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A Confluence of Complexity: Intersections Among Reading Theory, Neuroscience, and Observations of Young Readers
Abstract
In this position article, the authors explore a confluence of evidence that supports the understanding that multiple factors, various processes, and multiple sources of information inform reading. The authors open by briefly describing concerns related to how some scholars and media reporters have characterized the simple view of reading and narrowly applied that model to teaching young readers. The authors then explore a confluence of complexity across (a) theoretical models of reading based on empirical research, (b) emerging information related to the brain and reading, and (c) research findings based on close observations of young learners. Finally, the authors argue that reductive and singular models of reading fail to not only honor the individuality of young readers but also to recognize the systemic changes needed in schools and communities to equitably serve all students.
... It recommends that Ontario schools remove all reference to the three-cueing system from curricula. Further, instructional practices associated with the three-cueing system, such as the use of a running record (i.e., annotating and coding a typescript to record the cues and strategies used by the reader [Clay, 2019]) or prompting the reader to consider sources of information beyond letter/sound associations (Fountas & Pinnell, 2016) are recommended to be replaced by systematic phonics instruction. In a similar vein, instructional texts levelled within a multi-faceted gradient of difficulty of readability (Fountas & Pinnell, 2011) are presented as inferior to decodable text (i.e., texts that are authored within a constrained range of words to match an instructional sequence of phonics). ...
... Responding to the recent debates spurred by a global resurgence of the SOR movement, the internationally well-regarded journal Reading Research Quarterly dedicated two special issues (Goodwin & Jiménez, 2020 to clarifying and articulating the breadth of current peerreviewed reading science, bringing forward findings from multi-disciplinary researchers. In these two issues, the contributing authors synthesize converging research across several branches of reading science, presenting evidence that justifies defining reading science more broadly to include not only phonics and word decoding but also additional aspects of literacy learning and teaching, such as multi-cueing system approaches (Compton-Lilly et al., 2021;Scanlon & Anderson, 2021), comprehension, fluency, sociocultural contexts, and executive function. Also explored are the media's roles in amplifying a dichotomous conflict between orientations within the Reading Wars (MacPhee et al., 2022) alongside scientifically supported calls for more centrist policies and balanced approaches to reading instruction (e.g., Cervetti et al., 2020;Compton-Lilly et al., 2021;Duke & Cartwright, 2021;Paige et al., 2022). ...
... In these two issues, the contributing authors synthesize converging research across several branches of reading science, presenting evidence that justifies defining reading science more broadly to include not only phonics and word decoding but also additional aspects of literacy learning and teaching, such as multi-cueing system approaches (Compton-Lilly et al., 2021;Scanlon & Anderson, 2021), comprehension, fluency, sociocultural contexts, and executive function. Also explored are the media's roles in amplifying a dichotomous conflict between orientations within the Reading Wars (MacPhee et al., 2022) alongside scientifically supported calls for more centrist policies and balanced approaches to reading instruction (e.g., Cervetti et al., 2020;Compton-Lilly et al., 2021;Duke & Cartwright, 2021;Paige et al., 2022). Considering the scope of this more comprehensive view of reading science, the sentiment within the OHRC report that phonics-centred programs are the sole model of reading intervention supported by research ignores decades of past and contemporary research (ILA, 2016a(ILA, , 2016b(ILA, , 2019b. ...
The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s (OHCR) Right to Read Report calls for school districts to implement early literacy interventions that have been scientifically proven to be effective for young children with reading difficulties. The acknowledgment of early intervention as an essential service for young children experiencing reading difficulties is a strong and welcome message in the report. However, the report recommends a narrow course for reading interventions in Ontario, drawing on discourse from the Science of Reading community, which questionably frames current interventions, such as Reading Recovery, as unscientific, ineffective commercial programs. In this response, the authors contest the one-sidedness of these recommendations based on a paradox in the report between what constitutes an effective early literacy intervention supported by science and the standards for effectiveness the OHRC requires of interventions it endorses versus those it discredits. Rather than dismissing one approach or the other outright, a call is made for school leadership to consider broader reading science and the strengths of various approaches instead of narrowing the menu of effective literacy interventions that may support diverse learners.
... To address the educational imperatives commonly acknowledged as concerning by governments, policy makers, media and some researchers, leaders become responsible for finding the "right" approach or recipe for literacy. Often this recipe entails the purchase of commercially produced materials and professional development by companies that have flooded the education market, providing readily designed programs and resources aimed at raising literacy standards (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). However, these programs often reduce reading to a focus on "phonetic decoding" ignoring the complexity of the reading process (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020, p. 3). ...
... However, this is no easy task, especially when considering the diverse range of staff and school communities in Victoria. As the Victorian population is culturally, ethnically, geographically and linguistically diverse, finding the "right" model of reading is a challenging task and requires a multifaceted approach where more than one approach and models may be required (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). This task is further exacerbated when it assumes leadership is up to implementing and supporting this process. ...
... Furthermore, research argues leadership must be sensitive to the context in which the school is located including the combination of teachers (less experienced to highly experienced), parents/carers and allied staff members (Day et al., 2016). All members of a school community need to participate in the development of a literacy vision, to inform common understandings which can be translated into a coherent and consistent school approach (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020;State Government of Victoria, 2018). Moreover, this must be ongoing for consistency, renewal and to ensure any new staff/community members can share in the vision. ...
This paper reports on three Victorian early career Foundation to Year Two (F-2) teachers and the impact of leadership on their daily pedagogic decision-making about the teaching of reading. Data sets from each teacher drew on observations of three of their reading lessons and researcher-generated field notes, a semi-structured teacher interview, an online survey of reported teacher practice, teacher planning documents of the observed lessons and classroom artefacts related to reading. Selected from a wider qualitative case study undertaken with 16 F-2 teachers across six government primary sites in metropolitan Melbourne, the teachers in this paper reported on how mandated and non-negotiable principles and practices of reading affected their ability to make daily pedagogic decisions for their students. As a result of leadership directives, the three teachers expressed frustration at the lack of opportunity for teacher voice and autonomy in their craft of teaching. If the teaching profession wishes to continue to renew its numbers and promote the teaching profession as an ongoing career of choice, the focus on the professional development of early career teachers is timely and necessary. Therefore, this paper aims to shine a light on the importance of instructional leadership models which support the development of teacher knowledge, teacher efficacy and teacher satisfaction, ultimately resulting in more targeted outcomes for students and more teachers likely to remain in the profession.
... These processes also are ideological (Street, 1984) and have the potential for social transformation (Freire, 1970). A more critical, sociocultural perspective on literacy challenges back-to-basics and "simple" views of literacy, where literacy itself tends to be conceptualized as a set of decontextualized skills and strategies (e.g., decoding, fluency) rather than as a complex and iterative process of making meaning from text that is inclusive of, but extends far beyond, basic skills (Aukerman & Schuldt, 2021;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). ...
... (p. S8) Some articles in the first special issue do focus specifically on phonics instruction as an integral component of reading (e.g., Ehri, 2020), while others argue that popular interpretations of the SoR are typically too narrow to be able to explain the complex processes of learning to read and write (e.g., Cervetti et al., 2020;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). Some of these authors argue that overly narrow interpretations can be problematic because they can lead to limited understandings of how best to support diverse students' literacy learning (e.g., Alexander, 2020;Aukerman & Schuldt, 2021;Duke & Cartwright, 2021;Jenson, 2021;Milner IV, 2020;Noguerón-Liu, 2020;Wetzel et al., 2020). ...
The present iteration of the “reading wars” has created intense debate about what constitutes rigorous and effective literacy instruction. Increasingly, politicized discourses have narrowed the field's definition of reading across education spaces (P‐20) and overemphasized foundational early literacy skills while minimizing the consequentiality of sociocultural influences on literacy learning. In this commentary, we engage and critique recent narratives about the nature of literacy learning among scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and in the popular media. We discuss what has been and will be silenced, erased, and sacrificed as a result of these debates. Further, we argue that literacy educators should not abandon the complexities of literacy learning and the social, political, and historical contexts in which students live and learn. To do this, we emphasize the importance of Black children and youth having opportunities to develop critical consciousness and learn through their lived experiences. Moreover, we take a developmental perspective and outline the implications of a more expansive approach to literacy instruction across elementary, secondary, and postsecondary contexts. Ultimately, we argue for a nuanced, integrative, and humanizing path forward that addresses Black children and other historically marginalized students' literacy needs; rejects deficit ideologies concerning what counts as reading; and cultivates children, adolescents, and adults' critical literacies.
... Despite widespread use of the SVR within science of reading discourse, key scientifically based understandings about reading and reading difficulties extend beyond what is presented in the SVR (Hoover and Tunmer, 2018;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020;Duke and Cartwright, 2021). Not only are some reading difficulties separate from word recognition and language comprehension, but also these two constructs are interrelated, as exemplified in vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency, and morphological awareness (Duke and Cartwright, 2021). ...
