The Science of Reading

How the Brain Works in Reading

Rosalina J. Villaneza, PhD

Chief, Education Program Specialist
BLD-TLD – Department of Education, CO
 Objectives:

At the end of the session participants are expected to:

1. understand what the science of reading is and is not;
2. give importance to the power of science or science
evidence and its implication to reading instruction;
3. understand the development of the Reading Brain;
4. understand why reading is not a natural process
according to the Science of Reading; and
5. use instructional practices that are effective for
all children, so teachers can deliver the promise of
“literacy for all”.
Science of Reading?
AGREE or DISAGREE
The Science of Reading is:
1. an ideology;
2. not a philosophy;
3. not a program of instruction or a specific component of
instruction; and
4. the converging evidence of what matters and what works in
literacy instruction, organized around models that describe
how and why.
AGREE or DISAGREE
5. Reading comes naturally.
6. Children should taught explicitly how to connect letters with
words.
 The BRAIN: Its Structure and Functions

All human
behavior is The process of
mediated by the learning is one of
brain and the the most important
central nervous activities of the
system. brain.
The Cerebral Hemispheres
The human brain is composed of two
halves, right hemisphere and the
left hemisphere, which appear on
casual inspection to be almost
identical in construction and
metabolism. Each hemisphere
contains a frontal lobe, a temporal
lobe, an occipital lobe, a parietal
lobe, and a motor area. The motor
area of each hemisphere controls the
muscular activities of the opposite
side of the body.
Right Brain, Left Brain:

Almost identical in structure but differ in function

 Left Hemisphere

Reacts to and controls language-related

activities. 90 percent of adults, language
function originates in the left
hemisphere, regardless of whether the
individual is left-handed, right-handed, or
a combination of the two.
Right Hemisphere
Deals with nonverbal
stimuli. Spatial
perception,
mathematics, music,
directional
orientation, time
sequences, and body
awareness are
located in the right
brain.
.
Right Brain/Left Brain

Left-brained individuals are strong in

language and verbal skills while “right-
brained” individuals have strengths in
spatial, artistic, and mechanical skills.. .
Concept About Motor Learning

• Human learning begins with motor

learning
• There is a natural sequence of
developmental motor stages
• Many areas of academic and
cognitive performance are based
on successful motor experiences.
Perception:

refers to the cognitive ability of the

individual to both recognize and
integrate external stimuli. It is a
process that occurs essentially in
the brain. Perception is a learned
skill, which implies that it can be
taught.
Perceptual-Motor System

Basic Rationale: Higher level

mental processes for the most
part develop out of and after
adequate development of the
motor system and the perceptual
system..
Auditory Perception

• Auditory perception- Interpreting

what is heard
• Phonological awareness
• Auditory discrimination
• Auditory memory
• Auditory sequencing
• Auditory blending
Types of Auditory Discrimination

* Auditory Memory: is the ability to

store and recall what one has heard.
For example, the student could be
asked to do three activities, such as
close the window, open the door, and
place the book on the desk.
Types of Auditory Discrimination

* Auditory Sequencing: is the ability to

remember the order of items in a
sequential list. For example, the alphabet,
numbers, and the months of the year are
learned as an auditory sequence.
Types of Auditory Discrimination

• Auditory Blending: is the ability to blend

single phonic elements or phonemes into a
complete word. Students with such
disabilities have difficulty blending, for
example, the phonemes m-a-n to form the
word man.
Visual Perception: Interpreting what is seen

• Visual discrimination
• Figure-Ground perception
• Visual closure
• Spatial relations
• Object-letter recognition
• Reversals
• Whole-part perception
Visual Discrimination
• refers to the ability to differentiate one
object from another.

