Glossary · Teaching and intervention
What is the science of reading?
Definition
The science of reading is the large body of research, from psychology, linguistics, education and neuroscience, on how people learn to read and how reading is best taught.
It isn't a program or a product. It is decades of studies on how children learn to decode, how reading changes the brain, why some students struggle, and which teaching methods work.
A few findings sit at the center. Reading words depends on linking sounds to letters, so systematic phonics and phonemic awareness matter in the early grades. Comprehension depends on language and knowledge, which take years to build. And word reading and comprehension both have to be strong for a student to read well.
The phrase is now used loosely, and products sometimes claim it without much basis. A useful test is whether a practice matches what the research has found, not whether its box says science.
In a lesson
A school drops the habit of telling students to guess words from pictures and adds a daily phonics block with decodable text. Both changes follow from research on how word reading develops.
Why does this matter for the record?
If a school says it follows the science of reading, ask what changed in daily teaching. The answer belongs in your notes more than the label does.
Rate each skill as you teach it
Needs support, Developing, Secure. The rating schedules the review and builds the report.