The Science of Reading:
Evidence for a New Era of Reading Instruction

What does the science of reading say about the five components of reading and which components to emphasize throughout a child's development? What are the principles of evidence-based reading instruction that exemplify a science of reading approach? Read the white paper by Laura Stewart, author and national director for The Reading League.

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THE PROMISE AND THE PERIL

Delivering on the promise of education starts with the mastery of the most fundamental foundational skill—the ability to read. Not only is reading critical to the success of further education, but it also is an expected accomplishment in order to thrive in contemporary society. Of equal importance, leading a literate life can bring immense joy and beauty to a human being’s life.

Yet many children today are not learning to read. Currently in the United States, only about one-third of our fourth graders are reading at grade level with accuracy, fluency, and understanding (NCES, 2019). This number is unchanged in eighth and twelfth grades and has been relatively flat over time. In international comparisons, 15-year-olds in the United States rank 24th out of the 72 participating countries in overall literacy, lowest among English-speaking countries (OECD, 2015).

These figures are alarming, especially in an era when the literacy skills required to function in the world have never been more important. The promise of literacy for all seems out of reach for many of our youngest citizens.

“The attainment of reading skill has fascinated psychologists and invited more study than any other aspect of human cognition due to its social importance and complexity.”
—Moats and Tolman, 2009, p. 31

It doesn’t have to be this way. While many factors contribute to low reading achievement, nearly everyone can learn to read with evidence-based reading instruction.

Why? Because reading is a learned skill—like riding a bike or playing a musical instrument. There are accepted principles of instruction to guide teaching so that students become successful in this most important endeavor. We know a great deal about learning to read.

THE POWER OF EVIDENCE

The past 40 years has yielded tremendous, interdisciplinary insights into the process of learning to read, gathered from developmental psychology, cognitive neuropsychology, developmental linguistics, and educational intervention research. Indeed, this is the most studied aspect of human learning. Dozens of journals publish empirical research on reading. Major research syntheses from English-speaking countries have been consistent in the findings on learning to read and teaching reading (NICHD 2000; Rowe & National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy, 2005; Rose, 2006; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). Because of its volume, nature, and consistency, current research around reading embodies what is considered the science of reading.

If the evidence is overwhelming and compelling, why are so many children failing to learn to read? Despite a preponderance of evidence about what constitutes good reading instruction, these false theories persist:

• Reading is as natural as speaking, therefore immersing children in print and literature will teach children to read.
• Teaching young children to look at pictures, skip over words, or guess at words based on context will develop the strategies necessary for reading comprehension.
• There are hundreds of ways to learn to read, therefore there is no single set of instructional principles that will work for all children.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE PROCESS OF LEARNING TO READ

First words, first steps, and learning to read are milestone moments. Of these milestones, most children naturally learn to speak and walk as part of the human experience. But when it comes to reading, “human beings were never born to read” (Wolf, 2018). While some children seem to effortlessly begin reading, the majority of people need to be taught. Reading and writing are recent inventions in the grand scope of humanity. Although spoken language is “hard wired” inside the human brain and the brain is fully adapted for language processing, the written code has not been around long enough for humans to have developed a “reading brain” (Wolf, 2007; Dehaene, 2009). Rather, the neural circuitry that is necessary to read is created primarily through instruction.

“Within his brain, the child is literally building the neural circuitry that links the sounds of spoken words, the phonemes, to the print code, the letters that represent those sounds.”
—Shaywitz, 2003, p. 177

The past three decades have produced exciting evidence about what happens in the brain during reading and what needs to take place instructionally in order to wire the brain to be able to read. Through the advancement of fMRI technology, researchers have compared the neural systems of fluent readers to the neural systems of struggling readers. These studies reveal what needs to happen to build efficient neural connections for reading.

Three primary regions of the brain are associated with reading (Sandak, Mencl, Frost, & Pugh, 2004; Houde, Rossi, Lubin, & Joliot, 2010). The phonological processor, toward the front of the brain on the left side, is the part of the brain that handles spoken language. Virtually everyone is born with this language area intact; children learn to speak and to understand speech just by being immersed in language. The orthographic processor, toward the back of the brain on the left side, is the part of the brain that deals with visual images. Most everyone also has the visual part of the brain intact; children easily recognize images, such as objects and faces. But no one is born with the neural system connecting vision and speech, the phonological assembly region of the brain, and this is the system that enables reading. This system must be built through successful instructional experiences (American Psychological Association, 2014; Hruby & Goswami, 2011; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2004; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2008). Clearly, then, one of the first “calls to action” with a beginning reader is to develop the connection between phonology and orthography (print and sound)—the essential alphabetic principle.

Brain imaging studies have taken place throughout the United States, and the images are consistent again and again; therefore, what has to take place instructionally is consistent as well. As cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene states, “It simply is not true that there are hundreds of ways to learn to read. … When it comes to reading, all [children] have roughly the same brain that imposes the same constraints and the same learning sequence” (2009).

