{"id":14196,"date":"2025-05-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/?p=14196"},"modified":"2025-04-24T14:03:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:03:19","slug":"how-children-learn-to-read-literacy-methods-phonics-balanced-instruction-may-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/modernsciences.org\/staging\/4414\/how-children-learn-to-read-literacy-methods-phonics-balanced-instruction-may-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"How do children learn to read? This literacy expert says \u2018there are as many ways as there are\u00a0students\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
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\n Not all children learn to read in the same way, but schools tend to adopt a single approach to literacy.\n luckyvector\/iStock via Getty Images Plus<\/a><\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n\n K. Dara Hill<\/a>, University of Michigan-Dearborn<\/a><\/em><\/span>\n\n

Five years after the pandemic forced children into remote instruction, two-thirds of U.S. fourth graders still cannot read at grade level<\/a>. Reading scores lag 2 percentage points below 2022 levels and 4 percentage points below 2019 levels<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This data from the 2024 report of National Assessment of Educational Progress, a state-based ranking sometimes called \u201cAmerica\u2019s report card,\u201d has concerned educators scrambling to boost reading skills<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

Many school districts have adopted an evidence-based literacy curriculum called the \u201cscience of reading<\/a>\u201d that features phonics as a critical component. <\/p>\n\n

Phonics strategies begin by teaching children to recognize letters and make their corresponding sounds. Then they advance to manipulating and blending first-letter sounds to read and write simple, consonant-vowel-consonant words \u2013 such as combining \u201cb\u201d or \u201cc\u201d with \u201c-at\u201d to make \u201cbat\u201d and \u201ccat.\u201d Eventually, students learn to merge more complex word families and to read them in short stories to improve fluency and comprehension. <\/p>\n\n

Proponents of the curriculum celebrate its grounding in brain science<\/a>, and the science of reading has been credited<\/a> with helping Louisiana students outperform their pre-pandemic reading scores<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n\n

In practice, Louisiana used a variety of science of reading approaches beyond phonics. That\u2019s because different students have different learning needs<\/a>, for a variety of reasons. <\/p>\n\n

Yet as a scholar of reading and language<\/a> who has studied literacy in diverse student populations, I see many schools across the U.S. placing a heavy emphasis on the phonics components<\/a> of the science of reading.<\/p>\n\n

If schools want across-the-board gains in reading achievement, using one reading curriculum to teach every child<\/a> isn\u2019t the best way. Teachers need the flexibility and autonomy to use various, developmentally appropriate literacy strategies as needed.<\/p>\n\n

Phonics fails some students<\/h2>\n\n

Phonics programs often require memorizing word families in word lists. This works well for some children: Research shows that \u201cdecoding\u201d strategies such as phonics can support low-achieving readers and learners with dyslexia<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

However, some students may struggle with explicit phonics instruction, particularly the growing population of neurodivergent learners with autism spectrum disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. These students learn and interact differently than their mainstream peers in school and in society<\/a>. And they tend to have different strengths and challenges when it comes to word recognition, reading fluency and comprehension<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

This was the case with my own child. He had been a proficient reader from an early age, but struggles emerged when his school adopted a phonics program to balance out its regular curriculum, a flexible literature-based curriculum<\/a> called Daily 5 that prioritizes reading fluency and comprehension. <\/p>\n\n

I worked with his first grade teacher to mitigate these challenges. But I realized that his real reading proficiency would likely not have been detected if the school had taught almost exclusively phonics-based reading lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another weakness of phonics, in my experience, is that it teaches reading in a way that is disconnected from authentic reading experiences. Phonics often directs children to identify short vowel sounds in word lists, rather than encounter them in colorful stories. Evidence shows that exposing children to fun, interesting literature promotes deep comprehension<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Balanced literacy<\/h2>\n\n

To support different learning styles, educators can teach reading in multiple ways. This is called balanced literacy, and for decades it was a mainstay in teacher preparation and in classrooms<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

Balanced literacy prompts children to learn words encountered in authentic literature during guided, teacher-led read-alouds \u2013 versus learning how to decode words in word lists. Teachers use multiple strategies to promote reading acquisition, such as blending the letter sounds in words to support \u201cdecoding\u201d while reading. <\/p>\n\n

Another balanced literacy strategy that teachers can apply in phonics-based strategies while reading aloud is called \u201crhyming word recognition.\u201d The rhyming word strategy is especially effective with stories whose rhymes contribute to the deeper meaning of the story, such as Marc Brown\u2019s \u201cArthur in a Pickle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

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