A B C D

A B C D
Visual Discrimination
 Types of Visual Discrimination

Figure Ground
Discrimination:
refers to the ability to
distinguish an object
from its surrounding
background.
 Visual Closure:

is a task that requires the

individual to recognize or
identify an object even though
the total stimulus is not
presented. The house is near the church.
For example, a competent
reader is able to read a line of
print when the top half of the
print is covered.
 Spatial Relations:

Spatial relationships is the ability to

perceive the positions of objects in
relation to oneself and/or other objects. A
person who has difficulty in this area may
struggle with spelling tasks and with
concepts of “up”, “down”, “front”, “back”,
“left” and “right”. You may also see
confusion in the letters “b, d, p, q” or
inconsistent reversals of letters and
numbers. Reading charts, maps or
diagrams may also be difficult..
Object and Letter Recognition:

is the ability to recognize the nature of

objects when viewing them. This
includes recognition of alphabetic
letters, numbers, words, geometric
shapes (such as a square), and objects
(such as a cat, a face, or a toy).
What all Teachers Should Know

The Science of Reading

The Is/Is Not of Science of Reading

SOR is:
SOR is not: the converging evidence of what
• an ideology matters and what works in literacy
• philosophy instruction, organized around models
• a program of instruction; that describe how and why.
or
• a specific component of
instruction
What is Science of Reading?
The science of reading is the converging
evidence of what matters and what works
in literacy instruction, organized around
models that describe how and why.

It is an emerging consensus from many

related disciplines based on literally
thousands of studies.
Why Reading is Not a Natural Process.. According to the SOR

Learning to speak is a natural process

for children, but learning to read is not.
Reading needs to be taught explicitly.
Children need to learn the different
sounds in spoken language and be able
to connect these sounds to written letters
and make meaning out of print.
Why Reading is Not a Natural Process.. According to the SOR

“We human beings were never

born to read; we invented reading
and then had to teach it to every
new generation.”

- Mary Ann Wolf

The Reading Brain
The Reading Brain

Three areas of the brain (Sandak, Mencl, Frost, & Pugh, 2004;
Houde, Rossi, Lubin, & Joliot, 2010):

* Phonological Processor - located towards the front of the brain on

the left side. It handles spoken language. Almost everyone is born
with this language area intact.
* Orthographic Processor - is located towards the back of the brain on the left
side. It handles visual images. Almost everyone is born with this visual part of
the brain intact.
* Phonological Assembly Region – connects vision and speech and is the
system that enables reading. No one is born with this neural system that
connects both vision and speech. It must be built through instructional
experiences. (APA, 2014; Hruby & Goswami, 2011)
Brain Science Behind Reading Acquisition
Implication to Reading Instruction

SOR tells us about:

• how we learn to read,

• what goes wrong when students

don’t learn; and

• what kind of instruction is most likely

to work best for most students.

Theoretical Models: Simple View of Reading

D × LC = RC
Decoding
Language Reading
Comprehension Comprehension

(Gough and Tunmer, 1986)

How Reading Works in the Brain

The Simple View of Reading

Word Pronunciation Word Meanings Understanding the
LetterDecoding
Recognition
Connection of Phonemes X
Language
Background
Comprehension
Knowledge
= Reading
Meaning of the Text
Comprehension
To Letters Listening
Word Recognition Comprehension

1 X 0 = 0
0 X 1 = 0
1 X 1 = 1
Gogh & Tunmer, 1988
The Rope Model
Acquiring Word Recognition
Phonological awareness supports
student understanding the words are
made up of a series of discrete sounds.

Phonics teaches students how to map these

sounds onto letters and spellings.

The more phonics students learn, the better able they

are to decode, or sound out words efficiently and they
begin to build word recognition.

When students begin to recognize many words

automatically, their reading starts to feel more and more
effortless. This is a process called orthographic mapping.

Fluency, or reading accurately and smoothly, is partly a by-

product of orthographic mapping. As sentences become
more complex, students need to get through enough words
fast enough to make sense of what they are reading.
Adapted from Blevins
What Needs to be Taught:
The Essential Components of Early Literacy

(National Reading Panel, 2000)

Skill Definition
Phonemic Awareness Noticing, thinking about and working with phonemes (the
smallest units of spoken language)
Vocabulary & Oral Understanding the meaning of words we speak, hear,
Language read, and write
Phonics Knowing relationships between sounds (phonemes) and
letters (graphemes)
Oral Reading Fluency Reading connected text accurately, fluently, and for
meaning
Reading Gaining meaning from text
Comprehension
How do you Teach
Reading?
How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)

1.Explicit Instruction
“Explicit Instruction” means that the teacher is the one who takes center
stage. The teacher controls the student’s learning by teaching the student. All
concepts are directly and explicitly taught to students with continuous
student-teacher interaction, guidance, and feedback.
SOR shows us that explicit or direct instruction is the most effective
teaching approach for students with reading difficulties. (Arden & Vaughn,
2016)
In EI, the teacher will first present a lesson with a demonstration. The teacher will then do
the lesson together with the student. Finally, the teacher will ask the student to do it without
guidance.

