Reading

Reading is the ability to decode and make sense of written words and sentences. It involves sounding out and recognizing words, understanding their meaning, and connecting them to get the overall message. 

Children learn to read by first recognizing that words are made up of sounds, called phonemes, which are represented by letters. They blend these sounds to form words and gradually build their vocabulary, including both phonetic (spelling words the way they sound) and sight words (common words children are used to seeing). The better children become at reading words quickly and accurately, the better they understand and make sense of what they read (reading comprehension). 

The science of reading is a field of study that looks at how children learn to read, using decades of research from psychology, education, and neuroscience. Reading is one of the most studied topics. It focuses on understanding the best ways to teach reading by exploring how the brain processes sounds, letters, and words. 

Structured literacy programs are a type of teaching method based on the science of reading research that teach reading skills in a clear and organized way. They start with basic skills like sounds and letters, then move on to more complex skills like reading words and understanding sentences. These programs use step-by-step lessons that are explicit, meaning everything is explained clearly, and systematically, meaning they follow a specific order. This approach helps all children, especially those who struggle with reading, by making sure they understand each part of the reading process before moving on to the next.  

The Ontario Ministry of Education recently changed the language curriculum to reflect a structured literacy approach to teaching reading. These changes were made following the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read inquiry report. You can find out more about the new language curriculum and the Right to Read report by clicking on an icon below:

Phonological/phonemic awareness skills are the building blocks of literacy because they help us learn how letters and sounds are related to each other. It's important to learn these skills before learning how to read. 

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and play with sounds in spoken words such as picking out rhyming words, hearing beginning sounds in words and counting how many syllables a word has (e.g., “water” has 2 syllables: /wa/ /ter/). 

Phonemic awareness is a type of phonological awareness when we hear and use the smallest sounds in words or phonemes. We can blend phonemes (e.g., /c/ /a/ /t/ into “cat”), break apart phonemes (e.g, “dog” into /d/ /o/ /g/) or change phonemes in a word (e.g., switching the /a/ sound in “hat” to /o/ makes the word “hot”). 

We teach these skills by doing fun activities like rhyming games, sound matching, and word play (all activities you can do with your eyes closed because no reading is involved). 

When we see a string of letters we match them to speech sounds that we already know. Then we match the sequence of these sounds (a word) to vocabulary we already know. It’s like having a filing cabinet  in your brain which you can access whenever you need it in much less time than 1 second.

For example, when we see the letters CAT, we link this letter sequence to the speech sounds we already know. Our brain immediately recognizes this order of letters and sounds to mean the furry animal that purrs.

Reading fluency acts like a bridge between word reading (decoding), language comprehension (knowing what individual words mean), and the ultimate goal of reading: reading comprehension (understanding what we read). 

Reading fluency means being able to read quickly and correctly. It’s like playing a song with a musical instrument easily without having to stop and look at each note. When children read fluently, they focus more on understanding what they’re reading rather than trying to figure out how to pronounce each word. To read fluently, a child needs to be able to sound out (decode) words correctly and quickly. Reading fluency does not mean reading fast!

Reading comprehension or being able to understand what you read (understand the meaning of words and sentences) is the ultimate goal of reading. It helps children with their problem solving skills as they think and ask themselves questions about what they’ve read and make connections with what they already know. By using these tools, children can better understand the main ideas and details, which makes reading more enjoyable and meaningful.

Remember: the Simple View of Reading:

To understand what we are reading (reading comprehension), we need to be able to do both things: read or decode single words (word recognition) and understand what each word means (language comprehension).  See the Resources section for tips on how to improve your child's reading comprehension skills.

For more information and resources, please see:

Reading and the Brain: Strategies for Decoding, Fluency, and Comprehension

Florida Center for Reading Research

Reading Rockets: Launching Young Readers