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The Science of Reading

The science of reading is a large collection of research from many fields that study how people learn to read and write. It includes findings from areas like developmental psychology, cognitive ...

“Executive function is the brain’s ability to coordinate the cognitive and psychological processes needed to initiate, sustain, monitor and adapt the behaviors and attitudes required to achieve a goal.”
—Patricia Newhall, Landmark Outreach

Dyslexia

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Science Of reading

The science of reading is a large collection of research from many fields that study how people learn to read and write. It includes findings from areas like developmental psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, special education, and neuroscience. Over the past 50 years, researchers around the world have studied reading in many languages. This research shows strong evidence about how good reading and writing skills develop, why some people struggle, and how teachers can best assess and teach reading. This helps improve student learning by preventing and addressing reading difficulties early. At the Special Education Consultancy, findings from the science of reading form the bases of our recommendations for schools, teachers and parents by highlighting the importance of implementing the following areas:

Systematic and Explicit Phonics:

A structured and explicit phonics program ensuring all students have the foundational skills they need to decode words.

Comprehensive Reading Instruction:

Foundational skills like phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.

Understanding Individual Needs:

An emphasis on the importance of assessing students' individual strengths and weaknesses in reading, allowing teachers to tailor instruction to meet diverse needs.

Differentiated Instruction:

Creating inclusive learning environments that support all students, including those with learning disabilities or dyslexia.

Executive function

Teaching students about executive functions helps them to understand its role in managing their study skills and emotions, resisting temptations, and planning and executing complex projects. This understanding will help students discover that executive function can become depleted, which explains why they sometimes struggle to persist with tasks or why they are sometimes less effective in their work. Like a muscle, executive function can be improved with exercise. Our qualified executive function coaches have designed modules that teach students how to improve their planning, prioritizing, working memory and self-regulation skills to strengthen their study skills overall.

Dyslexia

Dyslexia is a learning disorder that is neurobiological in origin. It affects an individual’s ability to read and spell, and can also cause problems with math and writing. Dyslexia occurs along a continuum so individuals experience it in varying degrees. It is extremely common and lifelong, however specialized reading instruction helps mitigate the impact of dyslexia. Reading is a learned behaviour so dyslexia is responsive to instruction. Signs of dyslexia can be present as early as pre-school. Throughout a child’s schooling, there are several behaviors that could indicate dyslexia. Here are a few:

Very slow in acquiring reading skills. Reading is slow and awkward
Trouble reading unfamiliar words, often making wild guesses because they cannot sound out the word
Doesn’t seem to have a strategy for reading new words
Avoids reading out loud
Poor spelling
Messy handwriting

Orthographic Dylexia

The orthography of a language is the system of writing that has been specifically selected for that language and includes knowledge of: alphabet letters and letter formation; phoneme-grapheme (sound-letter) correspondences; alternative graphemic patterns; syntax; punctuation; morphology (meaning); and etymology (word origins). Orthographic dyslexia is a form of dyslexia characterized by challenges in recognizing and processing the visual patterns of letters and words. Students with this type of dyslexia often have average phonological awareness, yet this does not translate into good spelling and writing.
Orthography Dyslexia present as:

Poor recognition and recall of previously seen words
Limited sight vocabulary
Confusion with letters that have different orientation (b-d, p-q), or words that can be reversed (was-saw)
Losing one’s place when reading because it is hard to recognize a sentence or word that has been read previously
Omitting letters and words because of visual mapping difficulties
Difficulty recalling the shape of letters when writing
Phonetic speller (bisnis, frend, thru, nite, laf)
Spelling challenging phonetic words, but not simple irregular words

Reading fluency

Students who with dyslexia and orthographic processing difficulties are often challenged by reading fluency, as they are not able to rapidly and automatically recognise words, or units within words that are required to decode unknown words. Delays in reading fluency often lead to reading comprehension difficulties.
Strategies for developing fluency should consider and/or include the following:

Explicit work on speed and fluency needs to be preceded by a focus on accuracy.
Repeated timed reading of single word lists to develop automatic recognition of graphemic patterns.
Practice and monitor progress of oral reading with repeated readings of continuous text.
Ensure daily reading of text that is at the student’s level.

Resources

The Science of Reading

Executive Function

Dyslexia

Featured articles

Developing a Multi-Tiered System of Supports

8 Steps to Monitor Progress on Tier 2/3 Reading Interventions