What’s Missing from the Science of Reading?

The Science of Reading is a great move towards phonics instruction and helping kids learn to read more effectively. In and of itself, it is going to really help some kids “get” reading—but how about those kids that still struggle? Here’s what we believe is missing from the Science of Reading…

What the Science of Reading Does Well

Moving away from whole-word, sight-based reading, the Science of Reading points to a return to phonics instruction. Building a solid foundation of phonological awareness, decoding skills, and auditory processing has been proven more effective to help kids read successfully.

Research consistently shows that this approach is more effective for kids. It builds problem-solving abilities and decoding skills that kids can use as words get more complex (instead of just having to memorize new words as they come). 

So Why Are So Many Kids Still Struggling with Reading?

Reading scores in the US really have not changed much over the past several decades. In fact, some researchers say kids are scoring lower (especially in urban or low-income areas). More than ⅔ of kids in 4th grade need remedial reading interventions—so what’s going wrong?

This is a complex issue without one clear answer. Shifting reading instruction to align with the Science of Reading will hopefully help some kids that are struggling, but for many it still may not be enough.

Kids need a strong cognitive foundation to learn in the first place.

Without strong cognitive skills like attention, memory, reasoning, and visual/auditory processing, even good reading instruction will not be good enough.

The Foundation of All Learning: Strong Cognitive Skills

Your brain uses cognitive skills to learn everything, including reading. Kids with reading struggles often have one or more skill weaknesses that make life harder in many ways.

Especially for reading, weak cognitive skill areas cause struggles like:

• Getting easily distracted and struggling to focus through a text long enough to decode and comprehend it
• Forgetting what they had just read (so they are constantly going back and re-reading or just not understanding the text at all)
• Trouble with segmenting, blending, or decoding words
• Figuring out a word and then not remembering it the next time it shows up (even if it’s just a sentence or 2 later)
• Lack of comprehension and motivation for reading
• Lack of fluency (frequent stops and starts)
• Struggling to understand basic phonics, reading, or spelling rules and when to apply them
• Being a “guesser” instead of trying to figure out what the words actually say
• Trouble with rhyming, identifying first/last/middle sounds, and other sound recognition tasks

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, strengthening your child’s cognitive skills is going to be what helps them catch up and excel in reading.

ReadRx: A Reading Program Based in the Science of Reading That Also Strengthens Cognitive Skills

At LearningRx, our ReadRx program aligns perfectly with the research and goals of the Science of Reading. We start with the basics of phonological awareness and processing and systematically build the complexity of sounds, words, and sentences that our students read.

However, what makes LearningRx’s reading program unique is the fact that we also train each of the underlying cognitive skills that your brain uses to read, think, remember, and learn.

By building this foundation FIRST, the higher-level reading skills are able to grow more easily.
Find out more about our unique approach to reading help here, or call our center today to get more information!