British psychologist Uta Frith introduced a three stages model to acquire skilled reading. Stage one is the "logographic or pictorial stage" where students attempt to grasp words as objects, an artificial form of reading. Stage two is the "phonological stage" where students learn the relationship between the graphemes (letters) and the phonemes (sounds). Stage three is the "orthographic stage" where students read familiar words more quickly than unfamiliar words, and word length gradually ceases to play a role.


There is some debate as to the optimum age to teach children to read.


The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSS) in the USA has standards for foundational reading skills in kindergarten and grade one that include instruction in print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, word recognition and fluency. However, some critics of CCSS say that "To achieve reading standards usually calls for long hours of drill and worksheets — and reduces other vital areas of learning such as math, science, social studies, art, music and creative play."


The PISA 2007 OECD data from 54 countries demonstrates "no association between school entry age ... and reading achievement at age 15". Also, a German study of 50 kindergartens compared children who, at age 5, had spent a year either "academically focused", or "play-arts focused" and found that in time the two groups became inseparable in reading skill. The authors conclude that the effects of early reading are like "watering a garden before a rainstorm; the earlier watering is rendered undetectable by the rainstorm, the watering wastes precious water, and the watering detracts the gardener from other important preparatory groundwork."


Other researchers and educators favor limited amounts of literacy instruction at the age of four and five, in addition to non-academic, intellectually stimulating activities. Some parents teach their children to read as babies. Some say that babies learn to read differently and more easily than children who learn to read in school from formal instruction. They also suggest, the most important aspect of early (baby) reading is interaction with loving parents and bonding.


Reviews of the academic literature by the Education Endowment Foundation in the UK have found that starting literacy teaching in preschool has "been consistently found to have a positive effect on early learning outcomes" and that "beginning early years education at a younger age appears to have a high positive impact on learning outcomes". This supports current standard practice in the UK which includes developing children's phonemic awareness in preschool and teaching reading from age four.


There does not appear to be any definitive research about the "magic window" to begin reading instruction. However, there is also no definitive research to suggest that starting early causes any harm. Researcher Timothy Shanahan, suggests, "Start teaching reading from the time you have kids available to teach, and pay attention to how they respond to this instruction—both in terms of how well they are learning what you are teaching, and how happy and invested they seem to be. If you haven't started yet, don't feel guilty, just get going."


Some education researchers suggest the teaching of the various reading components by specific grade levels. The following is one example from Carol Tolman, Ed.D and Louisa Moats, Ed.D that corresponds in many respects with the USA Common Core State Standards Initiative:


According to some researchers, learners (children and adults) progress through several stages while first learning to read in English, and then refining their reading skills. One of the recognized experts in this area is Harvard professor Jeanne Sternlicht Chall. In 1983 she published a book entitled "Stages of Reading Development" that proposed six stages.


Subsequently, in 2008 Maryanne Wolf, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, published a book entitled "Proust and the Squid" in which she describes her view of the following five stages of reading development. It is normal that children will move through these stages at different rates; however, typical ages for chlidren in the United States are shown below.


Emerging pre-reader: 6 months to 6 years old.


The emerging pre-reader stage, also known as reading readiness, usually lasts for the first five years of a child's life. Children typically speak their first few words before their first birthday. Educators and parents help learners to develop their skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing.


Reading to children helps them to develop their vocabulary, a love of reading, and phonemic awareness, (the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) of oral language). And children will often "read" stories they have memorized. However, in the late 1990s United States' researchers found that the traditional way of reading to children made little difference in their later ability to read because children spend relatively little time actually looking at the text. Yet, in a shared reading program with four-year-old children, teachers found that directing children's attention to the letters and words (e.g. verbally or pointing to the words) made a significant difference in early reading, spelling and comprehension.


Novice reader: 6 to 7 years old.


Novice readers continue to develop their phonemic awareness, and come to realise that the letters (graphemes) connect to the sounds (phonemes) of the language; known as decoding, phonics, and the alphabetic principle. They may also memorize the most common letter patterns and some of the high-frequency words that do not necessarily follow basic phonological rules (e.g. "have and who"). However, it is a mistake to assume a reader understands the meaning of a text merely because they can decode it. Vocabulary and oral language comprehension are also important parts of text comprehension as described in the Simple view of reading and Scarborough's Reading Rope. Reading and speech are codependent: reading promotes vocabulary development and a richer vocabulary facilitates skilled reading.


Decoding reader: 7 to 9 years old.


The transition from the novice reader stage to the decoding stage is marked by a reduction of painful pronunciations and in its place the sounds of a smoother, more confident reader. In this phase the reader adds at least 3,000 words to what they can decode. For example, in the English language, readers now learn the variations of the vowel-based rimes (e.g. s"at", m"at", c"at") and vowel pairs (also digraph) (e.g. r"ai"n, pl"ay", b"oa"t)


As readers move forward, they learn the make up of morphemes (i.e. stems, roots, prefixes and suffixes). They learn the common morphemes such as "s" and "ed" and see them as "sight chunks". "The faster a child can see that "beheaded" is "be + head + ed"", the faster they will become a more fluent reader.


In the beginning of this stage a child will often be devoting so much mental capacity to the process of decoding that they will have no understanding of the words being read. It is nevertheless an important stage, allowing the child to achieve their ultimate goal of becoming fluent and automatic.


It is in the decoding phase that the child will get to what the story is really about, and to learn to re-read a passage when necessary so as to truly understand it.


Fluent, comprehending reader: 9 to 15 years old.


The goal of this stage is to "go below the surface of the text", and in the process the reader will build their knowledge of spelling substantially.


Teachers and parents may be tricked by fluent-sounding reading into thinking that a child understands everything that they are reading. As the content of what they are able to read becomes more demanding, good readers will develop knowledge of figurative language and irony which helps them to discover new meanings in the text.


Children improve their comprehension when they use a variety of tools such as connecting prior knowledge, predicting outcomes, drawing inferences, and monitoring gaps in their understanding. One of the most powerful moments is when fluent comprehending readers learn to enter into the lives of imagined heroes and heroines.


The educational psychologist, G. Michael Pressley, concluded there are two important aids to fluent comprehension: explicit instruction in major content areas by a child's teacher, and the child's own desire to read.


At the end of this stage many processes are starting to become automatic, allowing the reader to focus on meaning. With the decoding process almost automatic by this point, the brain learns to integrate more metaphorical, inferential, analogical, background and experiential knowledge. This stage in learning to read will often last until early adulthood.


At the expert stage it will usually only take a reader one-half second to read almost any word. The degree to which expert reading will change over the course of an adult's life depends on what they read and how much they read.


There is no single definition of Science of reading (SOR). Foundational skills such as phonics (decoding) and phonemic awareness are considered to be important parts of the science of reading, but they are not the only ingredients. SOR includes any research and evidence about how humans learn to read, and how reading should be taught. This includes areas such as oral reading fluency, vocabulary, morphology, reading comprehension, text, spelling and pronunciation, thinking strategies, oral language proficiency, working memory training, and written language performance (e.g., cohesion, sentence combining/reducing).


In addition, some educators feel that SOR should include digital literacy; background knowledge; content-rich instruction; infrastructural pillars (curriculum, reimagined teacher preparation, and leadership); adaptive teaching (recognizing the student's individual, culture and linguistic strengths); bi-literacy development; equity, social justice and supporting underserved populations (e.g., students from low-income backgrounds).


Some researchers suggest there is a need for more studies on the relationship between theory and practice. They say "we know more about the science of reading than about the science of teaching based on the science of reading", and "there are many layers between basic science findings and teacher implementation that must be traversed".


Many researchers are concerned that low reading levels are due to the manner in which reading is taught. They point to three areas: a) contemporary reading science has had very little impact on educational practice mainly because of a "two-cultures problem separating science and education", b) current teaching practices rest on outdated assumptions that make learning to read harder than it needs to be, and c) connecting evidence-based practice to educational practice would be beneficial but is extremely difficult to achieve because many teachers are not properly trained in the science of reading.


"The simple view of reading" is a scientific theory about reading comprehension. According to the theory, in order to comprehend what they are reading students need both "decoding skills" and "oral language (listening) comprehension ability". Neither is enough on their own. In other words, they need the ability to recognize and process (e.g., sound out) the text, and the ability to understand the language in which the text is written (i.e., vocabulary, grammar and background knowledge). Students are not reading if they can decode words but do not understand their meaning. Similarly, students are not reading if they cannot decode words that they would ordinarily recognize and understand if they heard them spoken out loud.


Decoding × Oral Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension.


As shown in the graphic, the Simple View of Reading proposes four broad categories of developing readers: typical readers; poor readers (general reading disability); dyslexics; and hyperlexics


Hollis Scarborough, the creator of the Reading Rope and senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories, is a leading researcher of early language development and its connection to later literacy.


Scarborough published the Reading Rope infographic in 2001 using strands of rope to illustrate the many ingredients that are involved in becoming a skilled reader. The upper strands represent "language-comprehension" and reinforce one another. The lower strands represent "word-recognition" and work together as the reader becomes accurate, fluent, and automatic through practice. The upper and lower strands all weave together to produce a skilled reader.


