The document provides an overview of the science of reading from the perspective of brain development and functioning. It discusses that: 1. Reading requires explicitly teaching the connections between sounds and letters since reading is not a natural process, unlike speaking. The reading brain must be developed through instruction. 2. Three key areas in the brain are involved in reading: the phonological processor for speech, orthographic processor for vision, and the phonological assembly region that connects them. 3. The simple view of reading model illustrates how decoding, language comprehension, and background knowledge interact for reading comprehension. 4. Effective reading instruction includes teaching phonological awareness, systematic phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension through explicit

1. The Science of Reading
How the Brain Works in Reading
Rosalina J. Villaneza, PhD
Chief, Education Program Specialist
BLD-TLD – Department of Education, CO

2. Objectives:
At the end of the session participants are expected to:
1. understand what the science of reading is and is not;
2. give importance to the power of science or science
evidence and its implication to reading instruction;
3. understand the development of the Reading Brain;
4. understand why reading is not a natural process
according to the Science of Reading; and
5. Use instructional practices that are effective for
all children, so teachers can deliver the promise of
“literacy for all”.

3. Anticipation Guide
Your belief and what you know affect how you teach your learners. Study each
statement below and respond to it by checking “Agree” or “Disagree”
AGREE
DISAGREE
The Science of Reading is:
________1. an ideology ________
________2. not a philosophy. ________
________3. a political agenda ________
________4. a one – size – fits – all approach to reading. ________
________5. not a program of instruction or a specific ________
component of instruction.
________6. An emerging consensus from many related ________
disciplines based on literally thousands of studies.

4. The BRAIN: Its Structure and Functions
▪ All human behavior is mediated by the
brain and the central nervous system.
The process of learning is one of the
most important activities of the brain.

5. The Cerebral Hemispheres
The human brain is composed of two halves,
right hemisphere and the left hemisphere,
which appear on casual inspection to be almost
identical in construction and metabolism. Each
hemisphere contains a frontal lobe, a temporal
lobe, an occipital lobe, a parietal lobe, and a
motor area. The motor area of each hemisphere
controls the muscular activities of the opposite
side of the body.

6. Right Brain, Left Brain:
Differences in Function
Although the two halves of the
brain appear almost identical in
structure, they differ in function,
and these differences appear
very early in life.

7. Left Hemisphere
Reacts to and controls language-related
activities. 90 percent of adults, language
function originates in the left hemisphere,
regardless of whether the individual is left-
handed, right-handed, or a combination of
the two. Language is located in the left
hemisphere in 98 percent of right-handed
people and in a bout 71 percent of left-
handed people

8. Right Hemisphere
Deals with nonverbal stimuli.
Spatial perception, mathematics,
music, directional orientation, time
sequences, and body awareness
are located in the right brain..

9. Right Brain/Left Brain
This duality of the brain has led to speculation
that some people tend to approach the
environment in a “left-brained” fashion
whereas others use a “right-brained approach.”
Left-brained individuals are strong in language
and verbal skills while “right-brained”
individuals have strengths in spatial, artistic,
and mechanical skills...

10. Concept About Motor Learning
• Human learning begins with motor
learning
• There is a natural sequence of
developmental motor stages
• Many areas of academic and
cognitive performance are based
on successful motor experiences.

11. Perception:
refers to the cognitive ability of the
individual to both recognize and
integrate external stimuli. It is a
process that occurs essentially in
the brain. Perception is a learned
skill, which implies that it can be
taught.

12. Perceptual-Motor System
Basic Rationale: Higher level
mental processes for the most
part develop out of and after
adequate development of the
motor system and the perceptual
system..

13. Auditory Perception
• Auditory perception- Interpreting
what is heard
• Phonological awareness
• Auditory discrimination
• Auditory memory
• Auditory sequencing
• Auditory blending

14. Types of Auditory Discrimination
* Auditory Memory: is the ability to
store and recall what one has heard.
For example, the student could be
asked to do three activities, such as
close the window, open the door, and
place the book on the desk. Is the
student able to store and retrieve
through listening to such directions?

15. Types of Auditory Discrimination
* Auditory Sequencing: is the ability to
remember the order of items in a
sequential list. For example, the alphabet,
numbers, and the months of the year are
learned as an auditory sequence.

16. Types of Auditory Discrimination
• Auditory Blending: is the ability to blend
single phonic elements or phonemes into a
complete word. Students with such
disabilities have difficulty blending, for
example, the phonemes m-a-n to form the
word man.