... They conclude that multisensory approaches need to be more consistently defined, and more rigorous research studies with large samples are needed to justify the common application of Orton Gillingham in policy and practice. Simplistic, prescriptive, and decontextualized approaches to language and literacy that place the onus of change on teachers masks the systemic inequities and solutions, like greater funding or personnel to support students' cultural and linguistic sustainability (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). ...
This article addresses the English centrality in reading policy, assessment, and instructional practices in the U.S. and its implications for the educational programing for emerging bilingual students (EBs) with disabilities. A recent review of the state of practice as it relates to EBs with disabilities reveals concerns that have endured for nearly six decades: biased assessment, disproportionality issues in special education, and teachers’ lack of understanding of language acquisition and students’ potential. These concerns demonstrate a need for the field to prioritize multilingual lenses for both the identification of and programming for EBs with disabilities. We propose attention to conceptions of language that expand beyond the structuralist standpoint that prevails in the current science of reading reform. We offer guiding principles for IEP development grounded in sociocultural perspectives when designing bilingual instructional practices, which can be applied to the educational programming for EBs with disabilities. Within a sociocultural view of bilingualism and biliteracy, language, and literacy are understood by multiplicities in use, practice, form, and function, in which all communicators draw from expansive meaning-making repertoires, whether in listening, speaking, reading, writing, viewing, and multimodally representing. By expanding conceptions of a student’s linguistic repertoire, we honor their use of language as one, holistic system in which their named languages plus a multitude of linguistic practices intersect and interact.
... Many literacy specialists and teachers find an either-or 1 email: george.ellis@uct.ac.za 2 email: cbloch@uwc.ac.za position misleading and unhelpful; some prefer a 'Balanced Approach' as a middle-ground to ensure children get 'the best of both worlds' in teaching programs (Willson and Falcon 2018). In any event there is no consensus over common narrow interpretations of the SVR; several recent papers focus on the complex and multifaceted interplay between decoding and listening comprehension (Cervetti et al 2020, Compton-Lilly et al 2020, Bua Lit Collective 2018 or even propose a Complete View of Reading (CVRi) (Francis et al 2018) or similar (Snow 2018). ...
... Formal learning in school: At the start of formal schooling, many teaching programmes follow the narrow skills based interpretation of the SVR (Gough & Tunmer 1986, Compton-Lilly et al 2020. In doing so, they may neglect to emphasise and enable crucial meaning-based elements and experiences children require in the vital early stages of becoming literate, thereby restricting opportunities for appropriate quality learning. ...
Significant challenges exist globally regarding literacy teaching and learning, particularly in poor socio-economic settings in countries of the Global South. In this paper we argue that to address these challenges, major features of how the brain works that are currently ignored in the educational literature should be taken into account. First, perception is an active process based in detection of errors in hierarchical predictions of sensory data and action outcomes. Reading is a particular case. Second, emotions play a key role in underlying cognitive functioning. Innate affective systems underlie and shape all brain functioning, including oral and written forms of language and sign. Third, there is not the fundamental difference between listening/speaking and reading/writing often alleged on the basis of evolutionary arguments. Both are socio-cultural practices driven and learnt by the communication imperative of the social brain. Fourth, like listening, reading is not a linear, bottom-up process. Both are non-linear contextually shaped psycho-social processes of understanding, shaped by current knowledge and cultural contexts and practices. Reductionist neuroscience studies which focus on decontextualized parts of reading cannot access all the relevant processes. An integrated view of brain function reflecting this non-linear nature implies that an ongoing focus on personal meaning and understanding provides positive conditions for all aspects of literacy learning. Assessment of literacy teaching at all its stages should include indicators that take into account these foundational features relating reading and writing to neuroscience.
... Most of the empirical work testing the original premise of the SVR has confirmed that much of the variance in reading comprehension can be accounted for by individual differences in D and LC (e.g., Catts, Hogan, & Adlof, 2005; de Jong & van der Leij, 2002;Hoover & Gough, 1990). However, we agree with the founders of the SVR that "there is much more to understand about reading than what is represented in the SVR" (Hoover & Tunmer, 2018, p. 311), and we join other scholars (e.g., Catts, 2018;Cervetti et al., 2020;Compton-Lilly, Mitra, Guay, & Spence, 2020) who have questioned the simplicity of the SVR for explaining reading comprehension and guiding instruction. ...
... Empirical work has indicated that EFs contribute to reading comprehension beyond the components of the SVR in EM (Georgiou & Das, 2018;Locascio et al., 2010) and EB students (Kieffer, Vukovic, & Berry, 2013;Taboada Barber et al., 2020). Drawing on recent reviews indicating that significantly more interaction exists between D and LC than was originally proposed by the founders of the SVR (for reviews, see Cervetti et al., 2020;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020), we propose that the substantial overlap between D and LC (Foorman & Petscher, 2018;Lonigan et al., 2018) provides a possible path through which EF skills may exert executive coordination of ongoing, simultaneous D and LC processes to facilitate reading comprehension-a hypothesis we tested in the current study across EB and EM elementary school students. ...
The simple view of reading describes reading as the product of decoding (D) and listening comprehension (LC). However, the simple view of reading has been challenged, and evidence has proved it to be too simple to explain the complexities of reading comprehension in the elementary school years. Hypotheses have been advanced that there are cognitive‐linguistic factors that underlie the common variance between D and LC, which are malleable, although there is no clarity at this point regarding what these are. We propose that one such group of malleable cognitive factors is executive function (EF) skills. Further, we posit that EF skills play equally strong roles in explaining reading comprehension variance in emergent bilinguals and English monolinguals. We used multigroup structural equation modeling to determine the contribution of these constructs (D, LC, and EF) to reading comprehension in 425 emergent bilinguals and 302 English monolinguals in grades 2–4. The shared variance between D and LC was explained by direct and indirect effects in the models tested, with strong indirect effects for the EFs of cognitive flexibility and working memory through D and LC, respectively, for both language groups. The indirect effect of cognitive flexibility though LC on reading comprehension was considerably larger for emergent bilinguals than for English monolinguals. Considerations for a more nuanced view of the simple view of reading and its implications for practice are discussed.
... Conceptualizing the teaching of reading as a complex system begins with the assumption that teaching reading cannot readily be simplified into linear, manipulable components; instead, teaching and learning rely on understanding the dynamic, changing interactions of teachers and learners with texts as they engage with the reading process (Davis & Sumara, 1997). This is not to suggest that specific reading skills and processes are unimportant in teaching and learning; however, understanding reading instruction requires attention to the multidimensional and intersecting elements of learning environments needed to support readers (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). Further, preparing teachers using the STR standards to understand the components of reading in isolation, rather than collectively, may inadequately support educators in navigating situations in real classrooms (Coburn & Woulfin, 2012;Cochran-Smith et al., 2014). ...
Legislation based on the Science of Reading has spurred changes in teacher preparation and K-12 schools. Texas, a frequent leader in educational policy, adopted its own Science of Teaching Reading (STR) Framework with a focus on scientifically based instructional practices. Adoption of these standards is intended to improve methods of teaching reading within teacher preparation and, by extension, improve reading instruction in schools. To understand how the Texas STR standards defined and related the elements of learning environments, including reading, teaching, and learners, a content analysis of the STR framework informed by complexity theory was conducted. Themes include (A) teaching as adherence to research-based practices, (B) a stand-alone view of reading that minimally attends to writing instruction, (C) a stage-based and simple view of reading, and (D) minimal attention to sociocultural factors. Overall, findings suggest that the STR standards lack specificity, barely mention relevant research, and fail to sufficiently address the role of race, culture, ethnicity and other sociocultural factors in reading instruction. The implications of these drawbacks of the STR standards, especially as they provide guidance to educator preparation programs, are discussed.
... We advocate, along with others (Falchi et al., 2014;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020), for a reshaping of literacy instruction which normalizes and incorporates students' multilingual and multimodal repertoires. Literacies are dynamic and must shift to take into account the diverse linguistic and sociocultural realities of emergent bilinguals by valuing students' full participation and varied resources in meaning making. ...
... Teachers' information literacy practices are missing from the equation, and only by understanding what they do can teacher educators support them in honing their information-seeking practices. Understanding how early-career educators seek out and evaluate the quality of classroom resources is a critical component of interrogating the professional hierarchies that promote highly scripted curricula (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020;Valencia et al., 2006). To this end, this study seeks to explore how early-career teachers find and evaluate the curriculum on online curriculum marketplaces such as TeachersPayTeachers. ...
Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) has emerged as the most popular online educational marketplace of the moment, but exactly how curriculum marketplaces support professional learning and classroom curriculum design is still an emerging area of inquiry in educational research. This paper explores the perspectives of six novice teachers on the supplemental teaching materials available on TPT. Through semi-structured think-aloud interviews, we identified tensions related to teachers' landscapes of practice , institutional mistrust, perceived authoritativeness of TPT sellers, curriculum marketplaces as altruistic platforms, and the affordances and constraints of TPT for managing finite resources. Findings suggest that professionals who work with preser-vice and in-service teachers must reframe their discussion of curriculum marketplaces toward developing early-career teachers' critical curriculum cultivation practices. Such reframing has the potential to influence how educators make use of online curriculum marketplaces, what resources they download, and how those resources are employed.