“…the potential of neuroscience to help expand our understanding of reading processes, their development, and their occasional dysfunction is profound.”
—Hruby & Goswami, 2011, p. 170

Knowing the regions of the reading brain is helpful in understanding neural activity during the act of reading. It’s also helpful to explore the theoretical underpinnings of the science of reading. Researchers have developed the following frameworks to describe how children learn to read:

When thinking about the essential skills and capabilities necessary to “build the reading brain,” Gough and Tunmer’s model known as the Simple View of Reading is helpful in framing the essential equation. The premise is that strong reading comprehension results only when both decoding (defined here as word recognition) and language comprehension (sometimes referred to as listening comprehension or linguistic comprehension) are strong. In other words, children need to learn essential skills to get the text off the page while also developing their understanding of the world and of literacy. It is important to note that the formula for the Simple View is deliberately multiplicative, not additive. Although reading is inherently complex, this model is helpful in that the essential subskills of reading can be assigned to the domains on the left side of the equation.

Hollis Scarborough’s “rope model” provides a vivid and elegant visual metaphor of the word recognition and language comprehension subskills that combine as skilled reading is accomplished. The subskills are like strands in a rope that become more intertwined and integrated as reading skills develop.

Both the Simple View and the Rope Model are helpful in understanding what essential elements need to be taught and developed as children learn to read. A key question emerges: What should be emphasized instructionally? To determine the answer, one must consider brain-energy allocation. For readers to be able to navigate through text and utilize language comprehension strategies, a level of automaticity in word recognition needs to be secured. Therefore the goal is to develop that strong and stable neural system early on, through instruction, to allow for instant retrieval of words; or in other words, to access words from memory by sight. “Sight word reading” is not limited to high-frequency or non-decodable words; this simply refers to the automatic retrieval of words without conscious attention. When words are recognized instantaneously, readers can focus their attention on constructing the meaning of text.

The central focus of this model is that to be able to recognize words “by sight” during fluent reading, a reader must master phoneme-grapheme mapping, or the alphabetic principle. This understanding progresses in phases, each supported by specific instruction. The phases are not stages, as they are part of a predictable developmental continuum.

• Prealphabetic reading: The child may use incidental visual clues to “read” familiar words but does not yet understand that letters represent speech sounds.
• Partial alphabetic reading and writing: The child has some letter-knowledge and phoneme awareness and may represent some letter-sounds in words.
• Full alphabetic reading and writing: The child has phoneme awareness, knows basic sound/symbol correspondences, and can sound out words and spell phonetically.
• Consolidated alphabetic reading: The child has some sight vocabulary, uses strategies to figure out unknown words, and may segment words into morphological units. Because the recognition of words is mostly automatic, attention can be devoted primarily to comprehension.

"Word recognition is the foundation of reading; all other processes are dependent on it."
—Snowling & Hulme, 2011

Orthographic mapping is the name given to the process of effortless retrieval of words inherent in skilled reading and described by the Simple View of Reading, Scarborough’s Rope, and the Phases of Word-Reading Development.

The orthographic mapping process essentially explains how a reader develops a sight vocabulary; readers move from letter-sound knowledge to phonic decoding to orthographic mapping. This is not a visual process; we don’t store and retrieve words visually. Every step in word-reading development requires deep, secure phonologic integration. Orthographic mapping is a natural outcome of effective reading instruction, and, once in place, readers rapidly accelerate their acquisition of sight words.

“Orthographic mapping is the process readers use to store written words for immediate, effortless retrieval. It is a means by which readers turn unfamiliar written words into familiar, instantaneously accessible sight words.”
—Kilpatrick, 2015, p. 81

WHAT NEEDS TO BE TAUGHT

Considering the significant evidence on how humans develop as readers, many researchers have sought to answer the question “What needs to be taught?” The National Reading Panel (NRP) was convened to review scientific studies of effective reading instruction and answer this question. In the Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000), the panel identified the five components of reading that are essential and effective when taught thoroughly and skillfully:

• Phonemic awareness: Phonemic awareness is awareness of the smallest units of sound in spoken words (phonemes) and the ability to manipulate those sounds. Phonemic awareness falls under the category of phonological awareness, which includes the understanding of broader categories of sounds, including words, syllables, and onsets and rimes. Although the NRP identified “awareness” as the goal, subsequent research specifically on orthographic mapping has yielded an understanding that phonemic proficiency is both critical to and a result of orthographic mapping, and it continues to develop throughout the elementary grades (Kilpatrick, 2015).
• Phonics: Phonics is a way of teaching that stresses the acquisition of letter-sound correspondences (phoneme-grapheme representations) and their use in reading and spelling.
• Fluent text reading: Fluency is reading with accuracy, appropriate rate, and prosody (expression).
• Vocabulary: Vocabulary is the understanding of words and word meanings.
• Comprehension: Comprehension—the understanding of connected text—is considered an “essential element” of reading, but it is more accurately the goal of reading and the result of mastery and integration of all the components of effective instruction.