More recent research by Laurie E. Cutting and Hollis S. Scarborough has highlighted the importance of executive function processes (e.g. working memory, planning, organization, self-monitoring, and similar abilities) to reading comprehension. Easy texts do not require much executive functions, however more difficult text require more "focus on the ideas". Reading comprehension strategies, such as summarizing, may help.


Several researchers and neuroscientist have attempted to explain how the brain reads. They have written articles and books, and created websites and YouTube videos to help the average consumer.


Neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene says that a few simple truths should be accepted by all, namely: a) all children have similar brains, are well tuned to systematic grapheme-phoneme correspondences, "and have everything to gain from phonics — the only method that will give them the freedom to read any text", b) classroom size is largely irrelevant if the proper teaching methods are used, c) it is essential to have standardized screening tests for dyslexia, followed by appropriate specialized training, and d) while decoding is essential, vocabulary enrichment is equally important.


Reading is an intensive process in which the eye quickly moves to assimilate the text — seeing just accurately enough to interpret groups of symbols. It is necessary to understand visual perception and eye movement in reading to understand the reading process.


When reading, the eye moves continuously along a line of text, but makes short rapid movements (saccades) intermingled with short stops (fixations). There is considerable variability in fixations (the point at which a saccade jumps to) and saccades between readers, and even for the same person reading a single passage of text. When reading, the eye has a perceptual span of about 20 slots. In the best-case scenario and reading English, when the eye is fixated on a letter, four to five letters to the right and three to four letters to the left can be clearly identified. Beyond that, only the general shape of some letters can be identified.


Research published in 2019 concluded that the silent reading rate of adults in English for "non-fiction" is in the range of 175 to 300 words per minute (wpm); and for "fiction" the range is 200 to 320 wpm.


In the early 1970s the dual-route hypothesis to reading aloud was proposed, according to which there are two separate mental mechanisms involved in reading aloud, with output from both contributing to the pronunciation of written words. One mechanism is the lexical route whereby skilled readers can recognize a word as part of their sight vocabulary. The other is the nonlexical or sublexical route, in which the reader "sounds out" (decodes) written words.


Evidence-based reading instruction refers to practices having research evidence showing their success in improving reading achievement. It is related to evidence-based education.


Several organizations report on research about reading instruction, for example:


A systematic review and meta‐analysis was conducted on the advantages of reading from paper vs. screens. It found no difference in reading times, however, reading from paper has a small advantage in reading performance and metacognition.


Apart from that, depending on the circumstances, some people prefer one medium over the other and each appears to have its own unique advantages.


Some teachers, even after obtaining a master's degree in education, don't feel they have the necessary knowledge and skills to teach all students how to read.


A survey in the USA reported that 70% of teachers believe in a balanced literacy approach to teaching reading – however balanced literacy "is not systematic, explicit instruction". Teacher, researcher and author, Louisa Moats, in a video about teachers and science of reading, says that sometime, when teachers talk about their "philosophy" of teaching reading, she responds by saying, "But your 'philosophy' doesn't work". She says this is evidenced by the fact that so many children are struggling with reading.


In an Education Week Research Center survey of more than 530 professors of reading instruction, just 22 percent said their philosophy of teaching early reading centered on explicit, systematic phonics with comprehension as a separate focus.


However, at least one State, Arkansas, is requiring every elementary and special education teacher to be proficient in the scientific research on reading by 2021; causing Amy Murdoch, an associate professor and the director of the reading science program at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati to say “We still have a long way to go – but I do see some hope.”


Timothy Shanahan (educator) acknowledges that comprehensive research does not always exist for specific aspects of reading instruction. However, "the lack of evidence doesn’t mean something doesn’t work, only that we don’t know". He suggests that teachers make use of the research that is available in such places as Journal of Educational Psychology, Reading Research Quarterly, Reading & Writing Quarterly, Review of Educational Research, and Scientific Studies of Reading. If a practice lacks supporting evidence, it can be used with the understanding that it is based upon a claim, not science.


Educators have debated for years about which method is best to teach reading for the English language. There are three main methods, phonics, whole language and balanced literacy. There are also a variety of other areas and practices such as phonemic awareness, fluency, reading comprehension, sight words and sight vocabulary, the three-cueing system (the searchlights model in England), guided reading, shared reading, and leveled reading. Each practice is employed in different manners depending on the country and the specific school division.


In 2001, some researchers reached two conclusions: 1) "mastering the alphabetic principle is essential" and 2) "instructional techniques (namely, phonics) that teach this principle directly are more effective than those that do not". However, while they make it clear they have some fundamental disagreements with some of the claims made by whole-language advocates, some principles of whole language have value such as the need to ensure that students are enthusiastic about books and eager to learn to read.


Phonics emphasizes the alphabetic principle – the idea that letters (graphemes) represent the sounds of speech (phonemes). It is taught in a variety of ways; some are systematic and others are unsystematic. Unsystematic phonics teaches phonics on a "when needed" basis and in no particular sequence. "Systematic" phonics uses a planned, sequential introduction of a set of phonic elements along with "explicit" teaching and practice of those elements. The National Reading Panel (NPR) concluded that systematic phonics instruction is more effective than unsystematic phonics or non-phonics instruction.


Phonics approaches include analogy phonics, analytic phonics, embedded phonics with mini-lessons, phonics through spelling, and synthetic phonics.


According to a 2018 review of research related to "English speaking poor readers", phonics training is effective for improving literacy-related skills, particularly the fluent reading of words and non-words, and the accurate reading of irregular words.


In addition, phonics produces higher achievement for all beginning readers, and the greatest improvement is experienced by students who are at risk of failing to learn to read. While some children are able to infer these rules on their own, some need explicit instruction on phonics rules. Some phonics instruction has marked benefits such as expansion of a student's vocabulary. Overall, children who are directly taught phonics are better at reading, spelling and comprehension.


A challenge in teaching phonics is that in some languages, such as English, complex letter-sound correspondences can cause confusion for beginning readers. For this reason, it is recommended that teachers of English-reading begin by introducing the "most frequent sounds" and the "common spellings", and save the less frequent sounds and complex spellings for later. (e.g. the sounds /s/ and /t/ before /v/ and /w/; and the spellings c"a"ke before "eigh"t and "c"at before du"ck").


Phonics is taught in many different ways and it is often taught together with some of the following: oral language skills, concepts about print, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonology, oral reading fluency, vocabulary, syllables, reading comprehension, spelling, word study, cooperative learning, multisensory learning, and guided reading. And, phonics is often featured in discussions about science of reading, and evidence-based practices.


The National Reading Panel (U.S.A. 2000) is clear that "systematic phonics instruction should be integrated with other reading instruction to create a balanced reading program". It suggests that phonics be taught together with phonemic awareness, oral fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Timothy Shanahan (educator), a member of that panel, recommends that primary students receive 60–90 minutes per day of explicit, systematic, literacy instruction time; and that it be divided equally between a) words and word parts (e.g. letters, sounds, decoding and phonemic awareness), b) oral reading fluency, c) reading comprehension, and d) writing. Furthermore, he states that "the phonemic awareness skills found to give the greatest reading advantage to kindergarten and first-grade children are "segmenting and blending"".


The Ontario Association of Deans of Education (Canada) published research Monograph # 37 entitled "Supporting early language and literacy" with suggestions for parents and teachers in helping children prior to grade one. It covers the areas of letter names and letter-sound correspondence (phonics), as well as conversation, play-based learning, print, phonological awareness, shared reading, and vocabulary.


Interest in evidence-based education appears to be growing. In 2021, Best evidence encyclopedia (BEE) released a review of research on 51 different programs for struggling readers in elementary schools. Many of the programs used phonics-based teaching and/or one or more of the following: cooperative learning, technology-supported adaptive instruction (see Educational technology), metacognitive skills, phonemic awareness, word reading, fluency, vocabulary, multisensory learning, spelling, guided reading, reading comprehension, word analysis, structured curriculum, and balanced literacy (non-phonetic approach).


The BEE review concludes that a) outcomes were positive for one-to-one tutoring, b) outcomes were positive, but not as large, for one-to-small group tutoring, c) there were no differences in outcomes between teachers and teaching assistants as tutors, d) technology-supported adaptive instruction did not have positive outcomes, e) whole-class approaches (mostly cooperative learning) and whole-school approaches incorporating tutoring obtained outcomes for struggling readers as large as those found for one- to-one tutoring, and benefitted many more students, and f) approaches mixing classroom and school improvements, with tutoring for the most at-risk students, have the greatest potential for the largest numbers of struggling readers.


Robert Slavin, of BEE, goes so far as to suggest that states should "hire thousands of tutors" to support students scoring far below grade level—particularly in elementary school reading. Research, he says, shows "only tutoring, both one-to-one and one-to-small group, in reading and mathematics, had an effect size larger than +0.10 ... averages are around +0.30", and "well-trained teaching assistants using structured tutoring materials or software can obtain outcomes as good as those obtained by certified teachers as tutors".


What works clearinghouse allows you to see the effectiveness of specific programs. For example, as of 2020 they have data on 231 literacy programs. If you filter them by grade 1 only, all class types, all school types, all delivery methods, all program types, and all outcomes you receive 22 programs. You can then view the program details and, if you wish, compare one with another.


Evidence for ESSA (Center for Research and Reform in Education) offers free up-to-date information on current PK-12 programs in reading, writing, math, science, and others that meet the standards of the Every Student Succeeds Act (U.S.A.).


"Systematic phonics" is not one specific method of teaching phonics; it is a term used to describe phonics approaches that are taught "explicitly" and in a structured, systematic manner. They are "systematic" because the letters and the sounds they relate to are taught in a specific sequence, as opposed to incidentally or on a "when needed" basis.


The National Reading Panel (NPR) concluded that systematic phonics instruction is more effective than unsystematic phonics or non-phonics instruction. The NRP also found that systematic phonics instruction is effective (with varying degrees) when delivered through one-to-one tutoring, small groups, and teaching classes of students; and is effective from kindergarten onward, the earlier the better. It helps significantly with word-reading skills and reading comprehension for kindergartners and 1st graders as well as for older struggling readers and reading disabled students. Benefits to spelling were positive for kindergartners and 1st graders but not for older students.


Systematic phonics is sometimes mischaracterized as "skill and drill" with little attention to meaning. However, researchers point out that this impression is false. Teachers can use engaging games or materials to teach letter-sound connections, and it can also be incorporated with the reading of meaningful text.


Phonics can be taught systematically in a variety of ways, such as: analogy phonics, analytic phonics, phonics through spelling, and synthetic phonics. However, their effectiveness vary considerably because the methods differ in such areas as the range of letter-sound coverage, the structure of the lesson plans, and the time devoted to specific instructions.


Systematic phonics has gained increased acceptance in different parts of the world since the completion of three major studies into teaching reading; one in the US in 2000, another in Australia in 2005, and the other in the UK in 2006.


In 2009, the UK Department of Education published a curriculum review that added support for systematic phonics. In fact, systematic phonics in the UK is known as Synthetic phonics.


Beginning as early as 2014, several States in the USA have changed their curriculum to include systematic phonics instruction in elementary school.


In 2018, the State Government of Victoria, Australia, published a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including Effective Reading Instruction, Phonics, and Sample Phonics Lessons.


"Analogy phonics" is a particular type of "analytic phonics" in which the teacher has students analyze phonic elements according to the speech sounds (phonograms) in the word. For example, a type of phonogram (known in linguistics as a rime) is composed of the vowel and the consonant sounds that follow it (e.g. in the words "cat, mat and sat," the rime is "at".) Teachers using the analogy method may have students memorize a bank of phonograms, such as "-at" or "-am", or use "word families" (e.g. c"an", r"an", m"an", or m"ay", pl"ay", s"ay").


"Analytic phonics" does not involve pronouncing individual sounds (phonemes) in isolation and blending the sounds, as is done in synthetic phonics. Rather, it is taught at the word level and students learn to analyze letter-sound relationships once the word is identified. For example, students analyze letter-sound correspondences such as the "ou" spelling of in shr"ou"ds. Also, students might be asked to practice saying words with similar sounds such as "b"all, "b"at and "b"ite. Furthermore, students are taught consonant blends (separate, adjacent consonants) as units, such as "br"eak or "shr"ouds.


Typically, the instruction starts with sounds that have only one letter and simple CVC words such as "sat" and "pin". Then it progresses to longer words, and sounds with more than one letter (e.g. h"ea"r and d"ay"), and perhaps even syllables (e.g. wa-ter). Sometimes the student practices saying (or sounding-out) cards that contain entire words.


The 2005 Rose Report from the UK concluded that systematic synthetic phonics was the most effective method for teaching reading. It also suggests the "best teaching" included a brisk pace, engaging children's interest with multi-sensory activities and stimulating resources, praise for effort and achievement; and above all, the full backing of the headteacher.


It also has considerable support in some States in the U.S.A. and some support from expert panels in Canada.


In the US, a pilot program using the Core Knowledge Early Literacy program that used this type of phonics approach showed significantly higher results in K-3 reading compared with comparison schools. In addition, several States such as California, Ohio, New York and Arkansas, are promoting the principles of synthetic phonics (see synthetic phonics in the USA).


Resources for teaching phonics are available here


A critical aspect of reading comprehension is vocabulary development. When a reader encounters an unfamiliar word in print and decodes it to derive its spoken pronunciation, the reader understands the word if it is in the reader's spoken vocabulary. Otherwise, the reader must derive the meaning of the word using another strategy, such as context. If the development of the child's vocabulary is impeded by things such as ear infections, that inhibit the child from hearing new words consistently, then the development of reading will also be impaired.


Sight words (i.e. high-frequency or common words), sometimes called the "look-say" method or whole-word method, are "not" a part of the phonics method. They are usually associated with whole language and balanced literacy where students are expected to memorize common words such as those on the Dolch word list and the Fry word list (e.g. a, be, call, do, eat, fall, gave, etc.). The supposition (in whole language and balanced literacy) is that students will learn to read more easily if they memorize the most common words they will encounter, especially words that are not easily decoded (i.e. exceptions).


On the other hand, using sight words as a method of teaching reading in English is seen as being at odds with the alphabetic principle and treating English as though it was a logographic language (e.g. Chinese or Japanese).


In addition, according to research, whole-word memorisation is "labor-intensive", requiring on average about 35 trials per word. Also, phonics advocates say that most words are decodable, so comparatively few words have to be memorized. And because a child will over time encounter many low-frequency words, "the phonological recoding mechanism is a very powerful, indeed essential, mechanism throughout reading development". Furthermore, researchers suggest that teachers who withhold phonics instruction to make it easier on children "are having the opposite effect" by making it harder for children to gain basic word-recognition skills. They suggest that learners should focus on understanding the principles of phonics so they can recognize the phonemic overlaps among words (e.g. have, had, has, having, haven't, etc.), making it easier to decode them all.


Fluency is ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and vocal expression. The ability to read fluently is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. If a reader is not fluent, it may be difficult to remember what has been read and to relate the ideas expressed in the text to their background knowledge. This accuracy and automaticity of reading serves as a bridge between decoding and comprehension.


The NRP describes reading comprehension as a complex cognitive process in which a reader intentionally and interactively engages with the text. The science of reading says that reading comprehension is heavily dependent on word recognition (i.e., phonological awareness, decoding, etc.) and oral language comprehension (i.e., background knowledge, vocabulary, etc.). Phonological awareness and rapid naming predict reading comprehension in second grade but oral language skills account for an additional 13.8% of the variance.


Whole language has the reputation of being a meaning-based method of teaching reading that emphasizes literature and text comprehension. It discourages any significant use of phonics, if at all. Instead, it trains students to focus on words, sentences and paragraphs as a whole rather than letters and sounds. Students are taught to use context and pictures to "guess" words they do not recognize, or even just skip them and read on. It aims to make reading fun, yet many students struggle to figure out the specific rules of the language on their own, which causes the student's decoding and spelling to suffer.


The following are some features of the whole language philosophy:


Balanced literacy is not well defined, however it is intended as a method that combines elements of both phonics and whole language. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of elementary school teachers in the USA profess to use balanced literacy. However, only 52% of teachers in the USA include "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy".


The National Reading Panel concluded that phonics must be integrated with instruction in phonemic awareness, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. And, some studies indicate that "the addition of language activities and tutoring to phonics produced larger effects than any of these components in isolation". They suggest that this may be a constructive way to view balanced reading instruction.


However, balanced literacy has received criticism from researchers and others suggesting that, in many instances, it is merely "whole language" by another name.


According to phonics advocate and cognitive neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, balanced literacy allows educators to diffuse the reading wars while not making specific recommendations for change. He goes on to say that, in his opinion, the high number of struggling readers in the USA is the result of the manner in which teachers are taught to teach reading. He also says that struggling readers should not be encouraged to skip a challenging word, nor rely on pictures or semantic and syntactic cues to "guess at" a challenging word. Instead, they should use evidence-based decoding methods such as systematic phonics.


Structured literacy has many of the elements of systematic phonics and few of the elements of balanced literacy. It is defined as explicit, systematic teaching that focuses on phonological awareness, word recognition, phonics and decoding, spelling, and syntax at the sentence and paragraph levels. It is considered to be beneficial for all early literacy learners, especially those with dyslexia.


According to the International Dyslexia Association, structured literacy contains the elements of phonology and phonemic awareness, sound-symbol association (the alphabetic principle and phonics), syllables, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The elements are taught using methods that are systematic, cumulative, explicit, multisensory, and use diagnostic assessment.


According to some, three-cueing isn't the most effective way for beginning readers to learn how to decode printed text. While a cueing system does help students to "make better guesses", it does not help when the words become more sophisticated; and it reduces the amount of practice time available to learn essential decoding skills. They also say that students should first decode the word, "then they can use context to figure out the meaning of any word they don’t understand".


