The Science of Reading is a comprehensive body of research that draws from years of scientific knowledge across various languages and contributions from experts in education, special education, literacy, psychology, neurology, and more.
This research offers conclusive and empirically supported insights into how we learn to read, the essential skills involved, their interactions, and the brain regions responsible for reading development. Scarborough’s Reading Rope (Figure 1.1) demonstrates the many components needed to learn to read.
The National Reading Panel1, using decades of research has identified five critical areas of reading instruction:
- Phonemic Awareness
- Phonics
- Fluency
- Vocabulary
- Comprehension
In addition to these five areas, writing is also an essential component of our language arts curriculum. Writing deepens students' understanding of the content, promotes deeper comprehension, and supports retention.
In Fairfield City Schools, we continue to build upon a strong foundation of literacy instruction that is grounded in research, experience, and timely professional learning for all staff. Our K-5 literacy experience is differentiated to meet the needs of individual students. We believe in including explicit instruction of the word recognition skills along with the developing language comprehension through reading workshop and small group instruction in the classroom.
The table below shows specifically how Fairfield City Schools envelops the Science of Reading through our reading curriculum.
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Science of Reading Component
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How Fairfield City Schools Addresses These Skills
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Phonemic/Phonological Awareness
“Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the spoken parts of words. The levels of phonological awareness are, from simplest to most complex: syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes. Phonemic awareness is the ability to identify and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words” 2
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K-1
- Daily phonemic awareness lessons for all kindergarten and first grade students
2-5
- Phonemic awareness instruction for targeted groups that demonstrate continued/additional need
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Systematic Phonics/Word Study Instruction
“The hallmark of programs of systematic phonics instruction is the direct teaching of a set of letter-sound relationships in a clearly defined sequence. The set includes the major sound/spelling relationships of both consonants and vowels.
The programs also provide materials that give children substantial practice in applying knowledge of these relationships as they read and write. These materials include books or stories that contain a large number of words that children can decode by using the letter-sound relationships they have learned and are learning. The programs also might provide children with opportunities to spell words and to write their own stories with the letter-sound relationships they are learning.” 3
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K-2
- Daily systematic phonics instruction including:
- Sequenced lessons that are built upon a scope and sequence of phoneme/grapheme correspondence that goes from simple to complex.
- Daily use of orthographic mapping for high-frequency words
- Sequenced use of decodable texts in grades K-2
- Additional phonics instruction provided in Tier 2 with evidence-based programs
3-5
- Daily systematic word study instruction
- Additional phonics instruction provided in Tier 2 with evidence-based programs
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Writing/Spelling/Grammar Instruction
“Writing is critical for student success in schools. One of the primary ways that we assess students’ knowledge in content areas is by having them write about what they know.”4
“Spelling instruction relies on the same word mapping skills that define learning to decode a word. Direct spelling instruction supports growth in both reading and writing fluency. Research indicates that spelling instruction can be designed to help children better understand that key knowledge, resulting in better reading.”5
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1-2
- Systematic spelling instruction grounded in phonics
- Regular grammar instruction embedded within the context of writing
- Explicit writing instruction
3-5
- Systematic spelling instruction grounded in morphology
- Systematic grammar instruction as a part of a word study block
- Explicit writing instruction
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Fluency
“Fluency, the combination of automaticity and prosody, can be viewed as the bridge between word recognition and reading comprehension. The automaticity component of fluency is the link to word recognition; students must learn to read and understand words not just accurately, but also effortlessly or automatically. Prosody is the link to comprehension; appropriate expression demonstrates that students are comprehending the meaning of the text.”6
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K-1
- Daily practice on decoding and phonics skills with the use of decodable books and leveled readers
- Daily time to read connected text to support rate, accuracy, and expression
- Weekly opportunities for repeated readings
- Daily models of strong reading during read-aloud
2-5
- Daily time to read connected text to support rate, accuracy, and expression
- Daily models of strong reading during read-aloud
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Oral Language Development/ Vocabulary
“Vocabulary plays a fundamental role in the reading process and is critical to reading comprehension. Children learn the meanings of most words indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written language. Other words are learned through carefully designed instruction”. 7
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K-2
- Daily Opportunities for high-quality language interactions during structured classroom discussions, interactive read-alouds, and opportunities for shared reading.
3-5
- Targeted key vocabulary instruction as a part of Read Aloud and Guided Reading
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Comprehension
“Good readers are most often strategic readers. That is, they use a number of comprehension strategies to get meaning from text. Comprehension strategies are conscious plans or procedures that are under the control of a reader, who makes decisions about which strategies to use and when to use them.” 8
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K-5
- Regular and systematic comprehension strategies taught beginning in Kindergarten
- Goal setting and monitoring for comprehension with learning progressions
- Access to high-quality texts in a wide variety of genres
- Writing about reading to secure comprehension and content understanding
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Resources:
- The National Reading Panel
- Reading Rockets: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness
- National Institute for Literacy, “Phonics Instruction: The Basics”
- Reading Rockets
- Moats, Louisa, “How Spelling Supports Reading”
- Rasinski, Tim, “The Art and Science of Teaching Reading Fluency”
- Reading Rockets
- Texas Education Agency, “Key Comprehension Strategies to Teach”