Although they were not reported by the NRP, written expression (or composition) and oral language (speaking and listening) are also considered essential components for literacy. Since the report of the NRP, none of its findings have been refuted and the evidence has been corroborated and expanded upon.

It is important to recognize that instructional emphasis differs depending on the child’s development. Although all these elements are essential, in the prealphabetic phase, alphabet knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language are emphasized. In the partial alphabetic and full alphabetic phases, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition, and spelling should be emphasized in order to secure the neural connections and free up brain energy for deeper comprehension. Vocabulary and comprehension are taught in all phases, beginning with reading aloud to children until they can accurately read substantive text by themselves. Reading with fluency, expanding vocabulary, and deciphering ever-more-complex words through advanced phonemic awareness and phonics are emphasized in the consolidated alphabetic phase and beyond, throughout the elementary years.

“How do children learn to read?…The answer is the same for all children. Cultural, economic, and educational circumstances obviously affect children’s progress, but what they need to learn does not change.”
—Seidenberg, 2017, p. 101

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: INSTRUCTION COUNTS

Because reading is not a natural process, as educators consider the importance of developing the essential neural system for reading through instruction focused on the skills and subskills involved in effective reading, these key evidence-based principles of instruction are essential:

• Explicit and systematic phonics instruction is critical for learning to read. Phonics instruction goes beyond letter-sounds and includes phonological awareness and proficiency (particularly phonemic proficiency), phoneme grapheme mapping, syllable patterns, and morphology. Phonics instruction continues throughout the elementary grades to build deep and secure neural systems for sight word recognition. (Adams, 1990; Stanovich & Stanovich, 2003; Foorman, Francis, Fletcher, Schatschneider, & Mehta, 1998; Pennington, 2009; NICHD 2000; Kilpatrick, 2015; Yoncheva, Wise, & McCandless, 2015).
• Instruction must be explicit; explicit instruction begins with direct instruction and includes guided practice with decreasing levels of support. In explicit instruction, the objective of the lesson is clear and teaching is intentional (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983; Archer & Hughes, 2011).
• Instruction must be systematic; systematic instruction provides a definite scope and sequence of skills from less complex to more complex and includes cumulative review. When instruction is systematic, nothing is left to chance; for example, all 44 phonemes are taught in a deliberate progression (NICHD 2000; Shaywitz, 2003; McCardle & Chhabra, 2004).
• Instruction should be engaging. When students understand the purpose for the learning tasks, are provided opportunities for incremental steps of success, and see their own realities reflected in the curriculum, they see learning as relevant to their lives and are therefore more deeply engaged (Pressley, et al., 2001; Chopra, 1994; Jackson & Zmuda, 2014).
• Early instruction matters; a prevention-oriented approach is more effective than intervention. There are devastating educational, social, and emotional consequences of reading failure that can be prevented with effective early instruction (Fletcher, Lyon, Fuchs, & Barnes, 2007; Foorman, 2003; Torgesen, 2002). Higher levels of literacy are possible when students achieve basic reading skills early in their school careers (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Foorman, Francis, Shaywitz, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1997). Although older students with reading difficulties can improve, the later the intervention, the longer it takes (Torgesen, 2002); also, many times the effects of remedial instruction may dissipate over time (Quirk & Schwanenflugel, 2004).
• Instruction needs to be intensive. Instruction is data-driven and focused on essential skills. All students receive high-quality, evidence-aligned tier one instruction. Students at risk are identified early on and are provided with specific, targeted instruction; progress is monitored and adjusted continually (Fuchs, Fuchs, & Vaughn, 2014; Kilpatrick, 2015).

NEXT STEPS

We have a long way to go to improve literacy outcomes for all children, but the time is rife with potential. We can stop doing what doesn’t work, and we can dismiss outdated practices based on misconceptions about the process of reading. Instead we can be guided by the evidence.

But we can’t teach what we don’t know. According to the National Council on Teacher Quality, only 37 percent of elementary and special education programs appear to be teaching scientifically based reading methods to preservice teachers. And yet research has proven that it is a knowledgeable teacher who makes the difference in student achievement: “Teacher knowledge and instructional expertise have been found in correlational and pre- and post-test students to be related to student reading achievement” (Lyon & Weiser, 2009, p. 475). Supporting teachers in preservice and in-service professional development around the science of reading is critical.

IN CONCLUSION

We know a great deal about how the brain develops as we learn to read. We know what instructional practices are effective for all children. And we are secure in the knowledge that “A large body of research evidence shows that with appropriate, intensive instruction, all but the most severe reading disabilities can be ameliorated in the early grades and students can get on track toward academic success” (Moats, 2011).

Right now many of our nation’s children are not proficient readers. We can change that and deliver on the promise of literacy for all.