... Some research findings argued teachers and leaders in Australia lack the knowledge required to make pedagogic decisions about the teaching of literacy (Australian Education Research Organisation, 2023a, para 8; Smith et al., 2023;Stark et al., 2016). This discourse opened up opportunities for concerned allied health professionals and not-for-profit and commercial publishers of English materials to interpret the evidence-base to claim packaged literacy programs address all the literacy needs of students (Buckingham, 2024;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020;Gardiner, 2019;Hunter et al., 2024;National School Reform Agreement Open Letter, 2023). Furthermore, the rise of corporate philanthropists who potentially can "buy" research (Rowe & Langman's parentheses emphasis, 2024) to support their "'not-for-profit'…lesson plans…or products" also influence this landscape (Rowe & Langman's parentheses emphasis, 2024, para 17). ...
This education policy analysis reviews the state of Victoria, Australia’s position on the teaching and learning of literacy. This is of interest because until recently Victoria had resisted the trend of mandating pedagogical approaches to the teaching of literacy and more specifically to the teaching of reading which has and is occurring nationally and internationally. While much has been written in criticism of Victoria’s approach to the teaching and learning of literacy, limited documentation has been found on why Victoria has developed the stances it has to underpin its ideology and epistemology. Through a document analysis of curriculum websites and the research literature, this paper will argue a confluence of unique circumstances has determined Victoria’s position. These circumstances include the development of a national curriculum and Victoria’s place in the Commonwealth of Australia with respect to education, Victoria’s past approaches to the teaching of literacy, the influence of national and international reviews on literacy and Victoria’s ranking in national and international literacy assessments, including Victoria’s response to the Phonics Screening Check assessment task. Prior to June 2024, the absence of a clear and concise policy to argue for Victoria’s position, however, left education leaders and teachers open to continued criticism and debate. As a result of this mounting pressure from politicians, academics and education think tanks, Victoria has fallen into line with the status quo mandating a synthetic phonic approach to the teaching of reading. Time and hindsight will be the critical evaluators of Victoria’s recent decision.
... The SoR involves a complex orchestration of skills and interactions, 5 but policymakers in many state departments of education are not taking into account the entire science when making decisions. Instead, their focus is on the simple view of reading (SVR), even though many theoretical models and processes of reading exist 6 and continue to emerge. 7 The narrative around SoR has become extremely polarizing. ...
Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) was designed to help libraries and caregivers become partners in early literacy development. The initiative was informed by scientific research on the critical skills underlying early reading and writing along with best practices for supporting their development. ECRR was introduced in 2004, revised in 2011, and subsequently evaluated and revised in 2017. Research regarding reading continues to advance, especially as it pertains to beginning and fluent readers and the role context and culture play in learning. Since children’s librarians are continually encouraged to focus their efforts on getting children ready to read, learning about the science of reading helps us see the bigger picture.
... Integrated approaches to reading acknowledge that the reader draws flexibly across the range of information sources available as they interpret and negotiate the meaning of texts. Critical to this discussion is Rumelhart's (2004) interactive theory of reading that researchers claim challenges linear models of reading (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). Rumelhart's model proposed that readers make use of sensory, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic information and described these various sources of information as interacting in complex ways that 'blur the bridges' between cognitive and perceptual distinctions that are traditionally referenced to describe the process of reading (Rumelhart, 2004(Rumelhart, , p. 1149. ...
This article presents the outcomes of a study conducted in Victoria, Australia, that recognised teachers’ knowledge and understanding of phonics teaching, and early literacy acquisition processes more generally. In total, 45 teachers and 220 students from the 18 focus schools who engaged in the reform initiative agreed to participate in this study. The questions posed considered understandings associated with the professional learning programme and processes that support the implementation of the phonics teaching and the impact this had on students’ literacy learning. We share the data used to map teachers’ stories of change and practice and some of the key factors, including structures, practices and attitudes, that influenced the implementation. The impact on students’ reading and writing outcomes throughout the reform process are also reported. Combined, the findings indicate that the teaching of phonic knowledge, integrated into rich contexts for learning, contributed to improvements in teaching and students’ early literacy skills. Furthermore, this study fills an important and common missing gap in professional learning as it explores implementation processes and practice in the classroom. The results inform continuing reform efforts and targeted research necessary to refine phonics teaching practice and further advance students’ literacy outcomes.
... Hal ini didasari pada konsep umum aktivitas membaca yang kompleks dan melibatkan fungsi neural manusia. Aktivitas membaca tidak hanya bersifat kompleks tetapi juga multidimensi karena melibatkan fungsi saraf pada otak manusia (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). Semakin rumit suatu aktivitas membaca dilakukan, maka semakin banyak wilayah pada otak yang difungsikan (Rahma & Nurhadi, 2019). ...
Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi oleh fenomena inner speech (suara batin) yang umumnya terjadi ketika seseorang membaca senyap. Dikatakan bahwa fenomena ini berkaitan erat dengan neural pada saat pengumpulan dan pengolahan informasi pada saat aktivitas membaca. Berdasarkan fenomena ini, penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menginvestigasi perbandingan korelasi neural inner speech pada aktivitas membaca senyap artikel bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Inggris. Metode yang dipergunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah mixed method. Data yang diperoleh dibagi menjadi data kualitatif dan kuantitatif. Data kualitatif dipergunakan untuk mendeskripsikan pola neural yang terekam pada EEG. Neural dapat dilacak dan diinvestigasi menggunakan alat elektroensefalografi atau EEG Sementara itu, data kuantitatif digunakan untuk mengetahui korelasi antara neural inner speech pada aktvitas membaca artikel bahasa Indonesia dan bahasa Inggris. Adapun hipotesis dalam penelitian ini adalah (1) Ho: tidak adanya hubungan antara neural inner speech dengan kemampuan membaca senyap artikel bahasa Indonesia dan Inggris; (2) Ha: Adanya hubungan antara neural inner speech dengan kemampuan membaca senyap artikel bahasa Indonesia dan Inggris. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat korelasi yang sangat kuat antara neural inner speech pada aktivitas membaca artikel bahasa Indonesia dengan nilai koefisien 80> dan bahasa Inggris 65>. Artinya, hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa Ho ditolak dan Ha diterima.
... Phonological analysis and decoding processes are also distributed across brain regions (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). For example, neuroscientists have associated phonological analysis and decoding with multiple regions of the brain that work together as Brittany maps sounds onto text (Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2008). ...
The recent dissemination of selective research findings related to reading privileges a narrow body of reading scholarship and a singular, unproven solution—teaching phonics. We offer a research‐based correction by presenting two compelling bodies of research to argue that reading instruction must be responsive to individual children. While this confluence of complexity does not deny the importance of phonics, it highlights the significant findings related to: (1) the brain and reading, and (2) the systematic observation of young readers. We argue that reductive and singular models of reading fail to honor the cultures, experiences, and diversity of children. This confluence of research findings reveals an unequivocal need for caution as states, universities, schools, and teachers adopt assumedly universal and narrow approaches to teaching reading.
... Moreover, recent interdisciplinary research on reading comprehension presents the link between neuroscience and education as a contribution to the reading process because it offers the possibility of integrating brain, social, cognitive and cultural perspectives into a beneficial way of teaching reading comprehension (Hruby, 2012;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020). It also recognizes the importance of emotion as fundamentally linked to cognition, since a myriad of studies show that this dyad contributes to the development of reading comprehension processes (Dehaene, 2020;Nasir et al., 2021). ...
Reading comprehension is the cornerstone of human development, and consequently a fundamental and indispensable tool for communication and social interaction. In recent years, the field of reading comprehension research has been tightly connected with educational neuroscience, which has produced a growing number of interventions aimed at turning theoretical ideas of neuroeducation into practical efforts applicable to the classroom. The aim of the present systematic review was to analyze the state of neuroeducational research, to identify the main characteristics of the interventions developed, and to propose suggestions on the main findings that contribute to neuroeducation research on reading comprehension. Based on the guidelines of the PRISMA method, an exhaustive search was carried out in high impact databases. The selection process yielded 13 eligible studies and they were analyzed in terms of, for instance, theoretical focus, context and participants, and main findings. Results show that these studies most frequently addressed the emotional principle of self-regulation, the importance of the social principle of neuroeducation and its impact on the development of reading comprehension skills through activity breaks, holistic environment and physical exercise, and sensory cognitive development of attention and memory skills. Despite the homogeneity of the interventions presented in these studies, they showed significant effects on reading development, displaying higher research development concerning emotional and social aspects. The present study discusses the contributions of neuroeducational classroom interventions towards the development of reading comprehension skills, offering practical recommendations for teachers.
