Ohio elementary schools are moving to the Science of Reading, an approach that emphasizes phonics along with vocabulary- and knowledge-rich content. Keen on learning what this transition looks like inside classrooms, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute asked Ellen Belcher, a former journalist with the Dayton Daily News, to visit Margaretta Local…

Reading instruction has been the subject of significant controversy for more than five decades, and Kappan has allowed advocates of many different types of reading instruction to make their cases in the magazine's pages. Teresa Preston chronicles the history of the reading wars as they played out in Kappan. Researchers and scholars have debated…

Reading is one of the most well-studied aspects of human learning. Since the 1950s, with more interest, research tools, and funding available, the body of reading research has exploded: Every year, hundreds of new scientific papers are published. However, there has been a detrimental lag in ensuring this science is understood by the people who…

Learning to read is an expectation rather than an exception in society today. Despite this, some children experience reading difficulties. The purpose of this article is to review recent and seminal research on reading difficulties through the lenses of three perspectives: cognitive, social and cultural and interactive. The three perspectives are…

In our first article, we outlined some of the reasons for reading failure at the Early Childhood level and beyond, discussed common challenges students face, and explored essential components for quality reading instruction. We'll revisit the students you met in the first article to provide a window into how the Science of Reading can be…

This article discusses developing special education teacher candidates who have a solid knowledge of scientifically aligned reading practices. Challenges in preservice teacher education are presented, including alignment of course work and clinical experiences to the robust evidence base in reading science. Key questions and resources are…

This article conveys one practitioner's career-long journey related to teaching reading. The author gained valuable information from relevant research reports regarding the keys to effective reading instruction and has learned even more while implementing a systematic approach to teaching reading as a volunteer tutor.

This article provides a commentary within the special issue, Integration: The Keystone of Comprehension. According to most contemporary frameworks, a driving force in comprehension is the reader's ability to generate the links among the words and sentences (ideas) in the texts and between the ideas in the text and what the readers already know. As…

Recently, the term "science of reading" has been used in public debate to promote policies and instructional practices based on research on the basic cognitive mechanisms of reading, the neural processes involved in reading, computational models of learning to read, and the like. According to those views, such data provide convincing…

This article provides a commentary within the special issue, Integration: The Keystone of Comprehension. According to most contemporary frameworks, a driving force in comprehension is the reader's ability to generate the links among the words and sentences (ideas) in the texts and between the ideas in the text and what the readers already know. As…

Small-group instruction is ubiquitous in today's elementary school classrooms. The goal of this paper is to support educators and administrators looking to adopt or improve their approach to small-group literacy instruction, so they can align their practices with the current scientific evidence. The authors first define small-group instruction and…

The authors discuss the tension between the science of reading and adaptive teaching. The discussion focuses on the ways in which the science of reading emphasizes the teaching of reading as decontextualized and compartmentalized aspects of literacy acquisition that are distant from culturally sustaining and relevant pedagogies and restrict…

"Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research" offers a truly balanced, inclusive, and integrated overview of the processes involved in educational research. This text first examines the general steps in the research process and then details the procedures for conducting specific types…

Recent research into reading has revealed much about how people learn to read, and Riley expresses optimism that educators might adopt much of this reading science into how they teach reading without triggering new "reading wars" between advocates of phonics and whole language. He summarizes indisputable facts recent scientific research…

The teaching of reading has been a source of contentious debate for many years. Margaret Meek Spencer contributed her passion for the importance of specific texts to help children learn to read. In addition to the kinds of texts to be used, important aspects of the debate include the relationship between national curriculum policies and robust…