Any teacher can tell you they don’t have to go far or search long to find a new program being implemented in their school. In fact, most teachers have a myriad of stories of the different initiatives and training that were thrust upon their classrooms over the years. If you’ve talked to your educator friends lately, they will probably mention three new buzz words: Science of Reading.
Science of Reading is a teaching methodology that relies on systematic and explicit instruction on “how to read,” including phonics and phonemic awareness. It’s most commonly depicted as Scarborough’s Reading Rope and implies that children should be taught the decoding of learning to read by learning the rules of the English Language paired with comprehension and vocabulary strategies. Science of Reading is a methodology and not a curriculum but it is often delivered to children through curriculum like “Into Reading” or “Fundations.”
Let’s start with a correction: Science of Reading is not a fad or a buzz word. In fact, five decades of research with thousands of studies laid the groundwork for this “movement”. The research included work with neuroscientists and educators and primarily focused on the development of reading and writing skills and the reasons some people struggle in literacy.
Science of Reading expects that children learning to read require explicit instruction in phonics and language. This means, children need to learn that words are made of letters that represent sounds and those sounds blend together to form words. Science of Reading enthusiasts often refer to learning the letters and sounds as “learning the code” of reading.
The Science of Reading has Five Essential Pillars: