The Science of Reading overview
The Science of Reading is a vast body of research that draws on decades of cognitive science, linguistics, and neuroscience to answer two fundamental questions: How do children learn to read, and how should we teach them? Structured literacy is the evidence-based approach to reading instruction that puts the Science of Reading into practice. Here, you’ll find the frameworks, resources, and tools to understand and apply both in your classroom.
The Science of Reading Star Awards recognize educators who’ve made a real difference in student literacy outcomes. Hear their stories and discover what evidence-based reading instruction can do for your students!
What is the Science of Reading?
Learning to read is not a natural process—it takes intentional, systematic instruction. The Science of Reading tells us how children learn to read. Structured literacy translates that research into practice through explicit, targeted teaching of foundational skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics. When taught this way, these skills build the vocabulary and comprehension students need to become truly fluent readers.
The Science of Reading: A Primer, Part 1
In Part 1 of our Science of Reading primer, we discuss literacy as a societal goal, walk through how the brain learns to decode and comprehend text, and present the patterns that top-performing schools and districts follow to achieve early reading success.
The Science of Reading: A Primer, Part 2
In Part 2, we establish the importance of prior knowledge for comprehension, lay out the process of micro-comprehension, and demonstrate how literacy skills build on and accelerate themselves.
The Simple View of Reading
The Simple View of Reading, formulated by Philip Gough and William Tunmer in 1986, identifies the two components that proficient reading requires: decoding (converting written words into speech) and language comprehension (understanding that speech).
The Reading Rope
The Reading Rope, developed by Hollis Scarborough in 2001, is a visual representation of the specific skills that support decoding and comprehension—and how they weave together into skilled reading.
The foundational skills for skilled reading
Skilled reading depends on a set of five foundational skills, each of which must be explicitly taught. Explore each skill below to go deeper into the research and strategies behind it.
Phonemic and phonological awareness
The first foundational reading skill, phonemic and phonological awareness are intertwined but not interchangeable. Together, they lay the foundation for literacy—and it all starts with sounds.
Phonics and decoding
Phonics and decoding are closely connected foundational skills that, together, give students the tools to sound out and decipher unfamiliar words. The Science of Reading confirms that strong decoding skills open up new levels of reading and learning.
Fluency
Fluency is more than reading fast; it’s reading for meaning and expression. Strong fluency connects readers to the deeper layers of a text and is where reading begins to foster real joy.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary isn’t merely memorizing words and definitions; it’s an essential building block of literacy that helps students understand how words work together to convey meaning. In literacy instruction, building vocabulary means not just accumulating words, but understanding how language works.
Comprehension
Comprehension is a complex process that the Science of Reading has helped us understand better. To teach comprehension effectively, it’s important to recognize what students’ brains are doing when they read.
The Science of Reading principles placemat
Our new Science of Reading principles placemat explains the essentials: what the Science of Reading is, how it works, and why it matters for every student. Use it as a quick-reference guide for evidence-based literacy instruction.
Science of Reading starter kit for new teachers
You don’t need to become a reading scientist to make the most of the Science of Reading. You just need practical, research-backed tools that help you teach reading as effectively as possible—exactly what you’ll find in this starter kit.
Science of Reading literacy tools
“If you’re looking for a Science of Reading training, the [Science of Reading: Foundations to the Science of Reading] online course is great. It helps you build background knowledge on learning how students learn how to read, and then it goes deeper and it gives you strategies that correlate with those findings that you can implement right into your classroom.”
Professional development to support your shift to the Science of Reading
Shifting to structured literacy—the evidence-based approach that puts the Science of Reading into practice—is a significant change, even for seasoned teachers. Making that shift successfully requires intentional, ongoing professional learning. You’ll find all that and more in Amplify’s Science of Reading: The Learning Lab.
A self-paced, three-course online series built to the standards of the International Dyslexia Association, the Learning Lab covers the research, the practice, and everything in between.
- Foundations to the Science of Reading covers the core research and what it means for literacy instruction.
- Advanced Topics in the Science of Reading: Assessment and Reading Difficulties examines how to use assessment data effectively.
- Applied Structured Literacy puts it all into practice in the classroom.
And there to guide you through it all is Susan Lambert, Amplify’s chief academic officer of literacy and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast.
The best investment you can make is in knowledge, and the returns are priceless.
Learn more about the online courses or request a quote!
Tap into individual online course seats.
“It’s not just about the curriculum. It’s about the science behind how people, how children, and how we as humans learn to read. … It’s working. I wish I had this years ago. ”
Science of Reading: The Podcast
Tune in to hear the latest insights and trends in early reading, right from leading literacy experts and practitioners.
Listen nowThe Science of Reading and Early Literacy Resources FAQ
Amplify understands that making the shift to the Science of Reading is no small feat. Get some early literacy resources and guidance with our Science of Reading FAQ.
Learning to read is not innate. It needs to be taught intentionally and systematically—and science tells us how. The vast and growing body of research on early literacy is referred to as the Science of Reading. It draws on extensive research in cognitive science, linguistics, and neuroscience. It emphasizes the systematic teaching of foundational skills—such as phonics, phonological awareness, and decoding—in building vocabulary and comprehension. In other words, it deconstructs the processes behind how children learn to read, and provides evidence for the instructional practices and early literacy resources that can get them there.
The Science of Reading refers to the pedagogy and practices proven by extensive research to effectively teach children how to read. It places a strong emphasis on both components of the Simple View of Reading, demonstrating that systematic and explicit instruction in phonics and and intentionally sequenced knowledge building are critical to reading success.
In a balanced literacy environment, learning happens through reading and writing immersion, where the need for explicit instruction in phonics is recognized but is not the primary focus.
The key difference between the approaches lies in their emphasis on foundational reading skills and a coherent approach to building language comprehension.
A balanced literacy framework typically includes a combination of whole language approaches (emphasizing meaning and context) and phonics instruction. Balanced literacy instruction is designed to be flexible and open to interpretation by the instructor. It may include the three-cueing system, which encourages students to rely on syntactic and semantic clues in a text to read an unfamiliar word, rather than decoding (Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?). Balanced literacy practitioners may also use leveled reading to differentiate instruction, which can can limit vocabulary exposure, hinder in-depth comprehension skills, and further widen achievement gaps.
Balanced literacy has long been a popular approach to reading instruction, with educators appreciating its openness to variation. But advocates for the Science of Reading argue that an evidence-based approach aligned with known cognitive processes and a focus on foundational skills and language comprehension provides the most solid foundation for reading instruction—for confident and struggling readers alike.
According to our friends at The Reading League, the Science of Reading is important not because it gives us an effective way to teach reading, but because it gives us the most effective way to teach reading.
“The Science of Reading is critical because it emphasizes evidence-based instruction. Decades of scientific research on reading have consistently shown the most effective ways to teach reading. The Science of Reading incorporates this research, which includes phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.”
The Reading League also takes it to the next level: What happens when all children have access to the most effective early literacy and reading education? “We believe in a future where a collective focus on applying the Science of Reading through teacher and leader preparation, classroom application, and community engagement will elevate and transform every community, every nation, through the power of literacy.”
The Science of Reading has identified five foundational reading skills that are considered crucial for early reading development. One of those skills is phonics. In other words, the Science of Reading has established that phonics are crucial, but the Science of Reading is not the same as phonics.
Phonics instruction helps students learn how to sound out and blend letters to read words accurately. As we know from the Simple View of Reading, two fundamental skills are required for reading with comprehension:
- Decoding—the ability to recognize written words (via phonics)
- Language comprehension—understanding what words mean
And the Science of Reading also reminds us that students do not have to learn phonics or decoding before knowledge comes into the equation. “The background knowledge that children bring to a text is also a contributor to language comprehension,” says Sonia Cabell, Ph.D., associate professor at Florida State University’s School of Teacher Education, on Science of Reading: The Podcast.