... We advocate, along with others (Falchi et al., 2014;Compton-Lilly et al., 2020), for a reshaping of literacy instruction which normalizes and incorporates students' multilingual and multimodal repertoires. Literacies are dynamic and must shift to take into account the diverse linguistic and sociocultural realities of emergent bilinguals by valuing students' full participation and varied resources in meaning making. ...
... Consistent with other studies of self-efficacy (Brown, 2018), teachers and teacher educators may have been acknowledging that the impact they can make depends in part on their students' willingness to learn. While these responses may reflect the challenging realities of teaching (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020), further research is merited into the qualities of individual learners that make them likely to be viewed by ISTs and LTEs as unlikely to succeed, and the ways these qualities intersect with their racial, linguistic, and cultural positionalities. Future research must ask which students are perceived by their respective teachers as lacking learning ability so that additional resources can be put in place to serve them. ...
Debates over the impact of preservice literacy teacher education on teachers’ professional knowledge have found new life inside of con- temporary disagreements over what constitutes a Science of Reading. Drawing on understandings of literacy teachers’ self-efficacy as influenced over time and through experiences, we conducted two surveys to determine the self-efficacy and professional knowledge of preservice literacy teacher educators and early-career in-service teachers. Findings indicate that both groups had relatively high self- efficacy, as well as alignment between the theories and practices they promoted and valued. However, teacher educators reported a higher value of phonics instruction than did in-service teachers.
... For many years, researchers have attempted to translate the science of reading into practical guidelines for educators (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020;Kim, 2008;Solari et al., 2020); however, attempts to create a robust connection between research and practice in literacy education have largely failed (Seidenberg, 2017). Scientific research on reading often focuses on complex theory and systematic data and does not translate the results into practical suggestions or direct guidance for the classroom (Gabreli, 2016;Seidenberg et al., 2020). ...
For many years, researchers have attempted to translate the science of reading into practical guidelines for educators; however, attempts to create a robust connection between research and practice in literacy education have largely failed. There is a renewed interest in the science of reading and in translating research into guidance for teachers and educational administrators. Neuroscientists have investigated whether the brain activation patterns of those with dyslexia can be normalized through behavioral interventions. Overall, the findings have suggested that intense behavioral interventions can contribute to a more normalized pattern of brain activation in those with dyslexia during reading tasks. Given the challenges of translating the science of reading into practical applications in educational settings, this article describes a science-to-practice translation of patterns and common characteristics of effective behavioral interventions for dyslexia as suggested by brain imaging studies. Results suggest that there are common characteristics of effective interventions for those with dyslexia based on brain activation patterns; however, there are notable variations in the length of treatment and in the treatment for older students with dyslexia.
... Despite the importance of teachers' knowledge, developing tools that adequately measure this knowledge has posed a significant challenge, and there are unanswered questions about the structure of this knowledge and the components that make it up. While it is unlikely that any single measure would be able to thoroughly capture what teachers could know about the complex and multidimensional construct of reading (Compton-Lilly et al., 2020), high-quality measures can be useful tools for researchers and practitioners. Such tools can be helpful to inform practice in teacher preparation programs, to design and measure the effectiveness of professional development opportunities, and to explore the relations between teacher knowledge, instructional practice, and student achievement. ...
Much of the early research on teachers’ knowledge for reading instruction used instruments that primarily emphasized code‐based aspects of reading, unintentionally signaling that meaning‐focused knowledge is not essential for teaching foundational reading to elementary‐age children. In this study, we developed the Knowledge for Enhancing Reading Development Inventory (KnERDI; pronounced 'nerdy'), an instrument that measures teachers’ knowledge in two domains: alphabetic code/word reading and meaning/connected text processes. Using this instrument, we sought to determine if teachers’ knowledge of the two proposed domains was highly associated and if knowledge was related to level of education and amount of teaching experience. We report on the reliability and validity of the KnERDI and describe patterns in educators’ performance on this instrument. We found that the KnERDI measured both domains with acceptable reliability in multiple samples of educators enrolled in an online professional development course. Educators scored higher on the meaning/connected text process subscale than on the alphabetic code/word reading subscale. The two subscales were strongly correlated, indicating that teachers’ knowledge as measured on the KnERDI is a unidimensional construct. Advanced degree completion was not consistently related to educators’ scores on the KnERDI, but there was a positive association between educators’ performance on the instrument and their years of experience teaching early reading, particularly with respect to the code‐based domain. We discuss potential uses of the KnERDI in future research and practice, positive trends in educators’ performance on the instrument, and challenges in measuring educators’ knowledge for supporting higher‐level language and comprehension processes.
... Many literacy specialists and teachers find an either-or position misleading and unhelpful; some prefer a "Balanced Approach" as a middle-ground to ensure children get "the best of both worlds" in teaching programmes (Willson and Falcon, 2018). In any event there is no consensus over common narrow interpretations of the SVR; several recent papers focus on the complex and multifaceted interplay between decoding and listening comprehension (Cervetti et al. 2020, Compton-Lilly et al., 2020, Bua Lit Collective, 2018 or even propose a Complete View of Reading (CVRi) (Francis et al., 2018) or similar (Snow, 2018). ...
Significant challenges exist globally regarding literacy teaching and learning. To address these challenges, key features of how the brain works should be taken into account. First, perception is an active process based in detection of errors in hierarchical predictions of sensory data and action outcomes. Reading is a particular case of this non-linear predictive process. Second, emotions play a key role in underlying cognitive functioning, including oral and written language. Negative emotions undermine motivation to learn. Third, there is not the fundamental difference between listening/speaking and reading/writing often alleged on the basis of evolutionary arguments. Both are socio-cultural practices that are driven through the communication imperative of the social brain. Fourth, both listening and reading are contextually occurring pyscho-social practices of understanding, shaped by current knowledge and cultural contexts and practices. Fifth, the natural operation of the brain is not rule-based, as is supposed in the standard view of linguistics: it is prediction, based on statistical pattern recognition. This all calls into question narrow interpretations of the widely quoted “Simple View of Reading”, which argues that explicit decoding is the necessary route to comprehension. One of the two neural routes to reading does not involve such explicit decoding processes, and can be activated from the earliest years. An integrated view of brain function reflecting the non-linear contextual nature of the reading process implies that an ongoing focus on personal meaning and understanding from the very beginning provides positive conditions for learning all aspects of reading and writing.
One of the difficulties students often experience in learning English is reading and speaking. Reading and speaking are activities that occur every day both at school, at home or in public places. Students in Indonesia experience difficulties when understanding reading and speaking English, mainly due to a lack of practice, the small vocabulary they have, and the lack of knowledge about appropriate English reading comprehension strategies. To improve the English language skills of students at Baruh 1 Elementary School, namely in the form of a picture guessing game to improve English language skills at Baruh 1 Elementary School. The approach used in this study is a descriptive qualitative research approach. The results of this study can be concluded that 6 students were very receptive and able to use English, because previously they had taken English lessons outside of school. 2 students are still classified as moderate in using English, they still experience a little difficulty in learning English. but he can know a little vocabulary used in learning English. 2 students still do not accept to use English, because they are not fluent in reading and cannot even read, so they find it difficult to do learning, including learning English. One of the most important skills implemented through deployment is the guessing game. Researchers use games as a learning medium. The picture guessing game is an activity that makes us more relaxed and fun. Based on research results, the proportion of success is 75%. The English picture guessing game for SDN Baruh 1 students is suitable for use and needs to be developed by increasing the number of pictures and adding the number of other categories, so that it can increase vocabulary in English. with picture game media to improve English learning, students are more enthusiastic in learning English and can train students' vocabulary, how to speak, where students are more efficient and more confident.
From the Journal of Reading Recovery, Fall, 2023. Much buzzed about; now over the paywall... with permission.
This article puts forth a multilingual perspective on reading to counter the prevailing monolingualism that dominates reading instruction. First, it brings theories together to develop a cohesive understanding of teaching reading with emergent bilinguals at the center. Second, it illuminates ways educators can design reading instruction, which is responsive to and normalizes emergent bilinguals' resources. In taking up a multilingual perspective of reading, educators have a challenge and opportunity to engage in intellectual and practical work to ensure emergent bilinguals' strengths are at the center of reading instruction.
Socio-cultural and practice-based approaches to literacy, associated with the (New) Literacy Studies, having emerged in the 1980s, nowadays are an established research field. Based on in-depth research, in many contexts and countries, the (New) Literacy Studies has much to offer to teachers and policymakers. And yet this impressive body of work has had little impact on policy. Taking as my example England, I ask what research has shaped policy in the past 30 years and why socio-cultural and practice-based studies have been ignored. Thus, I address the question of where the field has been and where it should go to from the point of view of its relationship with policy. My focus is on the initial teaching of literacy in primary (elementary) schools. I discuss three factors which I believe contribute to our struggles to influence policy: the policy environment itself and how it has changed; the wider economy of literacy research and what knowledge counts in the interface between research and policy; and, finally, the role of the media and public discourse in the relationship between research and policy. I end with questions about what we may have missed and where the field might want to go.