“I Do, We Do, You Do.”

How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)

2. Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness means that a child can recognize the
sounds, rhythm, and rhyme involving spoken words.
“You hear it and you speak it.”
No print is involved in PA. PA happens way before children are
introduced to letters of the alphabet. Research has proven that PA
is highly related to success in reading and spelling.
PA involves teaching children rhyming, syllable division, and
phonemic awareness.
How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)

3. Systematic Phonics Instruction

Systematic phonics is the method of teaching students how to
connect the graphemes (letters) with the phonemes (sounds)
using a clear and well thought out scope and sequence. It
includes:
• Consonant and short vowel sounds
• Digraphs and blends
• Long vowels and other vowel patterns
• Syllables patterns
• Affixes (Prefixes & Suffixes)
 “Phonics instruction should
continue throughout the
elementary grades to build deep
and secure neural systems for
sight word recognition.”
- David Kilpatrick
How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)

4.Structured Literacy
Structured literacy approach teaches students phonics, decoding, and spelling skills
explicitly in a systematic, sequential, and cumulative step-by-step process. SL
approaches are effective in helping students with learning differences, such as dyslexia,
learn to read and spell (Spear-Swerling, 2019)
SL instruction:
• Built around a scope and sequence. It dictates the order in which each concept or skill is
taught.
• Each lesson builds upon itself.
• Student never has to read or spell anything they haven’t been introduced to yet.
• Stories and text in SL are always decodable.
• In SL students only read and spell what they have been explicitly taught.
• Individual skill is taught in isolation from the most basic levels of phonics and to the most
advanced spelling rules & morphological concepts.
Conclusion
• All children deserve to learn to read
• What is known about how children learn to
read can inform our work
• What and how we teach really matters
• A focus on prevention will ensure more
children learn to read and reduce the need for
intervention
Next Step: What To Do Now?

• Build our knowledge

• Examine what we teach and how
• Explore our systems of supporting
students
Discussion Questions:

1.What does the Science of Reading tell us?

2.Why reading is not a natural process according
to SOR?
3. How do we develop reading literacy in the
early years?
4. What are the appropriate pedagogies in
developing early reading literacy?
Statement for Reflection

We can’t teach what we don’t know. We can stop

doing what doesn’t work, and we can dismiss
outdated practices based on misconceptions about the
process of reading. Instead, we can be guided by the
evidence.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then
when you know better, do better.”
React on these statements

1.All children deserve to learn to read

2.What is known about how children learn to read
can inform our work
3. What and how we teach really matters
4. A focus on prevention will ensure more
children learn to read and reduce the need
to intervention
”It simply is not true that there are hundreds
of ways to learn to read. When it comes to
Reading, all children have roughly the same
Brain that imposes the same constraints
And the same learning sequence.”

- Stanislas Dehaene
Books and Articles
• Barshay, Jill. (2020). Four things you need to know about the new reading wars. The Hechinger
Report. https://hechingerreport.org/four-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-reading-wars/
• Early Reading Instruction: What Science Really Tells Us about How to Teach Reading (The MIT
Press, 2004) https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/early-reading-instruction
• Hanford, Emily. (2018). At a loss for words: How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be
poor readers. APM Reports.
https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/08/22/whats-wrong-how-schools-teach-reading
• Seidenberg, M. (2017).
Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About
It.
New York, N.Y: Basic Books.
• Maryanne Wolf, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. Harper
Perennial, 2008.

Websites:
• https://www.readingrockets.org/
• https://improvingliteracy.org/
• https://dyslexiaida.org/
Resources
● https://www.scilearn.com/the-science-of-reading-the-basics-and-beyond/
● Barshay, Jill. (2020). Four things you need to know about the new reading wars. The Hechinger

Report. https://hechingerreport.org/four-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-reading-wars/
● https://www.zaner-bloser.com/research/the-science-of-reading-evidence-for-a-new-era-of-reading-instr
uction.php
● https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/what-exactly-does-science-say-about-reading-instruction/
● https://cdn.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Nebraska-Session-1-Phonological-Awarenes
s-and-Phonics-2.pdf
● https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/what-is-the-science-of-reading
Thank you!
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