From Research to Practice: The Science of Reading in Action

Are you an educator new to the Science of Reading and preparing to make the shift ? Or a literacy expert looking to strengthen your Science of Reading implementation? We have tips, and insights to help you on your Science of Reading journey.

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The Importance of the Science of Reading

The Science of Reading is a large body of research on how children learn to read. Gathered over the past 40 years, this evidence-based body of knowledge highlights the most effective strategies for teaching children how to read. For example, the Science of Reading indicates that students need systematic, explicit instruction in the following critical elements of reading: phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. When students are directly taught these essential skills while they are learning to read, they will have a better chance of becoming successful readers.

What Are The Five Pillars of Reading?

Five Pillars of Reading
Effective Evidenced Based Reading Instruction
Practices to Avoid

Science of Reading Components

Phonological Awareness: Phonological awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the sounds in spoken language. Phonological awareness includes word awareness, rhyme awareness, syllable awareness, onset and rime awareness, and phonemic awareness.
Phonics: Phonics is the ability to associate the sounds of spoken language with the letters of written text. Letter-sound correspondences, decoding, and encoding are skills that students learn and practise as they grow in their phonics abilities.
Fluency: Fluency is the ability to read words at an appropriate speed, accurately, and with expression. These three components of fluency are often known as rate, accuracy, and prosody. Strong fluency requires that students are able to read with automaticity.
Vocabulary: Vocabulary is the knowledge of the meaning of words and the ability to apply that knowledge to text. Vocabulary is often deeply intertwined with background knowledge. Content vocabulary is specific to a subject area, whereas academic vocabulary is used across multiple subject areas.
Comprehension: Comprehension is the ability to read, process, and understand the meaning of written text. A common formula for comprehension is: Word Reading + Vocabulary + Background Knowledge = Reading Comprehension. Comprehension is a skill that grows throughout a person’s lifetime.

Effective Evidenced Based Reading Instruction

Explicit instruction:Explicit instruction is clear, direct instruction. The components of explicit instruction include articulating the skill, telling students why they’re learning the skill, applying the skill, scaffolding lessons in the gradual release model, providing feedback, and checking for understanding.
Systematic Instruction: Systematic instruction is sequenced: lessons are carefully planned out and delivered in an order — or sequence — that builds upon the students’ prior knowledge and moves from simple to more complex skills or concepts.
Integrated Instruction: Integrated instruction involves teaching a skill, and then giving students multiple subsequent opportunities to apply and practise that skill, especially in other content areas such as writing, science, or math.
Engaging Instruction: Engaging instruction captures students’ interests and inspires a love of learning. Science of Reading research identifies student engagement as one of the critical components to effective reading instruction right along with explicit, systematic, and integrated instruction.
Multisensory Instruction: Multisensory lessons incorporate multiple learning modalities, such as speaking, listening, moving, touching, reading, and writing activities. Combining visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning can activate different parts of the brain and stimulate growth.

Practices to Avoid

Avoid Cueing Systems: Cueing systems, such as the “3-cueing system,” encourage students to use “cues” (such as “picture cues” or “context cues”) to read words, which often leads to guessing. With the Science of Reading, students should learn how to decode and encode words as part of phonics instruction.
Avoid Rote Memorization of Sight Words: Avoid using rote memorization to teach “sight words.” Instead, with the Science of Reading, students should learn how to decode and encode words as part of phonics instruction. Even irregular words, such as “of” and “was,” can be explicitly taught using phoneme-grapheme mapping to highlight regular and unexpected sound patterns in these words.
Avoid Silent Fluency: Avoid having students practise fluency skills primarily via silent reading. When instruction is aligned with the Science of Reading, students will have ample opportunity to practice fluency by reading aloud.
Instead of relying on levelled readers, particularly in early literacy instruction, use decodable readers to help build and reinforce students’ phonic skills when students are learning to read. Especially with beginning readers, avoid sorting students into reading groups based on reading ability and having them practise reading using levelled texts. Instead, make sure all students have the opportunity to practise their reading skills with rich, engaging grade-level texts.
Science of Reading vs. Balanced Literacy: Balanced literacy is a loosely defined term that means different things to different educators. However, most forms of balanced literacy rely on implicit instruction (e.g., skills are not directly taught) for teaching foundational reading skills. However, without explicit instruction in these skills many students will struggle to become strong, independent readers. Look for instructional programs that are rooted in the evidenced based instruction.