What Is the Science of Reading? Explained for Parents

Ruby's homework is a list of words that aren't words (vop, blim, zut), and a note from school says it now follows "the science of reading". So what is it? Not a program the school bought, and not just phonics: it's what research has found about how a child's brain learns to read, from sounds to letters to words to meaning. In five minutes: what it is, what the brain scans of six-year-olds show, why the homework has made-up words, and five small things to do at home, one for each of the five pillars. 0:00 The homework of made-up words 0:46 What the science of reading is (and isn't) 1:14 How a child's brain learns to read 1:50 Sounds, then letters, then words 2:24 Why the homework has made-up words 2:56 The five pillars 3:32 Sponsor: Wobbin 3:45 Five small things at home 4:34 Ruby meets "splat" 4:53 The short version The five things, for the fridge: play with sounds out loud ("What's smile without its first sound?") · when she's stuck on a word, point to the letters and sound it out together · reread the same short book out loud, with you helping · keep reading aloud to her, and stop to explain one new word · when you finish, ask her what happened, in her own words. Sources • The Reading League (2022). Science of Reading: Defining Guide. The definition ("a vast, interdisciplinary body of scientifically-based research about reading") and what the science of reading is not (a program of instruction; a single component such as phonics). https://www.thereadingleague.org/what... • APM Reports, Sold a Story (podcast). https://features.apmreports.org/sold-... • Dehaene, S., & Cohen, L. (2007). Cultural recycling of cortical maps. Neuron, 56(2), 384–398. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17964... • Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Monzalvo, K., & Dehaene, S. (2018). The emergence of the visual word form: Longitudinal evolution of category-specific ventral visual areas during reading acquisition. PLoS Biology, 16(3), e2004103. Ten 6-year-olds, scanned 6 or 7 times before and through their first school year. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29509... • Dehaene, S. (2013). Inside the letterbox: How literacy transforms the human brain. Cerebrum. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... • Armbruster, B. B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (2001; 3rd ed. 2006). Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read. National Institute for Literacy. The five areas, and the home activities in this video. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/sites/defau... • NICHD, National Reading Panel (2000). https://www.nichd.nih.gov/research/su... • Share, D. L. (1999). Phonological recoding and orthographic learning: A direct test of the self-teaching hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72(2), 95–129. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9927525/ • Ehri, L. C. (2014). Orthographic mapping in the acquisition of sight word reading, spelling memory, and vocabulary learning. Scientific Studies of Reading, 18(1), 5–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013... • Goodwin, A. P., & Jiménez, R. T. (eds.). The Science of Reading: Supports, Critiques, and Questions. Reading Research Quarterly, 55(S1), 2020 (https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.360) and 56(S1), 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.416). Made-up words as a check on decoding (as in nonsense-word fluency checks such as DIBELS) is reasoning, not a study: a word nobody has seen can't have been memorized. More on sight words, and why sounding out is how they stick: our video "How to Teach Sight Words at Home (What the Research Says)". This video is brought to you by Wobbin, the reading tutor we make, for ages 3–9: your kid picks the topic, Wobbin writes a story at their level and reads it with them, taking turns. 30 days free: https://wobbin.io/reading-tutor?utm_s... Narrated with an AI voice. Ruby and her mom are illustrated characters, not real people. Made by the team behind Wobbin.