Consequently, researchers such as cognitive neuroscientists Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. They say the three-cueing system's value in reading instruction "is a magnificent work of the imagination", and it developed not because teachers lack integrity, commitment, motivation, sincerity, or intelligence, but because they "were poorly trained and advised" about the science of reading. In England, the simple view of reading and synthetic phonics are intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model". On the other hand, some researchers suggest that "context" can be useful, not to guess a word, but to confirm a word after it has been phonetically decoded.


Three Ps (3Ps) – Pause Prompt Praise.


The three Ps approach is used by teachers, tutors and parents to guide oral reading practice with a struggling reader. For some, it is merely a variation of the above-mentioned "three-cueing system".


However, for others it is very different. For example: when a student encounters a word they do not know or get it wrong, the three steps are: 1) pause to see if they can fix it themselves, even letting them read on a little, 2) prompt them with strategies to find the correct pronunciation, and 3) praise them directly and genuinely. In the "prompt" step, the tutor does not suggest the student skip the word or guess the word based on the pictures or the first sound. Instead, they encourage student to use their decoding training to sound out the word, and use the context (meaning) to confirm they have found the correct word.


Guided reading, shared reading, leveled reading, silent reading (and self-teaching).


"Guided reading" is small group reading instruction that is intended to allow for the differences in students' reading abilities. While they are reading, students are encouraged to use strategies from the three-cueing system, the searchlights model, or MSV.


It is no longer supported by the Primary National Strategy in England as Synthetic phonics is the officially recognized method for teaching reading.


In the United States, Guided Reading is part of the Reading Workshop model of reading instruction.


Shared (oral) reading is an activity whereby the teacher and students read from a shared text that is determined to be at the students' reading level.


Leveled reading involves students reading from "leveled books" at an appropriate reading level. A student that struggles with a word is encouraged to use a cueing system (e.g. three-cueing, searchlights model or MSV) to guess its meaning. There are many systems that purport to gauge the students' reading levels using scales incorporating numbers, letters, colors and lexile readability scores.


Silent reading (and self-teaching) is a common practice in elementary schools. A 2007 study in the USA found that, on average only 37% of class time was spent on active reading instruction or practice, and the most frequent activity was students reading silently. Based on the limited available studies on silent reading, the NRP concluded that independent silent reading did not prove an effective practice when used as the only type of reading instruction to develop fluency and other reading skills – particularly with students who have not yet developed critical alphabetic and word reading skills.


Other studies indicate that unlike silent reading, "oral reading increases phonological effects".


According to some, the classroom method called DEAR (Drop everything and read) is not the best use of classroom time for students who are not yet fluent. However, according to the "self-teaching hypothesis", when fluent readers practice decoding words while reading silently, they learn what whole words look like (spelling), leading to improved fluency and comprehension.


The suggestion is: "if some students are fluent readers, they could read silently while the teacher works with the struggling readers".


Languages such as Chinese and Japanese are normally written (fully or partly) in logograms (hanzi and kanji, respectively), which represent a whole word or morpheme with a single character. There are a large number of characters, and the sound that each makes must be learned directly or from other characters which contain "hints" in them. For example, in Japanese, the On-reading of the kanji 民 is "min" and the related kanji 眠 shares the same On-reading, "min": the right-hand part shows the character's pronunciation. However this is not true for all characters. Kun readings, on the other hand, have to be learned and memorized as there is no way to tell from each character.


Ruby characters are used in textbooks to help children learn the sounds that each logogram makes. These are written in a smaller size, using an alphabetic or syllabic script. For example, hiragana is typically used in Japanese, and the pinyin romanization into Latin alphabet characters is used in Chinese.


The examples above each spell the word "kanji", which is made up of two kanji characters: 漢 ("kan", written in hiragana as かん), and 字 ("ji", written in hiragana as じ).


Textbooks are sometimes edited as a cohesive set across grades so that children will not encounter characters they are not yet expected to have learned.


The Reading Wars: phonics vs. whole language.


A debate has been going on for decades about the merits of phonics vs. whole language. It is sometimes referred to as the "Reading Wars".


Until the mid-1800's, phonics was the accepted method in the United States to teach children to read. Then, in 1841 Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, advocated for a whole-word method of teaching reading to replace phonics. Others, such as Rudolf Flesch, advocated for a return to phonics in his book "Why Johnny Can't Read" (1955). The whole-word method received support from Kenneth J. Goodman who wrote an article in 1967 entitled "Reading: A psycholinguistic guessing game". Although not supported by scientific studies, the theory became very influential as the whole language method. Since the 1970s some whole language supporters such as Frank Smith (psycholinguist), are unyielding in arguing that phonics should be taught little, if at all.


Yet, other researchers say instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness are "critically important" and "essential" to develop early reading skills. In 2000, the National Reading Panel (U.S.A.) identified five ingredients of effective reading instruction, of which phonics is one; the other four are phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Reports from other countries, such as the Australian report on "Teaching reading" (2005) and the U.K. Independent review of the teaching of early reading (Rose Report 2006) have also supported the use of phonics.


Some notable researchers such as Stanislas Dehaene and Mark Seidenberg have clearly stated their disapproval of "whole language".


Furthermore, a 2017 study in the UK that compared teaching with phonics vs. teaching whole written words concluded that phonics is more effective, saying "our findings suggest that interventions aiming to improve the accuracy of reading aloud and/or comprehension in the early stages of learning should focus on the systematicities present in print-to-sound relationships, rather than attempting to teach direct access to the meanings of whole written words".


More recently, some educators have advocated for the theory of balanced literacy purported to combine phonics and whole language yet not necessarily in a consistent or systematic manner. It may include elements such as word study and phonics mini-lessons, differentiated learning, cueing, leveled reading, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading and sight words. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of K-2 teachers in the USA practice balanced literacy; however, only 52% of teachers included "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy". In addition, 75% of teachers teach the three-cueing system (i.e., meaning/structure/visual or semantic/syntactic/graphophonic) that has its roots in whole language.


In addition, some phonics supporters assert that "balanced literacy" is merely "whole language" by another name. And critics of whole language and sceptics of balanced literacy, such as neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg, state that struggling readers should "not" be encouraged to skip words they find puzzling or rely on semantic and syntactic cues to guess words.


Over time a growing number of countries and states have put greater emphasis on phonics and other evidence-based practices (see Phonics practices by country or region).


According to the report by the US National Reading Panel (NRP) in 2000, the elements required for proficient reading of alphabetic languages are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. In non-Latin languages, proficient reading does not necessarily require phonemic awareness, but rather an awareness of the individual parts of speech, which may also include the whole word (as in Chinese characters) or syllables (as in Japanese) as well as others depending on the writing system being employed.


The Rose Report, from the Department for Education in England makes it clear that, in their view, systematic phonics, specifically synthetic phonics, is the best way to ensure that children learn to read; such that it is now the law. In 2005 the government of Australia published a report stating "The evidence is clear ... that direct systematic instruction in phonics during the early years of schooling is an essential foundation for teaching children to read." Phonics has been gaining acceptance in many other countries as can be seen from this page Practices by country or region.


Other important elements are: rapid automatized naming (RAN), a general understanding of the orthography of the language, and practice.


Difficulties in reading typically involve difficulty with one or more of the following: decoding, reading rate, reading fluency, or reading comprehension.


Brain activity in young and older children can be used to predict future reading skill. Cross model mapping between the orthographic and phonologic areas in the brain are critical in reading. Thus, the amount of activation in the left dorsal inferior frontal gyrus while performing reading tasks can be used to predict later reading ability and advancement. Young children with higher phonological word characteristic processing have significantly better reading skills later on than older children who focus on whole-word orthographic representation.


Difficulty with decoding is marked by having not acquired the phoneme-grapheme mapping concept. One specific disability characterized by poor decoding is dyslexia, defined as brain-based type of learning disability that specifically impairs a person's ability to read. These individuals typically read at levels significantly lower than expected despite having normal intelligence. It can also be inherited in some families, and recent studies have identified a number of genes that may predispose an individual to developing dyslexia. Although the symptoms vary from person to person, common characteristics among people with dyslexia are difficulty with spelling, phonological processing (the manipulation of sounds), and/or rapid visual-verbal responding. Adults can have either developmental dyslexia or acquired dyslexia which occurs after a brain injury, stroke or dementia.


Individuals with reading rate difficulties tend to have accurate word recognition and normal comprehension abilities, but their reading speed is below grade level. Strategies such as guided reading (guided, repeated oral-reading instruction), may help improve a reader's reading rate.


Many studies show that increasing reading speed improves comprehension. Reading speed requires a long time to reach adult levels. According to Carver (1990), children's reading speed increases throughout the school years. On average, from grade 2 to college, reading rate increases 14 standard-length words per minute each year (where one standard-length word is defined as six characters in text, including punctuation and spaces).


Scientific studies have demonstrated that speed reading — defined here as capturing and decoding words faster than 900 wpm — is not feasible given the limits set by the anatomy of the eye.


Individuals with reading fluency difficulties fail to maintain a fluid, smooth pace when reading. Strategies used for overcoming reading rate difficulties are also useful in addressing reading fluency issues.


Individuals with reading comprehension difficulties are commonly described as poor comprehenders. They have normal decoding skills as well as a fluid rate of reading, but have difficulty comprehending text when reading. The simple view of reading holds that reading comprehension requires both "decoding skills" and "oral language comprehension" ability.


