Back in 2021, Undivided shed light on a big debate in California and across the U.S. — how young kids (TK–2nd grade) should be taught to read. Many experts pushed for a shift to direct, explicit phonics instruction, moving away from older methods like balanced literacy and the three-cueing system. These approaches, rooted in the “reading wars” of the 1980s, often prioritized guessing strategies over phonics, leaving some kids struggling to develop strong reading skills.
Now, California schools are making strides in adopting evidence-based reading instruction to help all kids — including those with disabilities — become strong, confident, and proficient readers. We’ll explain how this works, why it’s doable for your child, potential challenges to be aware of, and share practical tips to help your child start their reading journey strong — whether your child is just beginning to read, has been struggling, or has dyslexia or an intellectual disability.
For expert insights, we spoke to Christopher J. Lemons, PhD, an associate professor of special education in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University; Kathleen Whitbread, PhD, from Whitbread Educational Consulting; and Cherie Dorreen, an education advocate.
Understanding how reading is taught can be a little confusing, especially during what has now been coined “the reading wars.” As EdSource explains in this article, in a nutshell, we have the science of reading, or structured literacy, which includes the five fundamental pillars: phonics (connecting letters to sounds), phonemic awareness (identifying distinct units of sound), fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. On the other hand, we have balanced literacy, which is a variation of the whole-language approach and explores learning to read “organically” (with phonics in small doses).
There has been a movement to change how reading is taught, with new bills being introduced that would require schools to teach students to read using the science of reading, due to low test scores and students not reading at grade level. CalMatters recently reported that “only 43% of California third graders were reading at grade level last year, according to the most recent Smarter Balanced test results. Among low-income students and Black and Latino students, the rate was 30%.”
While a coalition of education advocates, such as EdVoice, Families in Schools, Decoding Dyslexia, The Reading League, and Breaking Barriers By Eight, are geared up for a repeat attempt to pass similar legislation, many parents might wonder how to advocate individually in their school for appropriate reading instruction, particularly within their child’s individualized education program (IEP). Parents might also wonder how this new evidence-based focus on literacy is going to affect kids, especially those with extensive support needs. Let’s dive in.
The scientific consensus is that structured literacy is the best way to ensure that the greatest number of students are proficient in reading by the time state testing begins in third grade. Structured literacy is often presented as phonics, but there is much more to it. Experts point to the Reading Rope, a visual devised by Hollis Scarborough, a psychologist and prominent literacy expert, to illustrate the Simple View of Reading, which says that learning to read is made up of word recognition and language comprehension. No child will learn to read without working on both of these skill areas.
The Reading Rope shows us that in order to be a skilled reader, students need to learn word recognition, including phonics and sight words, and language comprehension skills, such as background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge about how literature works.
The controversy regarding reading instruction focuses on the word recognition part of the rope because so many schools were disregarding the educational research on the need for explicit instruction on phonological awareness and decoding, believing instead that creating opportunities for kids to enjoy literature would develop their natural ability to read. But as Dorreen explains in this clip, reading is not natural and requires a “rewiring” of the brain to recognize the code fluently.
The “structured” part of evidence-based literacy instruction refers to direct and explicit instruction in phonics, in a systematic sequence to ensure that the reader has fully mastered foundational skills.
Our experts pointed us to the California Kinder and First Grade Common Core Literacy standards RF2 and RF3, which take you through a scope and sequence of explicit phonics teaching. Even in TK and preschool, teachers are now required in the California Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations to work on phonological awareness, rhyming, learning letters and their sounds, as well as print concepts.
Most evidence-based literacy programs start with phonetic awareness and then move into decoding. At the same time, learning a few words by sight — like “the” — can help a child move to reading sentences. The content and order in which kids are taught these skills are often referred to as the “scope and sequence.” Kids can build phonetic awareness by practicing this sequence:
One strand of the word recognition part of the Reading Rope is phonological awareness, which refers to an individual’s sensitivity to the sound structure of spoken language. It is an important skill that hearing children begin to acquire during preschool and continue to build in early elementary school as they learn to read.
In TK and kindergarten, kids work on syllables and sounds (phonemes) by practicing:
In first grade, kids start to get technical about phonemes. They need to know the difference between long and short vowel sounds. They start blending sounds to make words and blending consonants like ST and TR.
