You’ve probably noticed the recent explosion of articles discussing the Science of Reading (SOR)… the buzz is every where! Historically very few teacher preparation programs provided classes on how our brains learn to read, and this left a huge gap between the education and psychology departments in institutions of higher learning. That gap is closing now with the help of organizations like The Reading League. If you haven’t had the opportunity to check out their ebook, that’s a great place to start your SOR journey! Click here to download a copy!
The Simple View of Reading explains individuals need to have both strong word recognition and strong language comprehension skills in order to be effective readers and comprehend what they read (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). Many decades of research have concluded that unlike language comprehension skills, children do not develop word recognition skills naturally. Word recognition skills encompass many subskills, including print awareness, understanding the alphabetic principal, phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics and sight word recognition. In English, phonics is a particularly essential component due to the complex letter-sound relationships.
Nancy Young, B.A., M Ed. found 60% percent of the population requires explicit, systematic and sequential instruction in phonics in order for it to be effective. The report issued by The National Reading Panel (2000) states, “Findings provided solid support for the conclusion that systematic phonics instruction makes a bigger contribution to children’s growth in reading than alternative programs providing unsystematic or no phonics instruction” (National Reading Panel, 2000, p. 2-92).
Several states have passed new laws to help promote evidence based instructional practices in early literacy. As teachers, with already overflowing plates to manage, it can be hard to keep up with all the new information! Consider following an SOR podcast to learn more.
There are several great options, but here are a few to get you started:
Amplify: The Science of Reading Podcast
Teaching, Reading, and Learning: The Reading League Podcast
Reading Horizons – Literacy Talks
It’s important to remember no one is born with an area of the brain that innately responds to written words. Because of this, we all have to train our brains and develop a whole new area that’s work focuses on mapping graphic symbols to spoken speech units. Scientists call this area the Letterbox. Thanks to the magic of EEG and fMRI scans, we’ve actually been able to see how the brain changes when it learns to read and develops a Letterbox… connecting the sound, vision and meaning areas of our brain. The ideal time for this pathway development is between the ages of 3-8, because of our brain’s plasticity at that time.
Multiple studies have found that children provided with explicit instruction on novel information are more likely to acquire, maintain and generalize the new information than those using alternative methods. At Rocking Chair Readers we believe that explicit instruction makes all the difference… it builds kids up and ignites a passion for learning!
Our kits are designed to help children begin to associate the phonemes they hear with the graphemes in our written language that represent those sounds. This correspondence is essential for foundational literacy skills. Once children have a strong understanding of a handful of phoneme-grapheme associations, they can begin reading and writing with that knowledge.
As a classroom teacher, you may be required to follow a phonics scope and sequence provided by your curriculum. Our kits are very flexible and designed to work with any program. If your reading curriculum does not have a phonics component, we have found the following free programs very helpful for instruction.
Rooney Foundation Lesson Plans
Our kits are wonderful for working through word chains. Below you will see videos of this process in action at two different levels. There are many programs that provide word chains for you, but here are a few helpful free resources…
Six Shifts – 100+ Word Chain Lists
Dyslexic Logic – Blending Word Chains
UFLI Foundations Resources- Decoding and Encoding
Once students have been introduced to the kits, they can also work through word lists independently. Consider checking out all the amazing resources for SOR centers at the website below:
Do you have favorite SOR resources that have not been listed above? Please leave a reply below!
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