Increasing vocabulary knowledge, listening skills and teaching basic comprehension techniques may help facilitate better reading comprehension. It is suggested that students receive brief, explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies in the areas of vocabulary, noticing understanding, and connecting ideas.


Scarborough's Reading Rope also outlines some of the essential ingredients of reading comprehension.


The following organizations measure and report on reading achievement in the United States and internationally:


In the United States, the National Assessment of Educational Progress or NAEP ("The Nation's Report Card") is the national assessment of what students know and can do in various subjects. Four of these subjects – reading, writing, mathematics and science – are assessed most frequently and reported at the state and district level, usually for grades 4 and 8.


In 2019, with respect to the reading skills of the nation's grade-four public school students, 34% performed at or above the NAEP "Proficient level" (solid academic performance) and 65% performed at or above the NAEP "Basic level" (partial mastery of the proficient level skills). The results by race / ethnicity were as follows:


NAEP reading assessment results are reported as average scores on a 0–500 scale. The Basic Level is 208 and the Proficient Level is 238. The average reading score for grade-four public school students was 219. Female students had an average score that was 7 points higher than male students. Students who were eligible for the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) had an average score that was 28 points lower than that for students who were not eligible.


Reading scores for the individual States and Districts are available on the NAEP site. Between 2017 and 2019 Mississippi was the only State that had a grade-four reading score increase and 17 States had a score decrease.


The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) is an international study of reading (comprehension) achievement in fourth graders. It is designed to measure children's reading literacy achievement, to provide a baseline for future studies of trends in achievement, and to gather information about children's home and school experiences in learning to read. The 2016 PIRLS report shows the 4th grade reading achievement by country in two categories (literary and informational). The ten countries with the highest overall reading average are the Russian Federation, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Ireland, Finland, Poland, Northern Ireland, Norway, Chinese Taipei and England (UK). Some others are: the United States 15th, Australia 21st, Canada 23rd, and New Zealand 33rd.


The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures 15-year-old school pupils scholastic performance on mathematics, science, and reading. In 2018, of the 79 participating countries/economies, on average, students in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China) and Singapore outperformed students from all other countries in reading, mathematics and science. 21 countries have reading scores above the OECD average scores and many of the scores are not statistically different.


The history of reading dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC. Although reading print text is now an important way for the general population to access information, this has not always been the case. With some exceptions, only a small percentage of the population in many countries was considered literate before the Industrial Revolution. Some of the pre-modern societies with generally high literacy rates included classical Athens and the Islamic Caliphate.


Scholars assume that reading aloud (Latin "clare legere") was the more common practice in antiquity, and that reading silently ("legere tacite" or "legere sibi") was unusual. In his "Confessions", Saint Augustine remarks on Saint Ambrose's unusual habit of reading silently in the 4th century AD.


In 18th-century Europe, the then new practice of reading alone in bed was, for a time, considered dangerous and immoral. As reading became less a communal, oral practice, and more a private, silent one—and as sleeping increasingly moved from communal sleeping areas to individual bedrooms, some raised concern that reading in bed presented various dangers, such as fires caused by bedside candles. Some modern critics, however, speculate that these concerns were based on the fear that readers—especially women—could escape familial and communal obligations and transgress moral boundaries through the private fantasy worlds in books.


In 19th century Russia, reading practices were highly varied, as people from a wide range of social statuses read Russian and foreign-language texts ranging from high literature to the peasant lubok. Provincial readers such as Andrei Chikhachev give evidence of the omnivorous appetite for fiction and non-fiction alike among middling landowners.


The history of learning to read dates back to the invention of writing during the 4th millennium BC.


With respect to the English language in the United States, the phonics principle of teaching reading was first presented by John Hart in 1570, who suggested the teaching of reading should focus on the relationship between what is now referred to as graphemes (letters) and phonemes (sounds).


In the colonial times of the USA, reading material was not written specifically for children, so instruction material consisted primarily of the Bible and some patriotic essays. The most influential early textbook was The New England Primer, published in 1687. There was little consideration given to the best ways to teach reading or assess reading comprehension.


Phonics was a popular way to learn reading in the 1800s. William Holmes McGuffey (1800–1873), an American educator, author, and Presbyterian minister who had a lifelong interest in teaching children, compiled the first four of the McGuffey Readers in 1836.


The whole-word method was invented by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the director of the American Asylum at Hartford. It was designed to educate deaf people by placing a word alongside a picture. In 1830, Gallaudet described his method of teaching children to recognize a total of 50 sight words written on cards. Horace Mann, the Secretary of the Board of Education of Massachusetts, USA, favored the method for everyone, and by 1837 the method was adopted by the Boston Primary School Committee.


By 1844 the defects of the whole-word method became so apparent to Boston schoolmasters that they urged the Board to return to phonics. In 1929, Samuel Orton, a neuropathologist in Iowa, concluded that the cause of children's reading problems was the new sight method of reading. His findings were published in the February 1929 issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology in the article "The Sight Reading Method of Teaching Reading as a Source of Reading Disability".


The meaning-based curriculum came to dominate reading instruction by the second quarter of the 20th century. In the 1930s and 1940s, reading programs became very focused on comprehension and taught children to read whole words by sight. Phonics was taught as a last resort.


Edward William Dolch developed his list of sight words in 1936 by studying the most frequently occurring words in children's books of that era. Children are encouraged to memorize the words with the idea that it will help them read more fluently. Many teachers continue to use this list, although some researchers consider the theory of sight word reading to be a "myth". Researchers and literacy organizations suggest it would be more effective if students learned the words using a phonics approach.


In 1955, Rudolf Flesch published a book entitled "Why Johnny Can't Read", a passionate argument in favor of teaching children to read using phonics, adding to the reading debate among educators, researchers, and parents.


Government-funded research on reading instruction in the United States and elsewhere began in the 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers began publishing studies with evidence on the effectiveness of different instructional approaches. During this time, researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted studies that showed early reading acquisition depends on the understanding of the connection between sounds and letters (i.e. phonics). However, this appears to have had little effect on educational practices in public schools.


In the 1970s, the whole language method was introduced. This method de-emphasizes the teaching of phonics out of context (e.g. reading books), and is intended to help readers "guess" the right word. It teaches that guessing individual words should involve three systems (letter clues, meaning clues from context, and the syntactical structure of the sentence). It became the primary method of reading instruction in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it is falling out of favor. The neuroscientist Mark Seidenberg refers to it as a "theoretical zombie" because it persists in spite of a lack of supporting evidence. It is still widely practiced in related methods such as sight words, the three-cueing system and balanced literacy.


In the 1980s the three-cueing system (the searchlights model in England) emerged. According to a 2010 survey 75% of teachers in the USA teach the three-cueing system. It teaches children to guess a word by using "meaning cues" (semantic, syntactic and graphophonic). While the system does help students to "make better guesses", it does not help when the words become more sophisticated; and it reduces the amount of practice time available to learn essential decoding skills. Consequently, present-day researchers such as cognitive neuroscientists Mark Seidenberg and professor Timothy Shanahan do not support the theory. In England, synthetic phonics is intended to replace "the searchlights multi-cueing model".


In the 1990s Balanced literacy arose. It is a theory of teaching reading and writing that is not clearly defined. It may include elements such as word study and phonics mini-lessons, differentiated learning, cueing, leveled reading, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading and sight words. For some, balanced literacy strikes a balance between whole language and phonics. Others say balanced literacy in practice usually means the "whole language" approach to reading. According to a survey in 2010, 68% of K-2 teachers in the USA practice balanced literacy. Furthermore, only 52% of teachers included "phonics" in their definition of "balanced literacy".


In 1996 the California Department of Education took an increased interest in using phonics in schools. And in 1997 the department called for grade one teaching in concepts about print, phonemic awareness, decoding and word recognition, and vocabulary and concept development.


By 1998 in the U.K. whole language instruction and the searchlights-model were still the norm, however there was some attention to teaching phonics in the early grades, as seen in the National Literacy Strategies.


Beginning in 2000, several reading research reports were published:


In Australia the 2005 report, "Teaching Reading", recommends teaching reading based on evidence and teaching systematic, explicit phonics within an integrated approach. The executive summary says "systematic phonics instruction is critical if children are to be taught to read well, whether or not they experience reading difficulties." As of October 5, 2018, The State Government of Victoria, Australia, publishes a website containing a comprehensive Literacy Teaching Toolkit including effective reading instruction, phonics, and sample phonics lessons.


Until 2006, the English language syllabus of Singapore advocated "a balance between decoding and meaning-based instruction … phonics and whole language". However, a review in 2006 advocated for a "systematic" approach. Subsequently, the syllabus in 2010 had no mention of whole language and advocated for a balance between "systematic and explicit instruction" and "a rich language environment". It called for increased instruction in oral language skills together with phonemic awareness and the key decoding elements of synthetic phonics, analytic phonics and analogy phonics.