17. Visual Perception: Interpreting what is seen
• Visual discrimination
• Figure-Ground perception
• Visual closure
• Spatial relations
• Object-letter recognition
• Reversals
• Whole-part perception

18. Visual Discrimination
• refers to the ability to differentiate one
object from another. In a preschool
readiness test, for example, the child
may be asked to find the rabbit with one
ear in a row of rabbits with two ears.
• The skill of matching identical letters,
words, numbers, pictures, designs,
and shapes is another visual
discrimination task.

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

20. Visual Closure:
is a task that requires the individual
to recognize or identify an object
even though the total stimulus is not
presented.
For example, a competent reader is
able to read a line of print when the
top half of the print is covered.

21. Spatial Relations:
refers to the perception
of the position of objects
in space.
In reading, for example,
word must be perceived
as separate entities
surrounded by space.

22. Object and Letter Recognition:
is the ability to recognize the nature of
objects when viewing them. This
includes recognition of alphabetic
letters, numbers, words, geometric
shapes (such as a square), and objects
(such as a cat, a face, or a toy).

23. What all Teachers Should Know
The Science of Reading

24. The Is/Is Not of Science of Reading
SOR is not:
• a an ideology
• philosophy
• a political agenda
• a one-size-fits-all
approach
• a program of instruction;
or
• a specific component of
instruction
SOR is:
• the emerging consensus
from many related
disciplines, based on literally
thousands of studies,
supported by hundreds of
millions of research dollars,
conducted across the world
in many languages.

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

26. Why Reading is Not a Natural Process.. According to the SOR
“We human beings were never
born to read; we invented reading
and then had to teach it to every
new generation.”
- Mary Ann Wolf

27. The Reading Brain

28. The Reading Brain
Three areas of the brain (Sandak, Mencl, Frost, & Pugh, 2004;
Houde, Rossi, Lubin, & Joliot, 2010):
* Phonological Processor - located towards the front of the brain on
the left side. It handles spoken language. Almost everyone is born
with this language area intact.
* Orthographic Processor - is located towards the back of the brain on the left
side. It handles visual images. Almost everyone is born with this visual part of
the brain intact.
* Phonological Assembly Region – connects vision and speech and is the
system that enables reading. No one is born with this neural system that
connects both vision and speech. It must be built through instructional
experiences. (APA, 2014; Hruby & Goswami, 2011)

29. Brain Science Behind Reading Acquisition

30. Implication to Reading Instruction
SOR tells us about:
• how we learn to read,
• what goes wrong when students
don’t learn; and
• what kind of instruction is most likely
to work best for most students.

31. Theoretical Models: Simple View of Reading
D × LC = RC
Decoding
Language
Comprehension
Reading
Comprehension
(Gough and Tunmer, 1986)

32. How Reading Works in the Brain
Decoding Language
Comprehension
Reading
Comprehension
X =
1 X 0 =
=
0
0 0
1 1
1
1
=
X
X
The Simple View of Reading
Gogh & Tunmer, 1988
Word Meanings
Background
Knowledge
Listening
Comprehension
Understanding the
Meaning of the Text
Word Pronunciation
Letter Recognition
Connection of Phonemes
To Letters
Word Recognition

33. The Rope Model

34. Acquiring Word Recognition
Adapted from Blevins
Phonological awareness supports
student understanding the words are
made up of a series of discrete sounds.
Phonics teaches students how to map these
sounds onto letters and spellings.
The more phonics students learn, the better able they
are to decode, or sound out words efficiently and they
begin to build word recognition.
When students begin to recognize many words
automatically, their reading starts to feel more and more
effortless. This is a process called orthographic mapping.
Fluency, or reading accurately and smoothly, is partly a by-
product of orthographic mapping. As sentences become
more complex, students need to get through enough words
fast enough to make sense of what they are reading.

35. What Needs to be Taught:
The Essential Components of Early Literacy
(National Reading Panel, 2000)
Skill Definition
Phonemic Awareness Noticing, thinking about and working with phonemes (the
smallest units of spoken language)
Vocabulary & Oral
Language
Understanding the meaning of words we speak, hear,
read, and write
Phonics Knowing relationships between sounds (phonemes) and
letters (graphemes)
Oral Reading Fluency Reading connected text accurately, fluently, and for
meaning
Reading Comprehension Gaining meaning from text

