In 2001, Literacy researcher, Dr. Hollis Scarborough created a metaphor to illustrate the complex skills working together necessary for skilled reading to take place. Dr. Scarborough created the Reading Rope using pipe cleaners to illustrate how the different “strands” of reading are interconnected yet independent of one another. The Reading Rope builds on the Simple View of Reading as the rope is divided into two sections comprised of multiple strands. The two sections, word recognition and language comprehension, mirror the Simple View of Reading. According to Dr. Scarborough, (2018), “Weakness in any strand can disrupt reading, and weakness in several strands can disrupt reading more.”

Scarborough's Reading Rope is made up of lower and upper strands. The word-recognition strands (phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of familiar words) work together as the reader becomes increasingly automatic. At the same time, the language-comprehension strands (background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge) work together as the reader becomes increasingly strategic. The multiple strands in the two sections woven tightly together represent skilled reading.

In 2021, Nell Duke and Kelly Cartwright expanded upon the Simple View of Reading. Reading research has advanced and Duke and Cartwright's model addresses those advancements. This model recognizes that word recognition and language comprehension overlap and multiple processes (vocabulary, fluency and morphological awareness) bridge them. This model also accounts for active self regulatory processes such as motivation and executive functioning skills that are not present in the SVR.

For more information see- The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading.

The Four-Part Processing Model for word recognition is a simplified model that illustrates how the brain reads or recognizes words. The model indicates that there are four processes that are active in the reading brain including: phonological, orthographic, meaning, and context processors (Moats & Tolman, 2019). This model, originally proposed by Seidenberg and McClelland in 1989 reminds us that reading instruction must target all of the processors in order for them to work together. The phonological processor is the system that processes the speech sounds of language. The orthographic processor is the system that organizes written language. The meaning processor organizes and stores information about and meanings of words. The context processor accesses and applies contest and background to what is being read.

Tolman's Hourglass figure illustrates the progression of skills that need to be taught within the phonological processor (phonological and phonemic awareness, phonemes) connected to print in the orthographic processor. On the phonological side of the hour glass, children progress from larger to smaller spoken language units. On the orthography side of the hourglass, children progress from smaller to larger units of written language. The neck of the hourglass is where students are matching phonemes to graphemes (sound to print.) This is where the Alphabetical Principle occurs.

The Simple View of Writing (SVW) is a theoretical model developed by Berninger et al in 2002 that describes skilled written expression as the product of foundational writing skills and writing composition skills. Recognizing that writing is a complex tasks, drawing on a large number of language and cognitive skills, this model is often expanded upon by what is known as The Not So Simple View of Writing.