(This Introduction can be found in the website of the publisher under file:///C:/Users/WissMit/Downloads/9781003177197_previewpdf.pdf).
Science texts have the potential to influence how people make decisions. In recent years, there has been an increased demand for research that helps illuminate how individuals read science texts. Educators seek to develop ways of supporting students as strong readers of science texts. Neuroimaging technology can be an important tool used to understand how individuals read science texts. This technology can inform how educators develop pedagogy; however, it can be difficult to determine how to apply neuroscience technology to educational environments in appropriate ways. One pathway forward is to develop interdisciplinary research collaborations between neuroimaging researchers and science educators. The intersection of neuroscience and education research may allow the technology of neuroimaging to be used in meaningful ways within education. Interdisciplinary partnerships between neuroscience and education can be strengthened by examining study design. When researchers collaborate across the fields of neuroscience and education, flaws in study design can be corrected before research begins. This article presents several factors to consider when designing research that connects neuroimaging and disciplinary literacy in science. By reflecting on the recommendations presented in this article, neuroimaging scientists and science educators may be able to create study designs that have significant implications for classroom settings.
This retrospective is a group effort between my children and me to make sense of their literacies over the past 26 years. Sharing in the authoring of this retrospective, we take a look back at the ways those literacies unfolded across their childhood. Emily, Tristan, and Simon used different literacies to define who they were and to construct a literate ethos. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. They used multiple literacies together to help them learn, understand and create meaning more fully. Their stories demonstrate the need for young children to engage with multiple literacies to fully develop as literate adults. This retrospective supports the idea that literacies are complex, motivated, multimodal, semiotic, social, discourse dependent, and imbedded in specific practices.
In this chapter I argue that the enactment of policies intended to support children’s and youth’s reading over the past six decades has perpetuated a remediation orientation in which educational structures remain largely unchanged and not adequately responsive to the students whom they serve. In each section, I provide an overview of the general policy context and research trends at the time, but with a particular focus on their implications for adolescent readers and the secondary reading programs designed to support them. I argue that a remediation orientation has become increasingly prevalent in secondary contexts, with consequences for adolescents’ literacy learning that have not been fully accounted for in existing policy and research. I conclude by amplifying previous concerns and calls for future policies and related funding initiatives that support a re-mediation orientation to supporting all literacy learners in school. A re-mediation orientation takes seriously the need to (a) understand readers holistically and in light of their strengths as well as challenges in literacy, (b) embrace the complexity of reading, and (c) attend to how readers experience literacy instruction as crucial information to consider as part of policy evaluations.KeywordsRemedial readingDevelopmental readingCompensatory reading instructionReading interventionRemediationReading policyReading research
Since 2003, RTE has published the annual “Annotated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English,” a list of curated and annotated works reviewed and selected by a large group of dedicated educator-scholars in our field. The goal of the annual bibliography is to offer a synthesis of the research published in the area of English language arts within the past year for RTE readers’ consideration. Abstracted citations and those featured in the “Other Related Research” sections were published, either in print or online, between June 2020 and June 2021. The bibliography is divided into nine sections, with some changes to the categories this year in response to the ever-evolving nature of research in the field. Small teams of scholars with diverse research interests and background experiences in preK–16 educational settings reviewed and selected the manuscripts for each section using library databases and leading scholarly journals. Each team abstracted significant contributions to the body of peer-reviewed studies that addressed the current research questions and concerns in their topic area.
Recent scholarship has identified how the reading assessment process can be improved by adapting to and accounting for emergent bilinguals’ multilingual resources. While this work provides guidance about how teachers can take this approach within their assessment practices, this article strengthens and builds on this scholarship by combining translanguaging and raciolinguistic lenses to examine the ideologies that circulate through assessment. By comparing interview data from English as a new language and dual-language bilingual teachers, we found that while reading assessments fail to capture the complexity of all emergent bilinguals’ reading abilities, they particularly marginalize emergent bilinguals of color. Thus, we expose the myths of neutrality and validity around reading assessment and demonstrate how they are linked to ideologies about race and language. We offer a critical translingual approach to professional learning that encourages teachers to grapple with these ideologies and shift toward a more critical implementation of reading assessments.
This thematic analysis utilizes teacher insights from their experiences in an online professional development (PD) course on early reading instruction to determine course design features educators perceive as being beneficial and questions and concerns educators raised during the course. We analyzed discussion forum contributions and course surveys from 418 educators enrolled in the course. We found that videos, interactive activities, and discussion forums were features of the online platform that fostered critical teacher reflection. Also, as teachers engaged with literacy content, they sought out new ways of understanding concepts of word analysis and invented spelling and reflected on how their course learning might apply to meeting the needs of diverse learners. Implications and design recommendations for future professional development courses in foundational reading are discussed.
In this article, we contend that in media stories on the science or reading, journalists have relied on strategic metaphorical framing to present reading education as a public crisis with a narrow and settled solution. Drawing on data from a critical metaphor analysis of 37 media stories, we demonstrate how frames used in recent media reporting have intensified the reading wars, promoting conflict and hampering conversation among stakeholders and across research paradigms and methodologies. The media have asserted a direct connection between basic research and instructional practice that, without sufficient translational research that attends to a variety of instructional contexts and student populations, may perpetuate inequities. We end with an example of collaboration and a challenge to reframe reading education in ways that center collaboration and conversation rather than conflict.
This article is a response to claims made by proponents of “science of reading” and “structured literacy” reading instruction approaches, in regard to their effectiveness with emergent bilingual students. The author argues that the strong knowledge base generated from studies examining the dynamic literacy practices of emergent bilingual students should also be included in reading curriculum, assessment, and teacher education decisions. First, the author provides an overview of the contributions and limitations of the knowledge base associated with the science of reading, in relation to bilingual learners. The author explains that the complexity of the instructional, demographic, and sociocultural realities of emergent bilinguals in the United States require solutions informed by various vantage points and perspectives. Second, the author summarizes family literacy research in households of Latinx bilingual children, documenting parents’ and children’s advocacy efforts, emergent biliteracy practices, and tensions in grappling with English‐dominant instruction in schools. Finally, the author summarizes research extending oral reading assessment procedures to analyze emergent bilingual students’ miscues and retellings. The author cautions against the implications of critiques of the three‐cueing systems and miscue analysis, by explaining how language‐related perspectives, including translanguaging, can help expand miscue analytic approaches. This expansion can help teachers and families understand how emergent bilinguals draw from their multiple language and literacy resources in decoding and retelling. Implications for teacher preparation and professional development are included throughout.
In recent years, a wave of science of reading (SOR) reforms have swept across the nation. Although advocates argue that these are based on science-based research, SOR remains a contested and ambiguous notion. In this essay, Elena Aydarova uses an anthropology of policy approach to analyze advocacy efforts that promoted SOR reforms and legislative deliberations in Tennessee. Drawing on Barthes’s theory of mythology, this analysis sheds light on the semiotic chains that link SOR with tradition, knowledge-build ingcurricula, and the scaling down of social safety nets. This deciphering of SOR mythologies under scores how the focus on “science” distorts the intentions of these myths to naturalize socioeconomic inequality and depoliticize social conditions of precarity. This study problematizes the claims made by SOR advocates and sheds light on the ways these reforms are likely to reproduce, rather than disrupt, inequities and injustices.
Can the science of reading contribute to improving educational practices, allowing more students to become skilled readers? Much has been learned about the behavioral and brain bases of reading, how students learn to read, and factors that contribute to low literacy. The potential to use research findings to improve literacy outcomes is substantial but remains largely unrealized. The lack of improvement in literacy levels, especially among students who face other challenges such as poverty, has led to new pressure to incorporate the science of reading in curricula, instructional practices, and teacher education. In the interest of promoting these efforts, the authors discuss three issues that could undermine them: the need for additional translational research linking reading science to classroom activities, the oversimplified way that the science is sometimes represented in the educational context, and the fact that theories of reading have become more complex and less intuitive as the field has progressed. Addressing these concerns may allow reading science to be used more effectively and achieve greater acceptance among educators.
There is a widespread consensus in the research community that reading instruction in English should first focus on teaching letter (grapheme) to sound (phoneme) correspondences rather than adopt meaning-based reading approaches such as whole language instruction. That is, initial reading instruction should emphasize systematic phonics. In this systematic review, I show that this conclusion is not justified based on (a) an exhaustive review of 12 meta-analyses that have assessed the efficacy of systematic phonics and (b) summarizing the outcomes of teaching systematic phonics in all state schools in England since 2007. The failure to obtain evidence in support of systematic phonics should not be taken as an argument in support of whole language and related methods, but rather, it highlights the need to explore alternative approaches to reading instruction.