In 2007 the Department of Education (DE) in Northern Ireland was required by law to teach children foundational skills in phonological awareness and the understanding that "words are made up of sounds and syllables and that sounds are represented by letters (phoneme/grapheme awareness)". In 2010 the DE required that teachers receive support in using evidence-based practices to teach literacy and numeracy, including: a "systematic programme of high-quality phonics" that is explicit, structured, well-paced, interactive, engaging, and applied in a meaningful context.


In 2008, the National Center for Family Literacy, with the "National Institute for Literacy", published a report entitled "Developing Early Literacy". It is a synthesis of the scientific research on the development of early literacy skills in children ages zero to five as determined by the "National Early Literacy Panel" that was convened in 2002. Amongst other things, the report concluded that code-focused interventions on the early literacy and conventional literacy skills of young children yield a moderate to large effect on the predictors of later reading and writing, irrespective of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or population density.


In 2010 the Common Core State Standards Initiative was introduced in the USA. The "English Language Arts Standards for Reading: Foundational Skills in Grades 1–5" include recommendations to teach print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, and fluency.


In the United Kingdom a 2010 government white paper contained plans to train all primary school teachers in phonics. The 2013 curriculum has "statutory requirements" that, amongst other things, students in years one and two be capable in using systematic synthetic phonics in regards to word reading, reading comprehension, fluency, and writing. This includes having skills in "sound to graphemes", "decoding", and "blending".


In 2013, the National Commission for UNESCO launched the "Leading for Literacy" project to develop the literacy skills of grades 1 and 2 students. The project facilitates the training of primary school teachers in the use of a "synthetic phonics" program. From 2013 to 2015, the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Education appointed seven reading specialist to help primary and secondary school teachers improve their literacy instruction. From February 2014 to January 2016, literacy coaches were hired in selected primary schools to assist teachers of kindergarten, grades 1 and 2 with pedagogy and content of early literacy instruction. Primary schools have been provided with literacy resources for instruction, including phonemic awareness, word recognition, vocabulary manipulatives, phonics and comprehension.


In 2013 the State of Mississippi passed the Literacy-Based Promotion Act. The Mississippi Department of Education provided resources for teachers in the areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension and reading strategies.


The school curriculum in Ireland focuses on ensuring children are literate in both the English language and the Irish language. The 2014 teachers' Professional Development guide covers the seven areas of attitude and motivation, fluency, comprehension, word identification, vocabulary, phonological awareness, phonics, and assessment. It recommends that phonics be taught in a systematic and structured way and is preceded by training in phonological awareness.


In 2014 the California Department of Education said children should know how to decode regularly spelled one-syllable words by mid-first grade, and be phonemically aware (especially able to segment and blend phonemes)". In grades two and three children receive explicit instruction in advanced phonic-analysis and reading multi-syllabic and more complex words.


In 2015 the New York State Public School system revised its English Language Arts learning standards, calling for teaching involving "reading or literacy experiences" as well as phonemic awareness from prekindergarten to grade 1 and phonics and word recognition for grades 1–4. That same year, the Ohio Legislature set minimum standards requiring the use of phonics including guidelines for teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.


In 2016 the What Works Clearinghouse and the Institute of Education Sciences published an Educator's Practice Guide on Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade. It contains four recommendations to support reading: 1) teach students academic language skills, including the use of inferential and narrative language, and vocabulary knowledge, 2) develop awareness of the segments of sounds in speech and how they link to letters (phonemic awareness and phonics), 3) teach students to decode words, analyze word parts, and write and recognize words (phonics and synthetic phonics), and 4) ensure that each student reads connected text every day to support reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehension.


In 2016 the Colorado Department of Education updated their "Elementary Teacher Literacy Standards" with standards for development in the areas of phonology, phonics and word recognition, fluent automatic reading, vocabulary, text comprehension, handwriting, spelling, and written expression.


The European Literacy Policy Network (ELINET) 2016 reports that Hungarian children in grades one and two receive explicit instruction in phonemic awareness and phonics "as the route to decode words". In grades three and four they continue to apply their knowledge of phonics, however the emphasis shifts to the more meaning-focused technical aspects of reading and writing (i.e., vocabulary, types of texts, reading strategies, spelling, punctuation and grammar).


In 2017 the Ohio Department of Education adopted "Reading Standards for Foundational Skills K–12" laying out a systematic approach to teaching "phonological awareness" in kindergarten and grade one, and "grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words" (including fluency and comprehension) in grades 1–5.


In 2018 the Arkansas Department of Education published a report about their new initiative known as R.I.S.E., Reading Initiative for Student Excellence, that was the result of The Right to Read Act, passed in 2017. The first goal of this initiative is to provide educators with the in-depth knowledge and skills of "the science of reading" and evidence-based instructional strategies. This included a focus on research-based instruction on phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension; specifically systematic and explicit instruction.


As of 2018, the Ministry of Education in New Zealand has online information to help teachers to support their students in years 1–3 in relation to sounds, letters, and words. It states that phonics instruction "is not an end in itself" and it is "not" necessary to teach students "every combination of letters and sounds".


In 2018, ScienceDirect published the results of a study of early literacy and numeracy outcomes in developing countries entitled "Identifying the essential ingredients to literacy and numeracy improvement: Teacher professional development and coaching, student textbooks, and structured teachers’ guides". It concluded that "Including teachers’ guides was by far the most cost-effective intervention".


There has been a strong debate in France on the teaching of phonics ("méthode syllabique") versus whole language ("méthode globale"). After the 1990s, supporters of the later started defending a so-called "mixed method" (also known as Balanced literacy) in which approaches from both methods are used. Influential researchers in psycho-pedagogy, cognitive sciences and neurosciences, such as Stanislas Dehaene and have put their heavy scientific weight on the side of phonics. In 2018 the ministry created a science educational council that openly supported phonics. In April 2018, the minister issued a set of four guiding documents for early teaching of reading and mathematics and a booklet detailing phonics recommendations. Some have described his stance as "traditionalist", but he openly declared that the so-called mixed approach is no serious choice.


In 2019 the Minnesota Department of Education introduced standards requiring school districts to "develop a local literacy plan to ensure that all students have achieved early reading proficiency by no later than the end of third grade" in accordance with a Statute of the Minnesota Legislature requiring elementary teachers to be able to implement comprehensive, scientifically based reading and oral language instruction in the five reading areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.


Also in 2019, 26% of grade 4 students in Louisiana were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card, as compared to the National Average of 34%. In March 2019 the Louisiana Department of Education revised their curriculum for K-12 English Language Arts including requirements for instruction in the alphabetic principle, phonological awareness, phonics and word recognition, fluency and comprehension.


And again in 2019, 30% of grade 4 students in Texas were reading at the "proficiency level" according to the Nation's Report Card. In June of that year the Texas Legislature passed a Bill requiring all kindergarten through grade-three teachers and principals to ""begin" a teacher literacy achievement academy before the 2022–2023 school year". The required content of the academies' training includes the areas of "The Science of Teaching Reading, Oral Language, Phonological Awareness, Decoding (i.e. Phonics), Fluency and Comprehension." The goal is to "increase teacher knowledge and implementation of evidence-based practices to positively impact student literacy achievement".


For more information on reading educational developments, see Phonics practices by country or region.


The cohort model in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics is a model of lexical retrieval first proposed by William Marslen-Wilson in the late 1970s. It attempts to describe how visual or auditory input (i.e., hearing or reading a word) is mapped onto a word in a hearer's lexicon. According to the model, when a person hears speech segments real-time, each speech segment "activates" every word in the lexicon that begins with that segment, and as more segments are added, more words are ruled out, until only one word is left that still matches the input.


The cohort model relies on a number of concepts in the theory of lexical retrieval. The lexicon is the store of words in a person's mind.; it contains a person's vocabulary and is similar to a mental dictionary. A lexical entry is all the information about a word and the lexical storage is the way the items are stored for peak retrieval. Lexical access is the way that an individual accesses the information in the mental lexicon. A word's cohort is composed of all the lexical items that share an initial sequence of phonemes, and is the set of words activated by the initial phonemes of the word.


The cohort model is based on the concept that auditory or visual input to the brain stimulates neurons as it enters the brain, rather than at the end of a word. This fact was demonstrated in the 1980s through experiments with speech shadowing, in which subjects listened to recordings and were instructed to repeat aloud exactly what they heard, as quickly as possible; Marslen-Wilson found that the subjects often started to repeat a word before it had actually finished playing, which suggested that the word in the hearer's lexicon was activated before the entire word had been heard. Findings such as these led Marslen-Wilson to propose the cohort model in 1987.


Since its original proposal, the model has been adjusted to allow for the role that context plays in helping the hearer rule out competitors, and the fact that activation is "tolerant" to minor acoustic mismatches that arise because of coarticulation (a property by which language sounds are slightly changed by the sounds preceding and following them).


Later experiments refined the model. For example, some studies showed that "shadowers" (subjects who listen to auditory stimuli and repeat it as quickly as possible) could not shadow as quickly when words were jumbled up so they didn't mean anything; those results suggested that sentence structure and speech context also contribute to the process of activation and selection.


Research in bilinguals has found that word recognition is influenced by the number of neighbors in both languages.