The Science of Reading is an evolving field built on decades of high-quality, evidence-based research that continually integrates new insights gathered from cognitive neuroscience, psychology, and linguistics. These ongoing studies constantly refine our understanding of how the human brain processes language and learning, enabling more personalized and effective teaching strategies that can adapt to the wide-ranging learning needs of students.
New advancements in reading technology allow us to understand how the brain works and refine our practices. Every scientific advancement in reading science and technology deepens our comprehension of reading-related challenges such as dyslexia and informs the development of evidence-based interventions. We don’t believe that the Science of Reading can be reduced to a fad or trend. Rather, it is a continually evolving, enduringly effective discipline, grounded in rigorous research and driven by the quest for better comprehension of how we read and learn.
Assessment grounded in the Science of Reading can help identify children at risk of dyslexia at the earliest possible moments, creating the widest opportunity for intervention.
People with dyslexia often experience challenges in phonological awareness. They may struggle to break down words into their component sounds and to recognize the relationships between letters and sounds. Systematic and explicit instruction in phonics and phonological awareness can help individuals with dyslexia develop necessary phonological skills. This evidence-based instruction can also help students who have difficulty with decoding.
Further, evidence-based comprehension instruction, including explicit instruction in vocabulary and comprehension strategies, can support students with dyslexia in understanding and making meaning from text.
The Science of Reading can be integrated with a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) to provide comprehensive and targeted reading instruction for all students. The Science of Reading aligns with a tiered model by providing evidence-based practices for instruction at each tier. An MTSS includes universal screening to identify students at risk of reading difficulties; the Science of Reading can also guide the selection of screening measures to assess specific foundational skills. Aligning the Science of Reading with an MTSS framework can also enhance instructional practices and interventions, ensure data-driven decision making, and help meet the needs of all students.
Integrating the Science of Reading and the Science of Writing strengthens our approach to teaching literacy. Reading and writing are interdependent. Understanding how sentences are built not only contributes to better reading comprehension, but also helps writers develop clear, logical text. As students grow as readers, they also grow as writers, leading to a comprehensive literacy education. Clear thinking and effective writing are crucial for expressing ideas. By fostering both skills, teachers better support students in becoming confident readers and writers, prepared for academic challenges and beyond.
One of the research-based frameworks used in the Science of Reading is the Simple View of Reading. According to the Simple View, two cognitive capacities are needed for proficient reading: (1) understanding the language (comprehension) and (2) recognizing words in print (decoding). A true Science of Reading program is designed from the start for students to build these skills, in a developmentally appropriate way.
It will also emphasize the importance of knowledge building by exposing students to a diverse array of new topics spanning history, science, and literature, organized intentionally and coherently within and across grades. Deep and intentionally sequenced knowledge domains will help build a student’s vocabulary and understanding of complex texts. And it will include instruction in all five foundational skills: phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension.
Download our free ebook, Science of Reading: Making the Shift, which includes a checklist of what to look for in a curriculum based on the Science of Reading. Learn more from our friends at The Reading League.
Actually, we have a full literacy suite built on the Science of Reading! It includes:
- mCLASS® assessment, powered by DIBELS® 8th Edition, a gold-standard universal and dyslexia screener, plus a progress monitoring tool, all in one.
- Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA), which provides explicit, systematic foundational skills instruction combined with intentional knowledge building.
- Boost Reading, a highly adaptive personalized reading program that reinforces the core curriculum and supports enrichment, remediation, and intervention for each student in your classroom.
- mCLASS Intervention, a staff-led intervention program targeted to Tiers 2 and 3, made easy with automatic data-driven grouping and sequenced explicit, systematic skills lesson plans to support at-risk students.
Reading requires deliberate, systematic attention—and so does shifting to the Science of Reading in your school or district. It requires not only the right curriculum, but also all-new mindsets, metrics, and more. Reflecting years of experience supporting real educators, our resources will walk you through the process of change management in your community and show you why the shift is worth it. View our Science of Reading change management playbook.