The brain is thought to combine linguistic knowledge of words and nonlinguistic knowledge of their referents to encode sentence meaning. However, functional neuroimaging studies aiming at decoding language meaning from neural activity have mostly relied on distributional models of word semantics, which are based on patterns of word co-occurrence in text corpora. Here, we present initial evidencethat modeling nonlinguistic "experiential" knowledge contributesto decoding neural representations of sentence meaning. We model attributes of peoples' sensory, motor, social, emotional, and cognitive experiences with words using behavioral ratings. We demonstrate that fMRI activation elicited in sentence reading is more accurately decoded when this experiential attribute model is integrated with atext-based modelthan when either model is applied in isolation (participants were 5 males and 9females). Our decoding approach exploits a representation-similarity-basedframework, which benefitsfrom being parameterfree, while performing at accuracy levels comparable with those from parameter fitting approaches, such as ridge regression. We find that the text-based model contributes particularly to the decoding of sentences containing linguistically oriented "abstract" words and reveal tentative evidence that the experientialmodelimproves decoding ofmore concrete sentences. Finally, weintroduce a cross-participant decodingmethodto estimate an upper bound on model-based decoding accuracy. We demonstrate that a substantial fraction of neural signal remains unexplained, and leveragethis gapto pinpoint characteristics of weakly decoded sentences and hence identify model weaknessesto guidefuture model development.
A Relational Model of Adolescent Literacy Instruction: Disrupting the Discourse of “Every Teacher a Teacher of Reading”
Donna E. Alvermann, University of Georgia
Elizabeth Birr Moje, University of Michigan
In this chapter, the authors examine conditions that have enabled the discourse of “every teacher a teacher of reading” to exist for nearly a century, yet without widespread implementation in American secondary schools. We examine this phenomenon in two ways: first, through a chronological overview of the key issues and individuals that have influenced models of adolescent literacy instruction in the past; and second, through Michel Foucault’s (1984/1988) concept of genealogy, an historical analytic that makes possible the disruption of assumptions about the naturalness or inevitability of discourses such as every teacher a teacher of reading. We conclude with a call for a relational model of adolescent literacy instruction, one that uses both a theory of action and a theory in action.
Reference
Foucault, M. (1988). Politics, philosophy, culture: Interviews and other writings, 1977–1984 (L.D. Kritzman, Ed.; A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Routledge. (Original interview published 1984)
In this chapter, I explore the sociocultural foundation for re-establishing play as a natural literacy of children, to examine its renewed significance in times of increasingly immersive and lifelike technologies, and to argue for the restoration of play to a central place in the preschool and kindergarten curricula. My argument aligns with a New Literacy Studies (Gee, 1996; Street, 1995) view of play as a key practice for engaging digital spaces and participatory cultures (Jenkins et al., 2009), but takes a new tack: rebooting play as first and foremost, a literacy in its own right; an untidy, just-fine-as-is literacy that young children choose and use to make sense of their worlds, reworking meanings with their friends for their own immediate social and cultural purposes
Wohlwend, K. E. (2019). Play as the literacy of children: Imagining otherwise in contemporary childhoods In D. E. Alvermann, N. J. Unrau, & M. Sailors (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of literacy (7th ed., pp. 301-318). New York, NY: Routledge.
Given the billions of dollars spent every year on “silver bullets” that promise “quick fixes” for improving literacy teaching and subsequently, literacy achievement, calls for more thorough examinations of the professional development of classroom literacy teachers (hereby referred to as professional development) are warranted. Likewise, while literature reviews related to the effectiveness of various models of professional development are growing in number, those same calls do not recognize the need for conversations about the theories that inform the work of professional development. This chapter will focus on that—presenting and examining theories that have long guided the field of professional development, especially those that were seminal in the field such as the situated learning perspective proposed by Brown, Collins, & Duguid (1989); those that were widely enacted, such as theories of adult learning that were applied to professional development under the work of cognitive coaching (Costa & Garmston, 1994); and those that are currently being applied, such as learning as a practice, as described by Peter Knight (2002) and others. Additionally, I propose that we consider a more progressive theory for professional development, one that capitalizes on the imagination (Vygotsky, 2004) of teachers, especially their radical imagination (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014). In doing so, we might create spaces where professional development nurtures and develops teachers who are agents of change.
In this chapter we first clarify the meaning of theory and model, particularly in relation to literacy studies. We then explore meanings of paradigm and their shifts relevant to the field of literacy research over the past half-century or so. Subsequently, we review central theories and associated models that influence literacy research, including constructivism, social constructionism, transactional theory, information/cognitive processing theory, sociocultural perspectives, socio-cognitive theory, structuralism, critical theory, poststructuralism, non-representational theories, and post-humanism. Finally, we speculate on the evolution of literacy theories and models for future research.
The Seventh Edition of this foundational text represents the most comprehensive source available for connecting multiple and diverse theories to literacy research, broadly defined, and features both cutting-edge and classic contributions from top scholars. Two decades into the 21st century, the Seventh Edition finds itself at a crossroads and differs from its predecessors in three major ways: the more encompassing term literacy replaces reading in the title to reflect sweeping changes in how readers and writers communicate in a digital era; the focus is on conceptual essays rather than a mix of essays and research reports in earlier volumes; and most notably, contemporary literacy models and processes enhance and extend earlier theories of reading and writing. Providing a tapestry of models and theories that have informed literacy research and instruction over the years, this volume’s strong historical grounding serves as a springboard from which new perspectives are presented. The chapters in this volume have been selected to inspire the interrogation of literacy theory and to foster its further evolution. This edition is a landmark volume in which dynamic, dialogic, and generative relations of power speak directly to the present generation of literacy theorists and researchers without losing the historical contexts that preceded them. Some additional archival essays from previous editions are available on the book’s eResource.
The simple view of reading (SVR) proposes that performance in reading comprehension is the result of decoding and linguistic comprehension, and that each component is necessary but not sufficient for reading comprehension. In this study, the joint and unique predictive influences of decoding and linguistic comprehension for reading comprehension were examined with a group of 757 children in Grades 3 through 5. Children completed multiple measures of each construct, and latent variables were used in all analyses. Overall, the results of our study indicate that (a) the two constructs included in the SVR account for almost all of the variance in reading comprehension, (b) there are developmental trends in the relative importance of the two components, and (c) the two components share substantial predictive variance, which may complicate efforts to substantially improve children’s reading comprehension because the overlap may reflect stable individual differences in general cognitive or linguistic abilities.
Objective
The ultimate goal of reading is to understand written text. To accomplish this, children must first master decoding, the ability to translate printed words into sounds. Although decoding and reading comprehension are highly interdependent, some children struggle to decode but comprehend well, whereas others with good decoding skills fail to comprehend. The neural basis underlying individual differences in this discrepancy between decoding and comprehension abilities is virtually unknown.
Methods
We investigated the neural basis underlying reading discrepancy, defined as the difference between reading comprehension and decoding skills, in a three-part study: 1) The neuroanatomical basis of reading discrepancy in a cross-sectional sample of school-age children with a wide range of reading abilities (Experiment-1; n = 55); 2) Whether a discrepancy-related neural signature is present in beginning readers and predictive of future discrepancy (Experiment-2; n = 43); and 3) Whether discrepancy-related regions are part of a domain-general or a language specialized network, utilizing the 1000 Functional Connectome data and large-scale reverse inference from Neurosynth.org (Experiment-3).
Results
Results converged onto the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), as related to having discrepantly higher reading comprehension relative to decoding ability. Increased gray matter volume (GMV) was associated with greater discrepancy (Experiment-1). Region-of-interest (ROI) analyses based on the left DLPFC cluster identified in Experiment-1 revealed that regional GMV within this ROI in beginning readers predicted discrepancy three years later (Experiment-2). This region was associated with the fronto-parietal network that is considered fundamental for working memory and cognitive control (Experiment-3).
Interpretation
Processes related to the prefrontal cortex might be linked to reading discrepancy. The findings may be important for understanding cognitive resilience, which we operationalize as those individuals with greater higher-order reading skills such as reading comprehension compared to lower-order reading skills such as decoding skills. Our study provides insights into reading development, existing theories of reading, and cognitive processes that are potentially significant to a wide range of reading disorders.
There is intense public interest in questions surrounding how children learn to read and how they can best be taught. Research in psychological science has provided answers to many of these questions but, somewhat surprisingly, this research has been slow to make inroads into educational policy and practice. Instead, the field has been plagued by decades of “reading wars.” Even now, there remains a wide gap between the state of research knowledge about learning to read and the state of public understanding. The aim of this article is to fill this gap. We present a comprehensive tutorial review of the science of learning to read, spanning from children’s earliest alphabetic skills through to the fluent word recognition and skilled text comprehension characteristic of expert readers. We explain why phonics instruction is so central to learning in a writing system such as English. But we also move beyond phonics, reviewing research on what else children need to learn to become expert readers and considering how this might be translated into effective classroom practice. We call for an end to the reading wars and recommend an agenda for instruction and research in reading acquisition that is balanced, developmentally informed, and based on a deep understanding of how language and writing systems work.