These skills are foundational for decoding, so kids who have not been explicitly taught phonemic awareness might struggle with decoding and become struggling readers. Phonological awareness can be challenging for deaf kids, but they can learn letter names and sounds using American Sign Language (ASL). It might also be very challenging for students with apraxia of speech who are not yet able to speak distinct phonemes. Children who have language development delays often find rhyming challenging to comprehend.
Another strand of the word recognition part of the Reading Rope is decoding. Working on decoding starts as soon as students know most of their letter-sound correspondences and the different vowel sounds. Here are some decoding skills kids learn:
Some kids will breeze through this sequence in kindergarten, and others might work on these stages for much longer. Remember that decoding is not a natural process and requires explicit instruction and practice. Brain studies have shown that the brain needs to make connections between different areas to develop this skill. Initially, kids will decode slowly. With practice, decoding becomes automatic so that the reader isn’t consciously decoding. Until this automaticity develops, the student is likely not thinking about what the words mean while they are decoding.
Another strand of the word recognition part of the Reading Rope is sight words. In spite of the focus on phonics, most reading programs also encourage students to learn some words by sight or whole-word reading. There are lists of high-frequency sight words to help kids to get started as readers, such as Fry or Dolch. Sometimes sight words are chosen because they are difficult to decode, such as “the” and “because.”
On the other hand, children with intellectual disabilities are often limited to learning “functional”’ reading using a whole-word approach. Children are taught to read words that are common in their environment, such as their name, or common signs such as Stop and Exit. Based on Professor Sue Buckley’s research, using a picture match strategy, children with Down syndrome can often master a large number of sight words, particularly when familiar or high-interest words are included.
Teaching some sight words as part of a structured phonics approach is not the same thing as a whole-word approach to teach word recognition. Dr. Lemons’ research focusing on students with Down syndrome learning to read indicates that a structured literacy approach is beneficial for most students, including students with significant cognitive disabilities. Our reading experts, Dr. Lemons and Dr. Whitbread, both emphasize the importance of teaching some sight words to supplement an emerging reader’s phonemic skills, but caution that just because a student might be stronger when it comes to learning whole words, we should not limit them when it comes to systematic instruction in phonics.
Dr. Lemons says it is important to teach phonemic awareness and decoding in parallel to sight words.
Dr. Whitbread agrees: “Any reading program, evidence-based structured literacy program, is going to include teaching some words by sight.” Dr. Whitbread says that one area of contention is what sight words are taught, because many teachers insist on sight words being words that can’t be decoded. Teaching kids decodable words that they may not yet have the phonics skills to decode can improve motivation for children who are going to take longer to move through the decoding scope and sequence. “If they have no sight words, they’re not going to be able to have that joy of a three-word sentence with an illustration. I think there’s a benefit to that for the motivational piece.” At the same time, Whitbread says we need to be cautious if schools make the error of saying, “This is all a child can do.”
Overusing sight words while at the same time providing explicit instruction in phonics can lead to confusion. Dr. Whitbread tells us that some children can become very confused and frustrated when you teach them a whole word that is decodable. Also, teaching nonsense words can cause a similar frustration. There are functional reading and sight word programs for students with intellectual disabilities, such as Edmark. Dr. Whitbread says that “if you try to teach Edmark alongside a structured literacy phonics program, you’re going to create confusion. People will say, ‘Oh, he’s doing so great with Edmark. Let’s just add on, you know, Wilson’ (a popular Orton-Gillingham program). That’s not a good idea.“
Next to word recognition, language comprehension is the next big section of the Reading Rope. As schools increasingly focus on teaching kids word recognition, it’s very important that we still pay attention to the other parts of the rope, which are often a point of weakness for children with disabilities that are not specifically reading disabilities. When a child is not reading fluently, it’s really important to do thorough testing that will identify which specific skills the child is lacking, so that our instruction can focus there.
As Dr. Whitbread tells us, “You can’t just say a child is reading at a ‘third-grade level,’ because there are so many parts that go into that. Separating out the foundational skills like phonics and phonemic awareness from comprehension and vocabulary is so important because so many kids are at very different levels there. And you also have language comprehension. All of those things are part of reading, and they all need to be measured and addressed and looked at in terms of how they work together, but also how they’re developing separately.”
Read our article Reading Assessments: How Do We Measure Reading? for more information on assessing where a child is at in learning to read and what specific reading rope skills they are lacking.
Studies have shown that many students with lagging reading comprehension skills are lacking in literacy awareness, vocabulary, verbal reasoning, language structure, and background knowledge. Being a poor reader can impact their ability to access curriculum standards through high school.
