and it's a difficult time for teachers.

PA: Yes. I would have to agree with you because now we have the knowledge, but a clear path for applying that knowledge is not directly there.

PA: How do you see educators moving into a more positive place, thinking about all those challenges you just discussed, for them to feel more confident that they are providing an evidence-based reading instruction for all their learners, especially for our struggling readers?

SS: Well, recently, Deb Glaser and I revised the Next STEPS in Literacy Instruction: Connecting Assessments to Effective Interventions that we wrote back in 2010, and in this version, we just narrowed all of the chatter down into two primary focuses that we think will make the biggest difference for teachers. One is Multi-Tiered Systems of Support and the other is Structured Literacy. I think those are the two, gosh, methods, approaches that educators could lean into and see that they're getting better outcomes for their students.

PA: Great. I like the term narrow the chatter. It gives a laser focus for teachers. Could you define or elaborate on those two concepts there?

SS: Yeah. Probably a better description would be two proven practices, and I think of these as game changers as we sort through that chatter. Let's talk first about what is Structured Literacy. We've got decades of reading intervention research with compelling evidence that teaching phoneme awareness and phonics, orthography, morphology, syntax, semantics in an integrated and woven simultaneous manner through explicit instruction and lots of opportunities to read connected texts will improve reading outcomes for all students who are struggling to read, including those students with dyslexia. This body of research comes together, this evidence makes up Structured Literacy, and it's the foundation for the science of reading as we hear a lot about today.

PA: So, the research says foundation, and then MTSS?

SS: Multi-Tiered Systems of Support is the framework for implementing the Structured Literacy. Structured Literacy, you might think of as the content or what of the big puzzle and then MTSS or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support is the how, how do we do that? It's the framework for implementing it, and it includes three tiers of instruction, which are all given to students with varying levels of support that they may need. With Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, it requires a comprehensive system of assessments. We look at screening, we look at progress monitoring, we look at diagnostic assessment and outcome evaluation, and the goal of assessment under MTSS is then to guide the instruction and the intervention so that we match the instruction to the assessment data to the individual student's needs. Those are the two things that I think will make a tremendous difference in some of the noise or chatter we talked about if teachers can begin to move into Structured Literacy and MTSS.

PA: Understanding the what and the how. As simple as that, right?

SS: Yeah. Yeah.

PA: Let's talk a bit about the results of an assessment in the next step. What exactly is an educator looking for and where does he go from there?

SS: Well, one of the things that we've done in this book is provide what's called the Oral Reading Fluency Decision Tree. In that decision tree, we help teachers take their assessment data from a curriculum-based measure, Oral Reading Fluency, take the screening and then drill down depending on how the student performs on the screener. We talk about a diagnostic measure, and then we talk about the importance of progress monitoring. So, that is included, and I think your participants have access to that Oral Reading Fluency Decision Tree when they listen to the podcast and they can follow along. I can go into more detail with that, Pam. Would that be helpful to tell listeners how to use that decision tree?

PA: I think so, because understanding what to do next, having your finger on the pulse of where students are so that you can take that next step with confidence.

SS: Yeah, and next step is right, but the first step of the next step, which would be to do a formative assessment and to use this Oral Reading Fluency Measure to do that, and then we look for trouble spots in there. For example, if you have a student read and a student scores below 95 percent, it's time to dig deeper. If the student scores above 95 percent on the Oral Reading Fluency measure, you congratulate your student and you celebrate. That student would appear to be on track for reading success. But as we go down deeper into the decision tree, we look at what would you do if the child was not reading on the path to be successful?

So, if you have a student whose accuracy is below 95 percent, the first thing you would do is ask the student to read, listen to the student read. Are the errors of result of reading too fast? Then, talk to the student about when we read to learn something, we redefine out what the author wants us to learn, and that means we need to read every word carefully. So, keep up your pace while you're reading to help you remember, read carefully. That's an example of if you listen to the student, what you might find out. You might find out that they're having trouble decoding. They're just not recognizing the words. If the student is more below benchmark and you're concerned about the type of errors that they make, then you know that intervention on word recognition or decoding would be the focus of your instruction. Sometimes, students can read the words accurately and they just read slowly. Then, you would begin to consider improving the fluency of the reading and maybe not need so much to work on the decoding.

Those are the kinds of things we would ask first, and then we would dig deeper and say: "Well, perhaps we need to do a phonics assessment." We would recommend, and in the decision tree, you'll see the different routes to go depending on how the students perform. In the phonics assessment, you may use the Acadience ® Nonsense Word Fluency or Letter Naming and begin to ask, are they reading sound by sound? Are they reading only the first word? Are they reading final words? And then there are phonic surveys that can dig deeper. Some are free. We talk about those in the book, some can be purchased. Then, we follow up that diagnostic query and assessment with systematic, explicit, cumulative scope and sequence, and corrective feedback.

So, if phonics is where the area of weakness is, that gives you a road map of what to do. Sometimes, it's phoneme awareness. So, we talk about if it looks like it's a phoneme awareness issue and you can diagnose that, and then we talk about the instruction needed for phoneme awareness. Are the students not segmenting yet? Do they just know initial sounds? Are they inconsistent? We, of course, progress monitor, and that's part of the decision tree and the road map. We've got to make sure that what we're doing is effective and is working, and if not, we have to determine what's the next best step for the student based on the data.

The other thing would be we talk about how frequency words as part of that. Is that where the breakdown is for this student? Does it have to do with those, as we call them Dolch and Fry words back in the day that we think of today as high-frequency words? And so we have screening diagnostic measures also to help teachers pinpoint which of those words they need to focus their instruction on. So, that's a quick summary, Pam, of this tool that we think is going to cut out, decrease the chatter and some of the frustration as teachers begin to look at their data and make decisions about how to plan effective instruction.