How do we understand the emotional content of written words? Here, we investigate the hypothesis that written words that carry emotions are processed through phylogenetically ancient neural circuits that are involved in the processing of the very same emotions in nonlanguage contexts. This hypothesis was tested with respect to disgust. In an fMRI experiment, it was found that the same region of the left anterior insula responded whether people observed facial expressions of disgust or whether they read words with disgusting content. In a follow-up experiment, it was found that repetitive TMS over the left insula in comparison with a control site interfered with the processing of disgust words to a greater extent than with the processing of neutral words. Together, the results support the hypothesis that the affective processes we experience when reading rely on the reuse of phylogenetically ancient brain structures that process basic emotions in other domains and species.
Multiple levels of representation are involved in reading single words: visual representations of letter shape, orthographic representations of letter identity and order, phonological representations of the word’s pronunciation, and semantic representations of its meaning. Previous lesion and neuroimaging studies have identified a network of regions recruited during word reading, including ventral occipital-temporal regions and the angular gyrus. However, there is still debate about what information is being represented and processed in these regions. This study has two aims. The first is to help adjudicate between competing hypotheses concerning the role of ventral occipital cortex in reading. The second is to adjudicate between competing hypotheses concerning the role of the angular gyrus in reading. Participants read words in the scanner while performing a proper name detection task and we use a multivariate pattern analysis technique for analyzing fMRI data – representational similarity analysis – to decode the type of information being represented in these regions based on computationally explicit theories. Distributed patterns of activation in the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOT) and the angular gyrus (AG) show evidence of some type of orthographic processing, while the right hemisphere homologues of the vOT supports visual, but not orthographic, information processing of letter strings. In addition, there is evidence of left-lateralized semantic processing in the lvOT and evidence of top-down feedback in the lvOT. Taken together, these results suggest an interactive activation theory of visual word processing in which both the lvOT and lAG are neural loci of an orthographic level of representations.
Dyslexia is the most common and widely studied learning disability affecting nearly
20% of the children in the United States. Although the Science of Reading provides
considerable information with regard to the nature of dyslexia, its evaluation and
remediation, there is a history of ignorance, complacency and resistance in colleges
of education with regard to disseminating this critical information to pre-service
teachers. Information concerning weaknesses in the training of doctoral-level
faculty which trickles down to graduate students in education and pre-services
teachers is discussed along with potential solutions. Children with dyslexia and
reading difficulties are waiting to be taught to read and the knowledge and skills
necessary to do so exist. It is essential that the Science of Reading become part of
the vocabulary, knowledge base and training within colleges of education.
Unlabelled:
The neural basis of language processing, in the context of naturalistic reading of connected text, is a crucial but largely unexplored area. Here we combined functional MRI and eye tracking to examine the reading of text presented as whole paragraphs in two experiments with human subjects. We registered high-temporal resolution eye-tracking data to a low-temporal resolution BOLD signal to extract responses to single words during naturalistic reading where two to four words are typically processed per second. As a test case of a lexical variable, we examined the response to noun manipulability. In both experiments, signal in the left anterior inferior parietal lobule and posterior inferior temporal gyrus and sulcus was positively correlated with noun manipulability. These regions are associated with both action performance and action semantics, and their activation is consistent with a number of previous studies involving tool words and physical tool use. The results show that even during rapid reading of connected text, where semantics of words may be activated only partially, the meaning of manipulable nouns is grounded in action performance systems. This supports the grounded cognition view of semantics, which posits a close link between sensory-motor and conceptual systems of the brain. On the methodological front, these results demonstrate that BOLD responses to lexical variables during naturalistic reading can be extracted by simultaneous use of eye tracking. This opens up new avenues for the study of language and reading in the context of connected text.
Significance statement:
The study of language and reading has traditionally relied on single word or sentence stimuli. In fMRI, this is necessitated by the fact that time resolution of a BOLD signal much lower than that of cognitive processes that take place during natural reading of connected text. Here, we propose a method that combines eye tracking and fMRI, and can extract word-level information from the BOLD signal using high-temporal resolution eye tracking. In two experiments, we demonstrate the method by analyzing the activation of manipulable nouns as subjects naturally read paragraphs of text in the scanner, showing the involvement of action/motion perception areas. This opens up new avenues for studying neural correlates of language and reading in more ecologically realistic contexts.
In the course of digitisation, the range of substrates for textual reading is being expanded to include a number of screen-based technologies and reading devices, such as e-readers (e.g. Kindle) and tablets (e.g. iPad). These technologies have distinctly different affordances than paper has. Given that textual reading is at the same time likely to remain important as a cultural practice, and is undergoing massive change as digital screens are supplementing paper – with the potential to replace it as the dominant substrate – there is an urgent need to investigate what effects such change might have on the reading of different kinds of texts, for different purposes. This article proposes the need for an integrative, transdisciplinary model of embodied, textual reading accounting for its psychological, ergonomic, technological, social, cultural and evolutionary aspects. The envisaged model aims to be partly explanatory, in the sense that it aligns and integrates existing knowledge, and partly exploratory, in the sense that it points to blank spots in our knowledge where further research is needed. The model will thus serve to guide the planning of such further research, and to make research more compatible and research outcomes more widely useable.
We used quantitative, coordinate-based meta-analysis to objectively synthesize age-related commonalities and differences in brain activation patterns reported in 40 functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of reading in children and adults. Twenty fMRI studies with adults (age means: 23–34 years) were matched to 20 studies with children (age means: 7–12 years). The separate meta-analyses of these two sets showed a pattern of reading-related brain activation common to children and adults in left ventral occipito-temporal (OT), inferior frontal, and posterior parietal regions. The direct statistical comparison between the two meta-analytic maps of children and adults revealed higher convergence in studies with children in left superior temporal and bilateral supplementary motor regions. In contrast, higher convergence in studies with adults was identified in bilateral posterior OT/cerebellar and left dorsal precentral regions. The results are discussed in relation to current neuroanatomical models of reading and tentative functional interpretations of reading-related activation clusters in children and adults are provided. Hum Brain Mapp, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Chronic crises are an emerging concept that is increasingly being referenced in research and practice. Chronic crises display characteristics of both disasters and development, and require more specialized and effective management and interventions. For management purposes, chronic crises are proposed here to be disasters that have exceeded a certain threshold of longevity, or negative development outcomes that have exceeded a certain threshold of intensity, such that neither sustainable development nor disaster management remain effective management options. It is also proposed that chronic hazard conditions (CHCs) are key to defining and managing chronic crises. This paper proposes an adapted disaster-development management cycle that may illustrate a more effective management of chronic crises and CHCs.
This article’s fundamental argument is that the reading instruction and reading research have been shaped by political forces desiring to privilege particular approaches to instruction or particular combinations of methodological and epistemological perspectives on research. The swings in both dominant pedagogies and dominant research paradigms are analyzed in terms of these determining forces. The article concludes by championing balance and compatibility across both instructional approaches and research methods in the hope of arresting the pendulum swings that have characterized the field for too many decades.
Reading is one of the most complex and uniquely human of cognitive activities. Our understanding of the processes and factors involved in text comprehension is quite impressive, but it also is fragmented, with a proliferation of “mini-theories” for specific components that in reality are intertwined and interact with one another. Theories of dynamic text comprehension (DTC) aim to capture the integration of these components. They depict reading comprehension as an ongoing process involving fluctuations in the activation of concepts as the reader proceeds through the text, resulting in a gradually emerging interpretation of the material. Features of texts and characteristics of the reader jointly and interactively affect these fluctuations, influencing and being influenced by the reader's understanding and memory of what is read. We illustrate the DTC approach by describing one theory, called the Landscape model, and summarize how its simulations match empirical data. We conclude with some implications of the DTC framework for basic and applied reading research.
This article responds to a word recognition vignette in a recent article “Stories Grounded in Decades of Research: What we Truly Know about the Teaching of Reading.”
This article reveals inequity as a longitudinal construction involving the cumulation of micro/macroaggressions for children who live in high-poverty communities and attend poorly funded schools. Drawing on critical race theory and empirical research that documents forms of micro/macroaggression, a longitudinal analysis is used to identify forms of micro/macroaggression encountered in elementary school, middle school, and high school. A set of mega-aggressions that were particularly severe and had devastating effects on students’ academic outcomes are identified and explored as mega-aggressions. The article concludes by exploring the cumulation of micro/macroaggressions across one student’s school trajectory.
Two methods of decoding instruction were compared. Participants were kindergartners who knew letter sounds but could not decode nonwords, M = 5.6 years. The segmented phonation treatment taught students to convert graphemes to phonemes by breaking the speech stream (“sss – aaa – nnn”) before blending. The connected phonation treatment taught students to pronounce phonemes without breaking the speech stream (“sssaaannn”) before blending. The CVC nonwords contained continuant consonants that could be stretched and connected. Following learning to criterion, students completed a transfer task to decode CVCs with stop consonants that are harder to blend because of intrusion from schwa vowels. Results showed that connected phonation training facilitated learning to decode as well as reading nonwords accurately on the transfer task compared to segmented phonation training. An error analysis suggested that breaking between phonemes caused students to forget initial phonemes during blending. Findings suggest how to teach decoding more effectively.