Yet often, language comprehension skills are not addressed with explicit instruction. Students are expected to acquire these skills through the practice of reading, listening, and speaking. Many students with developmental disabilities lack these skills due to communication challenges and/or lack of exposure to a language-rich environment.
One strand of the language comprehension part of the Reading Rope is literacy knowledge. Many conventions of literature may be part of a hidden curriculum for a child not raised in a family of readers. Children need to understand how books and writing work:
Parent tips for literacy knowledge:
When reading to your child at home, point out where on the book it shows the name of the author and the illustrator. Make connections to other books they might have had read to them.
Another strand of the language comprehension part of the Reading Rope is background knowledge. Poor readers often lack the background knowledge to comprehend what they are reading. Lemons calls background knowledge “instructional Velcro,” saying that “we know that learning occurs best when you can map it onto something that you already know and relate it.”
For example, Dorreen gives the example of a child raised in a baseball family reading a story about baseball, compared to a child whose family has no interest in baseball. This child will have a much harder time responding to the comprehension questions about the passage.
Parent tips for supporting background knowledge:
The next strand of the language comprehension part of the Reading Rope is vocabulary. Vocabulary is often lagging for children who are late talkers. Children might not have had an opportunity to develop complex vocabulary, particularly with regard to categories, or academic language. Children who are emerging talkers need a language-rich environment to develop their vocabulary but are often placed in classrooms with other nonspeaking students. And as parents, we might use simplified language to make it easier for them to understand, but doing so also has the potential to limit their exposure to new words.
Vocabulary and language skills can also impact fluency, since it is easier to understand the meaning of the passage when you understand the meaning of the words. Many students might need to read a passage once for word recognition and again for understanding.
Parent tip for vocabulary:
Dr. Lemons tells us that it is important to preteach some vocabulary words — specifically the words that you actually need to understand to answer the purpose questions. There might be words in the passage that students don't know, but they’re not essential to answering the question “What is the passage about?” However, it is important that students understand the vocabulary they need to answer the questions. Lemons says, “Then we teach the words. Some of them you just need a synonym. You don’t really need to know a lot about the word; you just need to know what it kind of means to help you a little. And then some words are deep words that you really need to understand.”
Pretaught vocabulary words for science, social studies, and ELA can be listed in your child’s IEP as an accommodation or a goal. These words can be practiced as homework or during class time.
All the elements of reading come together in reading comprehension.
Parent tips for reading comprehension:
Reading fluency is the ability to read text accurately, at a suitable pace, and with proper expression. A fluent reader can decode words correctly, at an appropriate speed, and use inflection and intonation to convey the meaning of the text effectively. This can be challenging even if the student is doing well with word recognition. For students with autism, an expectation that they will use inflection and intonation to convey meaning in the same way as neurotypical children might be considered ableist. We want to presume competence, stay child-centered, and always prioritize the comfort level of the student.
For kids who don’t have an intellectual disability or speech difficulty
Dr. Whitbread thinks that fluency is extremely important and highly correlated to their comprehension. Schools often measure fluency, and it might be the only indicator used. Dorreen agrees, saying, “Fluency is a great way to measure how a child’s actually progressing on a reading program and whether or not they’re up to the national norm. Ultimately, we’re reading to be able to comprehend, whether it’s narrative or informational. We don’t want to just focus on that number. What we want to be able to do is have the child read and have a fluency that they understand and can comprehend the text that they’re reading.”
For kids with intellectual disabilities or speech difficulty
If they’re not speaking fluently, it likely follows that they’re not able to read fluently, although some kids can read better than they can speak when self-directed. Dr. Whitbread tells us, “For kids with Down syndrome, if you listen to child speech and it’s halting and very slow, their reading is probably going to be similar. So we can’t use that as an indicator that, for example, they can’t move forward [with reading instruction] because their fluency is too low.”
Parent tips for fluency from our experts:
The Reading Rope is a useful visual to ensure that your student’s journey to being a skilled reader isn’t missing any steps. Older kids might seem to be able to read well, but they might be using a lot of brain power to do it, while not having the basic phonics skills. This lack of automaticity will impact their ability to understand what they are reading and make inferences based on the text. Use these tips on the components of reading to tailor your child’s instruction to the science of reading, through assessment, and collaborating with your team to write IEP goals tied to the skills they need to work on.
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