With each new study on the impact of the pandemic on K-12 education, a more complete picture develops as to the state of literacy in the United States. Spoiler alert: it’s terrible! The lowest scores in 30 years, to be precise. Studies have revealed that students in grades K-3 during the pandemic felt the greatest impact and experienced the highest difficulty with online learning. These also happen to be the grades where students learn foundational literacy skills– phonics, decoding, vocabulary, and building a base of general knowledge that students access for reading comprehension. Four years out, there is a cascade effect. Those 2020 K-3 students are now 4th-7th graders facing the potential risk of the worst learning outcomes due to gaps in their core reading education.

‍Enter the Science of Reading 

In response to these dramatically low scores, educators and learning specialists have returned to the drawing board to examine best practices when teaching reading. While the pandemic may have been the final straw that broke the camel’s back, it’s only because reading scores had been dropping long before school closures and online learning. New educational reforms and legislation are now reverting to methods used to teach previous generations of students to read based on scientific evidence from decades of reading research studies. Ironically, to understand how the science of reading informs best practices in literacy instruction, we need to look at reading like a math equation. Reading research has determined that reading comprehension (RC) is achieved by effective decoding (D) of words and language comprehension (LC) through prior knowledge. 

‍In other words, RC = D x LC.

‍How is this achieved?

A convergence of evidence across tens of thousands of studies provides a blueprint for the necessary base components of effective early literacy instruction: phonics and decoding, vocabulary and word recognition, reading out loud, and metacognition. But what do these concepts look like in practice, and how do they impact early literacy?

1. Phonics and decoding: Students recognize the sounds that different letters or letter combinations make, can manipulate these sounds within words, and identify the syllables in words. Lacking these critical skills makes it impossible for students to sound out words, which impacts their ability to sight-read them later.
2. Vocabulary and word recognition: Continuously exposing students to new words to expand their vocabulary is necessary to increase fluency and comprehension as texts become increasingly complex. Even if a student can pronounce words, reading them without context is meaningless. It’s equivalent to correctly reading or speaking a word in another language but having no idea what it means. Learning new words requires exposure and repeated practice with new words. Reading the definitions of new words isn’t enough– effective vocabulary acquisition requires students to be able to pronounce, read, and, later, use words correctly when writing.
3. Reading out loud: This simple practice may be the secret to success in teaching literacy. There are numerous ways in which reading out loud (alone or in a group) makes students better readers. First, it allows students to associate the sounds of words with the sight words they read, which is especially helpful for irregular words with tricky spellings or silent letters. Second, reading aloud in a classroom helps teachers identify problematic words for students, allowing them to intervene with pronunciations or definitions if necessary. Third, this environment lends itself easily to discussion. When reading aloud, teachers can dissect the material deeply, assessing prior knowledge before reading and pausing to assess understanding as the class reads. Both of these strategies are proven to strengthen overall reading comprehension of a text.
4. Metacognition: Another benefit of reading out loud in class is that teachers can model strategies that teach students to think about their comprehension and self-assess the depth of their understanding. By asking students to identify the purpose of the text, make predictions or inferences based on the material, determine the organization and grouping of information, and many other metacognitive strategies, students begin deeply processing the reading beyond the surface level. The deeper cognitive processing leads to successful comprehension, retention, and recall of information.

Parents of intermediate and middle school students may notice reading difficulties in this age group, especially compared to older siblings. That difficulty may result from a gap in foundational reading skills due to the pandemic, and it won’t go away on its own without intervention. Assessing reading ability is critical to ensure that reading comprehension struggles aren’t part of a larger problem. If unrelated to an undiagnosed learning disorder, that assessment will help identify gaps in reading skills, creating the struggle. The good news is that it’s never too late to learn how to read effectively.

LTWN 360 and Readers classes reinforce literacy skills through in-depth book studies and vocabulary building. Read-aloud and class discussions allow students to practice reading aloud with support from their teachers, who can provide context, meaning, and analysis of their text to strengthen comprehension. If your middle or intermediate students struggle with reading, they may be missing core literacy skills needed for academic success. Check out our catalog pages for the 360 and Readers classes for more information on how these classes may help your students fill the gap in their literacy skills.