Structured Literacy - The process of Learning to Read
Shelley McKay /
At Taumata School, we are dedicated to adopting teaching approaches that are evidence-based, effective, and inclusive. Structured Literacy stands out as a comprehensive method that addresses the needs of all students. This approach is characterised by its explicit, systematic, and cumulative instruction, ensuring students build a solid foundation in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing. As educators we are learning how to be experts in Structured Literacy - and our board continue to invest in us to ensure fidelity of practice and pedagogy.
This is the first in a series of informative posts about the Science of Reading. The purpose of this section of our newsletter is to support and grow your knowledge in Structured Literacy, and to support your understanding around ‘why’ the explicit and deliberate use of the Structured Literacy approach is implemented at Taumata School.
WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE PROCESS OF LEARNING TO READ
The Development of the Reading Brain, first words, first steps, and learning to read are milestone moments. Of these milestones, children naturally learn to speak and walk as part of the human experience. But when it comes to reading, “human beings were never born to read” (Wolf, 2018). While some children seem to effortlessly begin reading, the majority of people need to be taught. Reading and writing are recent inventions in the grand scope of humanity. Although spoken language is “hard wired” inside the human brain and the brain is fully adapted for language processing, the written code has not been around long enough for humans to have developed a “reading brain” (Wolf, 2007; Dehaene, 2009). Rather, the neural circuitry that is necessary to read is created primarily through instruction.
The past three decades have produced exciting evidence about what happens in the brain during reading and what needs to take place instructionally in order to wire the brain to be able to read. Through the advancement of MRI technology, researchers have compared the neural systems of fluent readers to the neural systems of struggling readers. These studies reveal what needs to happen to build efficient neural connections for reading. Three primary regions of the brain are associated with reading (Sandak, Mencl, Frost, & Pugh, 2004; Houde, Rossi, Lubin, & Joliot, 2010). The phonological processor, toward the front of the brain on the left side, is the part of the brain that handles spoken language.
Virtually everyone is born with this language area intact; children learn to speak and to understand speech just by being immersed in language. The orthographic processor, toward the back of the brain on the left side, is the part of the brain that deals with visual images.
Most everyone also has the visual part of the brain intact; children easily recognise images, such as objects and faces. But no one is born with the neural system connecting vision and speech, the phonological assembly region of the brain, and this is the system that enables reading. This system must be built through successful instructional experiences (American Psychological Association, 2014; Hruby & Goswami, 2011; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2004; Shaywitz & Shaywitz, 2008).
Clearly, then, one of the first “calls to action” with a beginning reader is to develop the connection between phonology and orthography (print and sound)—the essential alphabetic principle. Brain imaging studies have taken place throughout the United States, and the images are consistent again and again; therefore, what has to take place instructionally is consistent as well. As cognitive neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene states, “It simply is not true that there are hundreds of ways to learn to read….When it comes to reading, all [children] have roughly the same brain that imposes the same constraints and the same learning sequence” (2009).