Linguistic prediction is a phenomenon in psycholinguistics occurring whenever information about a word or other linguistic unit is activated before that unit is actually encountered. Evidence from eyetracking, event-related potentials, and other experimental methods indicates that in addition to integrating each subsequent word into the context formed by previously encountered words, language users may, under certain conditions, try to predict upcoming words.


In particular, prediction seems to occur regularly when the context of a sentence greatly limits the possible words that have not yet been revealed. For instance, a person listening to a sentence like, "In the summer it is hot, and in the winter it is..." would be highly likely to predict the sentence completion "cold" in advance of actually hearing it. A form of prediction is also thought to occur in some types of lexical priming, a phenomenon whereby a word becomes easier to process if it is preceded by a related word. Linguistic prediction is an active area of research in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience.


In the eyetracking visual world paradigm, experimental subjects listen to a sentence while staring at an array of pictures on a computer monitor. Their eye movements are recorded, allowing the experimenter to understand how language influences eye movements toward pictures related to the content of the sentence. Experiments of this type have shown that while listening to the verb in a sentence, comprehenders anticipatorily move their eyes to the picture of the verb's likely direct object (e.g. "cake" rather than "ball" while hearing, "The boy will eat..."). Subsequent investigations using the same experimental setup showed that the verb's subject can also determine which object comprehenders anticipate (e.g., comprehenders look at the merry-go-round rather than the motorcycle while hearing, "The little girl will ride...").


In short, comprehenders use the information in the sentence context to predict the meanings of upcoming words. In these experiments, comprehenders used the verb and its subject to activate information about the verb's direct object before hearing that word. However, another experiment has shown that in a language with more flexible word order (German), comprehenders can also use context to predict the sentence's subject.


Computational models of eye movements during reading, which model data related to word predictability, include Reichle and colleagues' E-Z Reader model and Engbert and colleagues' SWIFT model.


The M100 discussed here is the magnetic equivalent of the visual N1 potential—an event-related potential linked to visual processing and attention. The M100 was also linked to prediction in language comprehension in a series of event-related magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiments. In these experiments, participants read words whose visual forms were either predictable or unpredictable based on prior linguistic context or based on a recently seen picture. The predictability of the word's visual form (but not the predictability of its meaning) affected the amplitude of the M100.


There is ongoing controversy about whether this M100 effect is related to the early left anterior negativity (eLAN), an event-related potential response to words that is theorized to reflect the brain's assignment of local phrase structure.


The P2 component is generally thought to reflect higher-order perceptual processing and its modulation by attention. However, it has also been linked to prediction of visual word forms. The P2 response to words in highly constraining contexts is often larger than the P2 response to words in less constraining contexts. When experimental participants read words that are presented to the left or right of their visual fixation (stimulating the opposite hemisphere of the brain first), the larger P2 for words in highly constraining contexts is observed only for right visual field presentation (targeting left hemisphere). This is consistent with the PARLO hypothesis that linguistic prediction is mainly a function of the left hemisphere, discussed below.


The N400 is part of the normal ERP response to potentially meaningful stimuli, whose amplitude is inversely correlated with the predictability of a stimuli in a particular context. In sentence processing, the predictability of a word is established by two related factors: 'cloze probability' and 'sentential constraint'. Cloze probability reflects the expectancy of a target word given the context of the sentence, which is determined by the percentage of individuals who supply the word when completing a sentence whose final word is missing. Kutas and colleagues found that the N400 to sentences final words with cloze probability of 90% was smaller (i.e., more positive) than the N400 for words with cloze probability of 70%, which was then smaller for words with cloze probability of 30%.


Closely related, sentential constraint reflects the degree to which the context of the sentence constrains the number of acceptable continuations. Whereas cloze probability is the percent of individuals who choose a particular word, constraint is the number of different words chosen by a representative sample of individuals. Although words that are not predicted elicit a larger N400, the N400 to unpredicted words that are semantically related to the predicted word elicit a smaller N400 than when the unpredicted words are semantically unrelated. When the sentence context is highly constraining, semantically related words receive further facilitation in that the N400 to semantically related words is smaller in high constraint sentences than in low constraint sentences.


Evidence for the prediction of specific words comes from a study by DeLong et al. DeLong and colleagues took advantage of the use of different indefinite articles, 'A' and 'AN' for English words that begin with a consonant or vowel respectively. They found that when the most probable sentence completion began with a consonant, the N400 was larger for 'AN' than for 'A' and vice versa, suggesting that prediction occurs at both a semantic and lexical level during language processing. (The study never replicated. In the most recent multi-lab attempt (335 participants), no evidence for word form prediction was found (Niewland et al., 2018).


The P300, specifically the P3b is an ERP response to improbable stimuli and is sensitive to the subjective probability that a particular stimulus will occur. The P300 has been closely tied to context updating, which can be initiated by unexpected stimuli.


The P600 an ERP response to syntactic violations, as well as complex, but error free, language. A P600-like response is also observed for thematically implausible sentences: example, "For breakfast, the eggs would only EAT toast and jam". Both P600 responses are generally attributed to the process of revising or continuing the analysis of the sentence. The syntactic P600 has been compared to the P300 in that both responses are sensitive to similar manipulations; importantly, the probability of the stimulus. The similarity between the two responses may suggest that the P300 significantly contributes to the syntactic P600 response.


A late positivity is often observed subsequent to the N400. Recent meta-analysis of the ERP literature on language processing has identified two different Post-N400 Positivities. In comparing the Post-N400 Positivity (PNP) for congruent and incongruent sentence final words, a parietal PNP is observed for incongruent words. This parietal PNP is similar to the typical P600 response, suggesting continued or revised analysis. Within the congruent condition, when comparing high- and low-cloze probability sentence final words, a PNP response (if it is observed) is generally distributed across the front of the scalp. A recent study has shown that the frontal PNP may reflect processing an unexpected lexical item instead of an unexpected concept, suggesting that the frontal PNP reflects disconfirmed lexical predictions.


Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a neuroimaging technology that uses nuclear magnetic resonance to measure blood oxygenation levels in the brain and spinal cord. Because neural activity affects blood flow, the pattern of the hemodynamic response is thought to correspond closely to the pattern of neural activity. The fine spatial resolution afforded by fMRI allows cognitive neuroscientists to see in detail which areas of the brain are activated in relation to an experimental task. However, the hemodynamic response is much slower than the neural activity measured by EEG and MEG. This poor sensitivity to timing information makes fMRI a less useful technique than EEG or eyetracking for studying linguistic prediction.


One exception is an fMRI test of the differences in neural activation between strategic and automatic semantic priming. When the time between the prime and the target word is short (around 150 milliseconds), priming is theorized to rely on automatic neural processes. However, at longer time intervals (approaching 1 second), it is thought that experimental subjects strategically predict related upcoming words and suppress unrelated words, leading to a processing penalty in the event that an unrelated word actually occurs. An fMRI test of this hypothesis showed that at longer intervals, the processing penalty for an incorrect prediction is related to heightened activity in the anterior cingulate gyrus and Broca's area.


The surprisal theory is a theory of sentence processing based on information theory. In the surprisal theory, the cost of processing a word is determined by its self-information, or how predictable the word is, given its context. A highly probable word carries a small amount of self-information and would therefore be processed easily, as measured by reduced reaction time, a smaller N400 response, or reduced fixation times in an eyetracking reading study. Empirical tests of this theory have shown a high degree of match between processing cost measures and the self-information values assigned to words.


An acceptability judgment task, also called acceptability rating task, is a common method in empirical linguistics to gather information about the internal grammar of speakers of a language.


The goal of acceptability rating studies is to gather insights into the mental grammars of participants. As the grammaticality of a linguistic construction is an abstract construct that cannot be accessed directly, this type of tasks is usually not called grammaticality, but acceptability judgment. This can be compared to intelligence. Intelligence is an abstract construct that cannot be measured directly. What can be measured are the outcomes of specific test items. The result of one item, however, is not very telling. Instead, IQ tests consist of several items building a score. Similarly, in acceptability rating studies, grammatical constructions are measured through several items, i.e., sentences to be rated. This is also done to ensure that participants do not rate the meaning of a particular sentence.


The difference between acceptability and grammaticality is linked to the distinction between performance and competence in generative grammar.


Several different types of acceptability rating tasks are used in linguistics. The most common tasks use Likert scales. Forced choice and yes-no rating tasks are also common. Besides these classical test types, there are other, methods like thermometer judgments or magnitude estimation which have been argued to be more difficult to process for participants, however.


Verbal intelligence is the ability to understand and reason using concepts framed in words. More broadly, it is linked to problem solving, abstract reasoning, and working memory. Verbal intelligence is one of the most "g"-loaded abilities.


In order to understand linguistic intelligence, it is important to understand the mechanisms that control speech and language. These mechanisms can be broken down into four major groups: speech generation (talking), speech comprehension (hearing), writing generation (writing), and writing comprehension (reading).


In a practical sense, linguistic intelligence is the extent to which an individual can use language, both written and verbal, to achieve goals.


Linguistic intelligence is a part of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory that deals with individuals' ability to understand both spoken and written language, as well as their ability to speak and write themselves.