Dyslexia is a neurological language‐based learning disability. Several legislative bills related to dyslexia have recently been introduced in the United States so dyslexia can be understood and interventions in reading instruction can be provided. Studies have shown measurable improvements in the language areas of the brain's left hemisphere after reading interventions with students with dyslexia, and multisensory teaching strategies can be the difference between academic success and academic failure and frustration. Effective methods for working with students with dyslexia support an explicit, systematic, cumulative, and multisensory approach that integrates listening, speaking, reading, and writing and emphasizes phonology, orthography, syntax, morphology, semantics, and the organization of spoken and written discourse. The author shares what dyslexia is not, what it is, and how literacy teachers can support their students with dyslexia.
Semantics and phonology are fundamental components of language. Neuroimaging studies have identified a language network (LN) that is distributed through multiple regions and exhibits preferential responses to semantic and phonological information. However, it is unclear how these regions work collaboratively to support the processing of these components. In the present study, we first defined the LN as voxels that responded more to sentences than to strings of Chinese pseudo-characters. We subsequently used a voxel-based global brain connectivity method based on resting-state functional connectivity (FC) to characterize the neural correlates of semantic and phonological processing. We specifically correlated the within-network connectivity (WNC) of each voxel in the LN with the participants’ scores on the semantic and phonological components extracted from a battery of reading tests via principal component analysis. We found that individuals with stronger WNC in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (lpSTG) and anterior superior temporal gyrus (laSTG) were better at semantic and phonological processing, respectively. Furthermore, the FC of the lpSTG with the laSTG and bilateral fusiform gyrus mainly contributed to semantic processing, whereas the FC of the laSTG with the left posterior middle temporal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus largely contributed to phonological processing. Importantly, the semantic and phonological subnetworks overlapped in the laSTG, the WNC of which correlated with the participants’ performances during semantic-phonological interactions. Our study revealed the hub and subnetwork for semantic and phonological processing, respectively, and highlighted the role of the laSTG in semantic-phonological interactions.
This study leverages advances in multivariate cross-classified random effects models to extend the Simple View of Reading to account for variation within readers and across texts, allowing for both the personalization of the reading function and the integration of the component skills and text and discourse frameworks for reading research. We illustrate the Complete View of Reading (CVRi) using data from an intensive longitudinal design study with a large sample of typical (N = 648) and struggling readers (N = 865) in middle school and using oral reading fluency as a proxy for comprehension. To illustrate the utility of the CVRi, we present a model with cross-classified random intercepts for students and passages and random slopes for growth, Lexile difficulty, and expository text type at the student level. We highlight differences between typical and struggling readers and differences across students in different grades. The model illustrates that readers develop differently and approach the reading task differently, showing differential impact of text features on their fluency. To be complete, a model of reading must be able to reflect this heterogeneity at the person and passage level, and the CVRi is a step in that direction. Implications for reading interventions and 21st century reading research in the era of “Big Data” and interest in phenotypic characterization are discussed.
In this article, we provide some comments on the simple view of reading (SVR), now some 30 years after its initial proposal and empirical work (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). We begin with an overview of what the SVR is as a conceptual model, as well as what it is not. We follow this with comments, in turn, on three papers presented in this special issue that assessed the adequacy of the SVR. We close with thoughts on the main points across the three papers reviewed. Throughout, we not only comment on the research about the simple view but also on its educational implications.
Few hypotheses in the field of literacy have proven as robust as the Simple View of Reading (SVR). Two studies included in this special issue use large participant samples and sophisticated quantitative analyses to confirm the basic claim of the SVR, that decoding and listening comprehension together predict reading comprehension. One also demonstrates a developmental shift from decoding to language as the primary predictor after about Grade 3. A third paper challenges the adequacy of the SVR for older readers, offering evidence that the nature of the text being read also must be taken into account in predicting comprehension outcomes. All three studies, though, use rather simple comprehension outcomes. I argue that reader skills in academic language, in perspective taking, and in argumentation are additional important predictors of comprehension when readers are confronted with 21st century literacy tasks, which require analysis, synthesis, and critique, not just literal inferences and summaries.
In this article, I discuss implications of the discourse and rhetoric of dyslexia advocacy and of recent state policies for the preparation of literacy professionals. I then synthesize reflections on my experiences teaching and learning about dyslexia and reading difficulties within university-based schools of education, and in trainings offered by publishers of commercial reading programs. Here, I draw a distinction between being trained to deliver a program and developing a professional knowledge base for the teaching of reading. I use these reflections to identify two goals for university-based graduate programs aimed at ensuring equity and inclusivity in the current policy context.
Reading has been shown to rely on a dorsal brain circuit involving the temporoparietal cortex (TPC) for grapheme-to-phoneme conversion of novel words (Pugh et al., 2001), and a ventral stream involving left occipitotemporal cortex (OTC) (in particular in the so-called “visual word form area”, VWFA) for visual identification of familiar words. In addition, portions of the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) have been posited to be an output of the dorsal reading pathway involved in phonology. While this dorsal versus ventral dichotomy for phonological and orthographic processing of words is widely accepted, it is not known if these brain areas are actually strictly sensitive to orthographic or phonological information. Using an fMRI rapid adaptation technique we probed the selectivity of the TPC, OTC, and IFC to orthographic and phonological features during single word reading. We found in two independent experiments using different task conditions in adult normal readers, that the TPC is exclusively sensitive to phonology and the VWFA in the OTC is exclusively sensitive to orthography. The dorsal IFC (BA 44), however, showed orthographic but not phonological selectivity. These results support the theory that reading involves a specific phonological-based temporoparietal region and a specific orthographic-based ventral occipitotemporal region. The dorsal IFC, however, was not sensitive to phonological processing, suggesting a more complex role for this region.
Retrospective Miscue Analysis (RMA) is an instructional strategy that invites readers to reflect on their own reading process. In this article, Goodman explains several variations on the RMA strategy.
Do experts in reading agree on contexts and practices for learning and instruction in the classroom? Rona Flippo explores this issue with a panel of reading scholars who represent a range of diversity in their views and orientations toward reading education.
The purpose of this research was to investigate the cognitive abilities that explain reading comprehension across childhood and early adulthood. Drawing from the standardization sample of the Woodcock–Johnson III, analyses were conducted with large samples at age levels spanning early childhood to early adulthood: 5 to 6 (n = 639), 7 to 8 (n = 720), 9 to 13 (n = 1,995), 14 to 19 (n = 1,615), and 20 to 39 (n = 1,409). Using a model including factors representing general intelligence, Cattell–Horn–Carroll broad abilities, and reading decoding skills, results revealed significant direct effects for reading decoding skills and Crystallized Intelligence on reading comprehension across all age levels. Memory-related abilities, processing speed, and auditory processing demonstrated indirect effects on reading comprehension through reading decoding skills. The magnitude of direct and indirect effects varied as a function of age. The results provide support for integrative models of reading that include both direct and indirect effects of cognitive abilities on reading comprehension and for consideration of developmental differences in the cognitive aptitudes predicting reading comprehension. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
To clarify the role of decoding in reading and reading disability, a simple model of reading is proposed, which holds that reading equals the product of decoding and comprehension. It follows that there must be three types of reading disability, resulting from an inability to decode, an inability to comprehend, or both. It is argued that the first is dyslexia, the second hyperlexia, and the third common, or garden variety, reading disability.
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Language processing is supported by different regions located in separate parts of the brain. A crucial condition for these regions to function as a network is the information transfer between them. This is guaranteed by dorsal and ventral pathways connecting prefrontal and temporal language-relevant regions. Based on functional brain imaging studies, these pathways' language functions can be assigned indirectly. Dorsally, one pathway connecting the temporal cortex (TC) and premotor cortex supports speech repetition, another one connecting the TC and posterior Broca's area supports complex syntactic processes. Ventrally, the uncinate fascile and the inferior fronto-occipital fascile subserve semantic and basic syntactic processes. Thus, the available evidence points towards a neural language network with at least two dorsal and two ventral pathways.
ATTEMPTS TO REFUTE THE PREMISE THAT READING IS AN EXACT SCIENCE WHICH INVOLVES PRECISE, DETAILED PERCEPTION AND IDENTIFICATION OF LETTERS AND WORDS. RATHER, READING IS DEFINED AS A "PSYCHOLINGUISTIC GUESSING GAME" IN WHICH THE READER PICKS UP GRAPHIC CUES TO WORDS, FORMS A PERCEPTUAL IMAGE, AND THUS READS BY A SELECTION PROCESS. THROUGHOUT THE READING PROCESS, THERE IS CONSTANT USE OF LONG- AND SHORT-TERM MEMORY. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)