PA: Right. What you've just done for us is using that decision tree. You've walked through many of those trouble spots in literacy. You mentioned fluency, phonemic awareness, the phonics. It sounds like these are major important parts that instruction for literacy needs to fit in. And if we're thinking about all the five components, where does vocabulary and comprehension fit in as well when we think about integrating all five of those essential components of reading during instruction for all students, not just during intervention, correct?

SS: Exactly. We're talking about all students. We're talking about Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III. We're talking about small-group instruction, but the need to integrate or weave together, all five of those essential components happens all day and every day. I can give you an example. If we were teaching kindergartners, when we were teaching phoneme awareness and we were saying, "We're going to learn a new sound today. It's the /m/ sound. Everybody make that /m/ sound. Rub your tummy as you have a delicious treat, /m/ sound." And we could talk about how it resonates in their nose and their lips and so forth. And then we could say, "This letter represents the /m/ sound." Then, we could talk about a word "map" and we could write a sentence and show them how the /m/ sound is represented by the M grapheme and what the word map is. We could build in conversations about what is a map, who's seen a map, what's an example of a map or a mop or whatever the word may be.

So, we could talk about vocabulary there. We could ask the kids to turn to their buddy and give them a sentence with a word with that /m/ sound in it. So, throughout teaching phoneme awareness or phonics, we are also integrating language and vocabulary. It's woven together. The last page and then the last slide when we would present this training across the country was a woven slide that showed all of the five components woven together. Pam, it looked a little bit like the pot holders. Remember back in the day when we had a loom and we could take these different pieces of fabric and weave them together to make a potholder. This may be before your time, but that's the graphic, that's the image that we use to try to help represent the interrelatedness of the five components. They are simultaneously taught, they are woven together throughout the day. It's interactive with kids talking to each other.

Mark Seidenberg, a few years ago, wrote about the silos and what are the outcomes of the National Reading Panel in 2000 was, yes, we got these five essential components of reading identified, and yes, we went around the country in Reading First, teaching all those five components, but many of us lacked the focus on integration and synthesis and weaving together simultaneously. I think that's another takeaway is that yes, we have to teach, it's essential, we teach all five of the components, but throughout our instruction throughout the day, we weave them together. So, we're building the oral language, the comprehension, as well as those foundation skills.

PA: So, integration is the key. Would you say that, Susan?

SS: I would. I'm trying to think of other words. Integration, simultaneously, weaving together. We try to think of as many ways as we can to make that point of not isolation. You just don't do phoneme awareness and then go do something else. Or you don't just do phonics and then go do something else. Throughout your lesson, you're integrating.

PA: Getting back to assessment, in a nutshell, tell our listeners how to take the guesswork out of intervention and transform those struggling students into skilled readers.

SS: Yeah. Assessment, formative assessment, which are typically curriculum-based measures, are typically one-minute quick assessments that are a flashlight, a guide light. The information you get from that provides the map for the intervention, and it helps you pinpoint exactly where your instruction needs to be. The other part you must do is progress monitoring to ask: "Is this working? Am I doing effective intervention?" So, if we just had the map and all we did, Pam, was identify the area and provide intervention, that's only half the ball game. We have to know and document and measure if our intervention is working and change it if it's not working. Try something that might be more effective.

PA: Are we doing the right things and are we doing the things right?

SS: Yes. Brilliant. Can I quote you?

PA: Well, it didn't come from me. I'm not sure who I am quoting, but I just love that saying.

SS: Yes, I may borrow that.

PA: Definitely. So, just as a reminder, you have provided a handout called Oral Reading Fluency Decision Tree that you walked through with us just a little while ago. Listeners can download this handbook from our website. I do want to say thank you for joining us today, Dr. Smartt. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. It's been inspiring, and I know I speak for educators everywhere when I say we thank you for your dedication to literacy learning through appropriate reading intervention. Please tell our listeners how they can learn more about you, your research, and the new edition of your book, Next STEPS in Literacy Instruction: Connecting Assessments to Effective Intervention.

SS: Thanks, Pam. The new book will be published. It's Brookes Publishing. It should come out in September of this year. The title is Next STEPS in Literacy Instruction: Connecting Assessments to Effective Intervention, and Deb Glaser is my co-author on that. So, look for that. The other claim to fame in 2020, Marty Haugen and I published a textbook for literacy instruction for those 18-, 19-year-old young people who want to be teachers, and the name of that book is Fundamentals of Literacy Instruction & Assessment. This time, when we did this revision in 2020, it was also identified as exemplary by the National Council on Teacher Quality. So, my hope is that we're catching teachers early and helping them understand the importance of assessment with intervention and effective instruction.

PA: Thank you, Dr. Smartt, for sharing such high-quality resources, and yes, we want to catch teachers early.

PA: Great. Thank you once again. This is Pam Austin, bringing the best thought leaders in education directly to you. Please join us next month for another great EDVIEW360 podcast.

Narrator: This has been an EDVIEW360 podcast. For additional thought-provoking discussions, sign up for our blog, webinar, and podcast series at voyagersopris.com/edview360. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts and to help other people like you find our show. Thank you.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Determining the Right Literacy Intervention: Using Assessment to Guide your Course

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
What happens after a formative literacy assessment? How can educators translate the results into targeted interventions and improved reading outcomes?

# data[].attributes.headline
Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension: Fueling the Reading Brain With Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Rich Language

# data[].attributes.subject
Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension: Fueling the Reading Brain With Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Rich Language

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.alternative_text
Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension: Fueling the Reading Brain With Knowledge, Vocabulary, and Rich Language