Teaching Reading is Not Simple

#1 of 5 things school leaders need to know about the science of reading

Photo by Stephanie Harvey on Unsplash

“‘The science of reading’ is a phrase representing the accumulated knowledge about reading, reading development, and best practices for reading instruction obtained by the use of the scientific method.”

- Petscher, Y. et al (2020).¹

Earlier this week, I was in a Zoom with some literacy luminaries, discussing how to bring more books to classroom, community, and school libraries that were lacking these essential resources.

As I listened, I began to see a pattern emerge in the conversation.

• “Once we had the principal on board…”

• “We were so happy to have the principal’s support…”

• “Well, first we need to talk to the school leader…”

This common thread, that the school leader is the sentry who stands guard over the possibility of any initiative having influence in their school, even one as promising and as easy to get behind as more books for kids, was not surprising to me.

Now in my 16th year as a principal, I see this reality becoming even more prominent with the advent of literacy resources all proclaiming to be aligned with the science of reading (or “SoR” for short).

And the publishers of these resources also know exactly who they need to persuade.

This is why I want to share with you what I’ve learned up to this point about this current literacy movement. My purpose is not to persuade as much as to arm you with knowledge so you can make informed decisions with teacher leaders. A lot of misconceptions are out there about effective literacy instruction; I hope these posts instill confidence as you navigate this process.

#1 - Teaching reading is not simple.

One of the most prominent theories that educators and publishers refer to when promoting SoR is “the simple view of reading”.

Constructed by Gough and Turner almost forty years ago, they believed that teaching reading could be approached like an equation: students learn how to decode/recognize words combined with language comprehension.²

Simple is good, right? The problem with this view of reading is not that it’s necessarily wrong; the problem is that it’s incomplete.

An expansion of the simple view of reading is what Cartwright and Duke describe as the “active view of reading”.

In this model, additional elements that influence one’s ability to learn to read, such as motivation, engagement, and executive functioning, are integrated with the skill-and-strategy view. Additionally, not all components within word recognition and language comprehension are viewed as separate, but rather as mutually beneficial “bridging processes”.³

When you start to view teaching reading through this more complex lens (Duke and Cartwright offer a helpful visual in their article here), you can begin to see how learning to read is anything but simple.

Question: If teaching reading is not simple, then why does it continue to be framed in this way?

Here’s my current take:

The simple view of reading aligns with some people’s preference for linear and less complicated approaches to literacy instruction. It certainly would make teaching a lot easier!

However, the reality of reading instruction is that it is complex and situational. Kids bring a lot of social, emotional, and experiential factors into the classroom; to ignore these factors and focus primarily on skills and strategies is to prioritize teaching reading over teaching readers.

Next week, I will share my second takeaway around the science of reading, on how the science is anything but settled.

Additional Resources:

• On October 24, Choice Literacy is hosting a 60 minute webinar on bridging literacy instruction between the workshop model and the science of reading.

• Terry Underwood has published some recent articles on his newsletter around the science of reading; in this post he aptly describes the process in which publishers influence principals and other school leaders.

• In this “What I’m Reading” post, Regie Routman offers an excellent commentary on SoR, including her response to Duke and Cartwright’s helpful article on the active view of reading.

• I always read what Rachael Gabriel is sharing on Twitter. Her clarity on this topic cuts through the confusion.

Related, I will be hosting a book study this fall (Nov 7 - December 16) for Teaching Readers (Not Reading): Moving Beyond Skills and Strategies to Reader-Focused Instruction by Peter Afflerbach (Guilford Press, 2022).

To participate:

1. Purchase the book on the publisher's website, Amazon, or wherever it is sold.

2. Subscribe to this space (if you haven’t already) for future responses to the book.

3. Become a regular and active reader here. I will be sending out another round of invites to engaged readers for the Reading by Example community, where I will be hosting some virtual conversations around the book.

1. Petscher, Y., Cabell, S. Q., Catts, H. W., Compton, D. L., Foorman, B. R., Hart, S. A., ... & Wagner, R. K. (2020). How the Science of Reading Informs 21st‐Century Education. Reading Research Quarterly, 55, S267-S282.

2. Gough, P. B., & Tunmer, W. E. (1986). Decoding, Reading, and Reading Disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7(1), 6-10.

3. Duke, N. K., & Cartwright, K. B. (2021). The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 56, S25-S44.