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

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

38. How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)
3. Systematic Phonics Instruction
Systematic phonics is the method of teaching
students how to connect the graphemes (letters) with
the phonemes (sounds) using a clear and well thought
out scope and sequence. It includes:
• Consonant and short vowel sounds
• Digraphs and blends
• Long vowels and other vowel patterns
• Syllables patterns
• Affixes (Prefixes & Suffixes)

39. “Phonics instruction should
continue throughout the
elementary grades to build deep
and secure neural systems for
sight word recognition.”
- David Kilpatrick

40. How do you Teach Reading?
(National Reading Panel)
4.Structured Literacy
Structured literacy approach teaches students phonics, decoding, and
spelling skills explicitly in a systematic, sequential, and cumulative step-by-
step process. SL approaches are effective in helping students with learning
differences, such as dyslexia, learn to read and spell (Spear-Swerling, 2019)
SL instruction:
• Built around a scope and sequence. It dictates the order in which each
concept or skill is taught.
• Each lesson builds upon itself.
• Student never has to read or spell anything they haven’t been introduced
to yet.
• Stories and text in SL are always decodable.
• In SL students only read and spell what they have been explicitly taught.
• Individual skill is taught in isolation from the most basic levels of phonics
and to the most advanced spelling rules & morphological concepts.

41. Skill Area Structured Literacy Typical Literacy Practices
Phonological
Awareness
Emphasis on the sounds in spoken
language distinct from and prior to phonics
instruction; Phoneme awareness used as
the starting point for print
Letters used as the starting point for print;
Reading treated as a visual skill; Confusion of
phonemic awareness and phonics; Avoidance
of segmenting spoken words
Phonics & Spelling Intentional instruction in letter-sound
combinations; Sequenced from easier to
harder for reading and spelling; Application
of word reading in print
Taught whole to part (analytic) incidentally as
students make mistakes in text or by analogy
(word families); Mini lessons responding to
student errors
Vocabulary & Oral
Language
Oral language as the reference point for
print; Books used for reading aloud are
more challenging than those students read
independently; Scripted teacher dialogue
Modeling reading aloud from the leveled books
students will read; Nondirective questioning
and discussion
Text Reading
Fluency
Young students read text that is controlled
to include only those phonics patterns that
have been explicitly taught; Fluency
building only after accuracy; High degree of
teacher-student interaction with immediate
corrective feedback
Use of leveled or predictable texts that are not
controlled for decoding difficulty; Error
response focuses on picture cues or the use of
context to determine words; High degree of
independent silent reading; Miscue analysis
Reading
Comprehension
Background knowledge, text structure, and
strategies overtly modeled and practiced in
a planned progression
Emphasis on teacher modeling (think aloud);
Activities such as choral reading, shared
reading and guided reading; Student book
choice

42. Conclusion
• All children deserve to learn to read
• What is known about how children learn
to read can inform our work
• What and how we teach really matters
• A focus on prevention will ensure more
children learn to read and reduce the
need for intervention

43. Next Step: What To Do Now?
• Build our knowledge
• Examine what we teach and how
• Explore our systems of
supporting students

44. Discussion Questions:
1.What does the Science of Reading tell us?
2.Why reading is not a natural process according
to SOR?
3. How do we develop reading literacy in the
early years?
4. What are the appropriate pedagogies in
developing early reading literacy?

45. “Do the best you can until you know better.
Then when you know better, do better.”
We can’t teach what we don’t know. We can
stop doing what doesn’t work, and we can
dismiss outdated practices based on
misconceptions about the process of reading.
Instead, we can be guided by the evidence.
Statement for Reflection

46. React on these statements
1.All children deserve to learn to read
2.What is known about how children learn to read
can inform our work
3. What and how we teach really matters
4. A focus on prevention will ensure more
children learn to read and reduce the need
to intervention

47. ”It simply is not true that there are hundreds
of ways to learn to read. When it comes to
Reading, all children have roughly the same
Brain that imposes the same constraints
And the same learning sequence.”
- Stanislas Dehaene

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

49. Resources
● https://www.scilearn.com/the-science-of-reading-the-basics-and-beyond/
● Barshay, Jill. (2020). Four things you need to know about the new reading
wars. The Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/four-things-you-need-to-
know-about-the-new-reading-wars/
● https://www.zaner-bloser.com/research/the-science-of-reading-evidence-for-a-new-era-
of-reading-instruction.php
● https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/what-exactly-does-science-say-about-reading-
instruction/
● https://cdn.education.ne.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Nebraska-Session-1-Phonological-
Awareness-and-Phonics-2.pdf
● https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/what-is-the-science-of-reading

50. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Thank you!
50