How Confident Readers Are Made, Not Born: A Helpful Report on The Science of Reading

Some things come naturally to humans. When something is too hot, we pull our hands back. When a baby wants to communicate, they’ll babble (long before they can speak). But unlike these actions, reading isn’t something we just know how to do. Rather, reading is a learned skill that requires explicit teaching. And compared to spoken language, which has been around for roughly 60,000 years, the first examples of written language date back to only about 5,000 years ago – so as far as human capabilities go, reading is one of the lesser understood ones. Reflecting on decades of academic research on the science of reading, this Mrs Wordsmith report outlines not just how children learn to read, but also the evidence-based reading instruction that has been found to work. Given that reading is key to everything from social awareness to academic success, teaching children how to read is incredibly important. Not just for school, but also for lifelong learning.

Confident readers are made, not born

To become readers, our brains have to develop new neural networks between letters and sounds. Mrs Wordsmith’s ‘Science of Reading’ report outlines five essential components that contribute to effective reading instruction:

1. Phonemic Awareness

 The ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds in words, forming the foundation for later reading skills.

How it’s built: through activities that ask children to identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. For example, you could ask a child to identify the first sound (phoneme) in a word  (e.g. the “c” in “cat” or “b” in “bat”) or to swap a phoneme with another one to make a new word (e.g. turning “cat” into “bat” by swapping the “c” out for a “b”).

2. Phonics

Systematically connecting sounds with letters, enabling children to decode words effectively.

How it’s built: by breaking a written word down into individual letters (segmenting) and then putting it back together again (blending). For example, "sit" can be broken down into “s-i-t”. Reading the letters quickly will then make the word "sit" again.

3. Fluency

Reading smoothly and expressively, which enhances comprehension.

How it’s built: by developing the skills to decode words, sentences, and eventually, longer paragraphs, smoothly and effortlessly. A really important factor in mastering decoding is repetition – when you see the same word again and again, and decode it letter by letter multiple times, eventually the brain learns to identify that word instantly. 

4. Vocabulary

Understanding word meanings is critical for making sense of text. In fact, you need to know 95-98% of the words in a text to be able to comprehend it. So if you’re wondering why your child struggles with reading, it could simply be because they don’t have a broad enough vocabulary to be able to access the text.

How it’s built: through explicit vocabulary instruction (i.e. telling a child what “overjoyed” or “turbulent” means) or by giving them context clues (e.g. pointing out that the weather is “blustery” or “balmy” when it is). 

5. Comprehension

The ultimate goal of reading—grasping the meaning of what is read.

How it’s built: through instruction and practice. By combining skills like decoding with the meaning of words, children are able to read and understand complete sentences and eventually, stories. 

Want to know more?

If you want to learn about the scientific thinking behind tried-and-tested reading comprehension strategies, be sure to download the full ‘Science of Reading’ report.