The Science of Reading
How did you learn to read? Was reading an enjoyable experience for you, or one that brought about a lot of stress and anxiety? I grew up in a home where reading occurred often and in a positive and encouraging environment, yet I hated to read until I was in the fourth grade. While I am a FIRM believer that being read to at an early age has significant and positive effects educationally and relationally, it is becoming increasingly apparent that just being a lover of books and being read to doesn’t mean that learning to read is easy and will come naturally.
My mother (the one that read nightly to me) and I have recently been discussing different methods of reading instruction. To be upfront, the two of us have taught in some capacity at the elementary level for over a combined 50 years and were both college professors who taught and supervised future elementary teachers. With that background, conversations like this are just par for the course. My mother recalls learning phonics- or the study of the sounds that letters or groups of letters make- extensively. I, on the other hand, don’t recall as much specific phonics instruction (I’ve actually started learning more phonics guidelines as an adult). My mother can spell anything; I have often been grateful to have the use of a spell-checking device at my fingertips! So, how does this translate to learning (and enjoying) to read?
Reading and the Brain
Learning to read is not a natural or automatic function of the brain (Miller, 2023). In her article on childmind.org, Miller goes on to discuss how learning to read uses multiple parts of the brain because it requires the use of one section for sound and speech production, and others for sound processing and visual recognition. Each of these areas has to be developed, and they have to learn to work together to produce fluent reading. Fluent reading then promotes reading comprehension.
Schwartz and Sparks (2019) succinctly lay out what research has shown about how the brain learns to read and the best practice for instruction:
But research has shown that reading is not a natural process, and it’s not a guessing game. Written language is a code. Certain combinations of letters predictably represent certain sounds. And for the last few decades, the research has been clear: Teaching young kids how to crack the code—teaching systematic phonics—is the most reliable way to make sure that they learn how to read words.
Recognizing the sounds associated with each symbol (letter), the patterns these sounds create, and ultimately, how the sounds collectively create a word is critical for a deep understanding of reading and writing. This was the approach my mother was taught, but it has not always been the approach used in American education. Thankfully, there is a growing movement to go back to including more phonics instruction for our early readers. Whole word memorization, using picture clues, and word guessing have been used frequently, and it has become evident that these strategies are not as effective across the board as systematic phonics instruction. Even above-grade-level readers who are not fluent in phonics patterns are showing deficits in writing/spelling because they do not understand how sound fully translates to symbols (letters). These same readers are then at a disadvantage when trying to read higher level texts where they may encounter new vocabulary that they cannot decode and in writing/spelling.
Students who have learning challenges such as dyslexia, have an even more difficult time learning to read. Miller (2023) refers to clinical expert, Michael Cruger, Ph. D. who explains that dyslexia can create difficulties with the brain effectively working with all of the necessary areas required to read. The parts of the brain most affected are those that handle decoding (symbol to sound). Another clinical expert at the Child Mind Institute, Laura Phillips, PsyD explains that:
What works best for children learning to read, says Dr. Philips, is systematic phonics instruction, with a lot of repetition. Systematic, she explains, means moving step-by-step through a progression of phonics skills, from learning to recognize the most common and consistent letter-sound patterns to harder and less consistent letter-sound patterns. This method is especially important for children with dyslexia, who need a high dose of it to succeed, but also for the many other children who struggle to learn through other reading programs. (Miller, 2023)
Tips for Adults
Read to the children in your life! Help them to experience reading in a positive way and gain a great starting awareness of symbol (letter) to sound connections, vocabulary, and story structure. You can work on connecting the symbol of a letter to its sound. Instead of just asking children to name the letters, have them tell you the sound each letter makes. In fact, starting with sound recognition and then moving to the letter name is great. Work with your child to encode and decode words. That means that they can split apart a word that you say and tell you each sound, and they can use sounds to tell you a word. Make a game of saying the sounds (/c/ /a/ /t/) of a word and having your child tell you the word is (cat), and vice versa.
Switching out vowel sounds can also be a fun game. What would cat be with the /e/ (short e) sound? This can be an easy game to play while driving because it requires nothing but the ability to hear each other.
It is also important to encourage your child to sound out unknown words both when reading and spelling. Let them wrestle with it a little to learn and understand the phonics patterns and how they work. Encourage them to stretch the sounds out and use their phonics understanding instead of just looking for pictures or other context clues within the passage. You can also help them to find patterns in words (an is the same sound in can, ran, fan, etc.), and find rhyming words.
Remember that reading doesn’t just happen. It is hard brain work! WPT is here if you have a child struggling with reading. Our program is designed around this research-based phonics instruction and uses multiple tools to help children (and adults) succeed. We would love to help!
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Miller, C. (2023, January 9). How kids learn to read: And why effective instruction makes a big difference. Child Mind Institute.
Schwartz, S., & Sparks, S. D. (2022, August 30). How do kids learn to read? What the science says. Education Week.