In most cases, speech production is controlled by the left hemisphere. In a series of studies, Wilder Penfield, among others, probed the brains of both right-handed (generally left-hemisphere dominant) and left-handed (generally right-hemisphere dominant) patients. They discovered that, regardless of handedness, the left hemisphere was almost always the speech controlling side. However, it has been discovered that in cases of neural stress (hemorrhage, stroke, etc.) the right hemisphere has the ability to take control of speech functions.


Verbal Comprehension is a fairly complex process, and it is not fully understood. From various studies and experiments, it has been found that the superior temporal sulcus activates when hearing human speech, and that speech processing seems to occur within Wernicke's area.


Generation of written language is thought to be closely related to speech generation. Neurophysiologically speaking, it is believed that Broca's area is crucial for early linguistic processing, while the inferior frontal gyrus is critical in semantic processing. According to Penfield, writing differs in two major ways from verbal language. First, instead of relating the thought to sounds, the brain must relate the thought to symbols or letters, and second, the motor cortex activates a different set of muscles to write, than when speaking.


Written comprehension, similar to spoken comprehension, seems to occur primarily in Wernicke's area. However, instead of using the auditory system to gain language input, written comprehension relies on the visual system.


While the capabilities of the physical structures used are large factors in determining linguistic intelligence, there have been several genes that have been linked to individual linguistic ability. The NRXN1 gene has been linked to general language ability, and mutations of this gene has been shown to cause major issues to overall linguistic intelligence. The CNTNAP2 gene is believed to affect language development and performance, and mutations in this gene is thought to be involved in autism spectrum disorders. PCDH11 has been linked to language capacity, and it is believed to be one of the factors that accounts for the variation in linguistic intelligence.


The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III (WAIS-III) divides Verbal IQ (VIQ) into two categories:


In general, it is difficult to test for linguistic intelligence as a whole, therefore various types of verbal fluency tests are often used.


In one series of tests, it was shown that when children were given verbal fluency tests, a larger portion of their cortex activated compared to adults, as well as activation of both the left and right hemispheres. This is most likely due to the high plasticity of newly developing brains.


Recently, a study was done showing that verbal fluency test results can differ depending on the mental focus of the subject. In this study, mental focus on physical speech production mechanisms caused speech production times to suffer, whereas mental focus on auditory feedback improved these times.


Since linguistic intelligence is based on several complex skills, there are many disorders and injuries that can affect an individual's linguistic intelligence.


There are several disorders that primarily affect only language skills. Three major pure language disorders are Developmental verbal dyspraxia, specific language impairment, and stuttering. Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD) is a disorder where children have errors in consonant and vowel production. Specific language impairment (SLI) is a disorder where the patient has a lack of language acquisition skills, despite a seemingly normal intelligence level in other areas. Stuttering is a fairly common disorder where speech flow is interrupted by involuntary repetitions of syllables.


Fictive motion is the metaphorical motion of an object or abstraction through space. Fictive motion has become a subject of study in psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics. In fictive motion sentences, a motion verb applies to a subject that is not literally capable of movement in the physical world, as in the sentence, "The fence runs along the perimeter of the house." Fictive motion is so called because it is attributed to material states, objects, or abstract concepts, that cannot (sensibly) be said to move themselves through physical space. Fictive motion sentences are pervasive in English and other languages.


Cognitive linguist Leonard Talmy discussed many of the spatial and linguistic properties of fictive motion in a book chapter called "Fictive motion in language and 'ception (Talmy 1996). He provided further insights in his seminal book, "Toward a Cognitive Semantics Vol. 1", in 2000. Talmy began analyzing the semantics of fictive motion in the late 1970s and early 1980s but used the term "virtual motion" at that time (e.g. Talmy 1983).


Fictive motion has since been investigated by cognitive scientists interested in whether and how it evokes dynamic imagery. Methods of investigation have included reading tasks, eye-tracking tasks and drawing tasks.


It appears that not only does thinking about actual motion influence people's judgments about time, but thinking about fictive motion has the same effect, suggesting that thinking about one abstract domain may influence people's understanding of another. This raises the question of whether the influence of fictive motion on people's understanding of time is rooted in a concrete, embodied conception of motion, such that both time and fictive motion are ultimately understood in terms of simulations of concrete experience, or whether the effects of fictive motion are a product of the way that language influences thought.


Transderivational search (often abbreviated to TDS) is a psychological and cybernetics term, meaning when a search is being conducted for a fuzzy match across a broad field. In computing the equivalent function can be performed using content-addressable memory.


Unlike usual searches, which look for literal (i.e. exact, logical, or regular expression) matches, a transderivational search is a search for a possible meaning or possible match as part of communication, and without which an incoming communication cannot be made any sense of whatsoever. It is thus an integral part of processing language, and of attaching meaning to communication.


A psychological example of TDS is in Ericksonian hypnotherapy, where vague suggestions are used that the patient must process intensely in order to find their own meanings, thus ensuring that the practitioner does not intrude his own beliefs into the subject's inner world.


Because TDS is a compelling, automatic and unconscious state of internal focus and processing (i.e. a type of everyday trance state), and often a state of internal lack of certainty, or openness to finding an answer (since something is being checked out at that moment), it can be utilized or interrupted, in order to create, or deepen, trance.


TDS is a fundamental part of human language and cognitive processing. Arguably, every word or utterance a person hears, for example, and everything they see or feel and take note of, results in a very brief trance while TDS is carried out to establish a contextual meaning for it.


Although TDS is often associated with spoken language, it can be induced in any perceptual system. Thus Milton Erickson's "hypnotic handshake" is a technique that leaves the other person performing TDS in search of meaning to a deliberately ambiguous use of touch.


Crosslinguistic influence (CLI) refers to the different ways in which one language can affect another within an individual speaker. It typically involves two languages that can affect one another in a bilingual speaker.  An example of CLI is the influence of Korean on a Korean native speaker who is learning Japanese or French. Less typically, it could also refer to an interaction between different dialects in the mind of a monolingual speaker. CLI can be observed across subsystems of languages including pragmatics, semantics, syntax, morphology, phonology, phonetics, and orthography. Discussed further in this article are particular subcategories of CLI—transfer, attrition, the complementarity principle, and additional theories.


The question of how languages influence one another within a bilingual individual can be addressed both with respect to mature bilinguals and with respect to bilingual language acquisition. With respect to bilingual language acquisition in children, there are several hypotheses that examine the internal representation of bilinguals' languages. Volterra and Taeschner proposed the "Single System Hypothesis," which states that children start out with one single system that develops into two systems. This hypothesis proposed that bilingual children go through three stages of acquisition.


Since the development of the "Crosslinguistic Hypothesis", much research has contributed to the understanding of CLI in areas of structural overlap, directionality, dominance, interfaces, the role of input, and the role of processing and production.


Jacquelyn Schachter (1992) argues that transfer is not a process at all, but that it is improperly named. She described transfer as "an unnecessary carryover from the heyday of behaviorism." In her view, transfer is more of a constraint on the L2 learners' judgments about the constructions of the acquired L2 language. Schachter stated, "It is both a facilitating and a limiting condition on the hypothesis testing process, but it is not in and of itself a process."


Language transfer can be positive or negative. Transfer between similar languages often yields correct production in the new language because the systems of both languages are similar. This correct production would be considered positive transfer. An example involves a Spanish speaker (L1) who is acquiring Catalan (L2). Because the languages are so similar, the speaker could rely on their knowledge of Spanish when learning certain Catalan grammatical features and pronunciation. However, the two languages are distinct enough that the speaker's knowledge of Spanish could potentially interfere with learning Catalan properly.


Negative transfer (Interference) occurs when there are little to no similarities between the L1 and L2. It is when errors and avoidance are more likely to occur in the L2. The types of errors that result from this type of transfer are underproduction, overproduction, miscomprehension, and production errors, such as substitution, calques, under/overdifferentiation and hypercorrection.


Overproduction refers to an L2 learner producing certain structures within the L2 with a higher frequency than native speakers of that language. In a study by Schachter and Rutherford (1979), they found that Chinese and Japanese speakers who wrote English sentences overproduced certain types of cleft constructions:


and sentences that contained "There are"/"There is" which suggests an influence of the topic marking function in their L1 appearing in their L2 English sentences.


French learners have been shown to over-rely on presentational structures when introducing new referents into discourse, in their L2 Italian and English.


This phenomenon has been observed even in the case of a target language where the presentational structure does not involve a relative pronoun, as Mandarin Chinese.


Substitution is when the L1 speaker takes a structure or word from their native language and replaces it within the L2. Odlin (1989) shows a sentence from a Swedish learner of English in the following sentence.


Here the Swedish word "bort" has replaced its English equivalent "away".


A Calque is a direct "loan translation" where words are translated from the L1 literally into the L2.


Overdifferentiation occurs when distinctions in the L1 are carried over to the L2.


Underdifferentiation occurs when speakers are unable to make distinctions in the L2.


Hypercorrection is a process where the L1 speaker finds forms in the L2 they consider to be important to acquire, but these speakers do not properly understand the restrictions or exceptions to formal rules that are in the L2, which results in errors, such as the example below.