The Science of Reading

In this episode of the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast, we explore the science of reading and what it really means for early childhood professionals and families. Joined by literacy expert Lynn Hall, we unpack the research behind reading development, dispel common misconceptions, and discuss practical ways to support children's literacy long before formal reading instruction begins. Whether you're an educator, early intervention provider, or caregiver, this conversation offers valuable insights into building strong foundations for lifelong reading success.

Resource for a classroom: https://www.misd.net/earlychild/PDF/ClassroomLiteracyChecklist.pdf 

Resource for families: https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/early-literacy-development/articles/home-literacy-environment-checklist

Transcript

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Welcome to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast, where the Early Childhood Center team shares ideas and strategies for professionals and families. Dream big. Start early. Welcome to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast, where we explore practical ideas, current research, and meaningful conversations that support young children, families, and the professionals who walk alongside them every day. I'm Kayla O'Neill, and today we're diving into a topic that's been receiving a lot of attention in education, policy, and professional development. It's the science of reading. You may have heard the term discussed in schools, state initiatives, social media, or professional learning opportunities, but what does it actually mean for early childhood educators, early intervention providers, and families who are supporting children long before formal reading instruction begins? To help us unpack this topic, we're joined by Lynn Hall from the Early Childhood Center. Lynn has spent years helping educators connect research to practice and understand how early literacy experiences support long-term reading success. And so today we're going to do something a little bit differently. We're going to use a simple reflective framework to really guide our conversation. So we're going to do the what, the so what, and now what as we explore this topic topic and why it matters in early childhood. So we'll go ahead and get started. So welcome to the podcast, Lynn. Hi, Kayla. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I always love to come in and talk about literacy. All right. We're so happy to have you here. So we'll go ahead and jump right in. Let's start with the what. The phrase science of reading can kind of feel overwhelming or even controversial depending on what people have heard. So how would you explain it in a way that feels approachable and meaningful for early childhood professionals and families. Sure, and you're right, Kayla. Sometimes people think that the science of reading is a curriculum or a specific program, but the science of reading is really a large body of research that helps us to understand how children learn to read and what kinds of instruction and experiences support that process the best. It actually involves decades of research from neuroscience, psychology, education, language development, and cognitive science. What's really important for our early childhood professionals to know is that this research confirms something many educators already understand intuitively. Children learn through rich language experiences, responsive relationships, meaningful interactions, and intentional teaching. Yeah, that's so true, and I think that it's so common that people think of science as reading as like some sort of curriculum. So I'm glad that you were able to kind of break it down that we're covering all these different things with it. What does the research tell us about how young children learn to read? Well, one of the biggest findings is that reading doesn't develop naturally in the same way spoken language develops. The brain must build connections between sounds, letters, words, language, and meaning. Children need really strong foundations in oral language, vocabulary, phonological awareness, print awareness, and background knowledge. Those foundations begin long before a child reads independently. And that's why the work of our early childhood educators, our intervention providers, and our families is so critically important. The conversations we have, the songs that we sing, the books that we read, and the experiences we provide are helping to build the foundation for future reading success. There is just so much going on with those little babies that we don't even realize that's going to set them up for success someday when it comes to reading. You know, many people hear the science or the phrase science of reading immediately think about phonics. One framework that helps explain that broader picture is Scarborough's reading rope. Could you walk us through what the reading rope is and why it's such a helpful model for understanding how children become readers? Yeah, I'd love to. So if you haven't had an opportunity to do it already, I would encourage folks to take a look at the reading rope. It is a fabulous visual graphic of how all of these different skills work together to develop children into fluent readers. We can go ahead and we'll attach that graphic into the show notes for our listeners. So if they want to check it out. Oh, great idea. So the reading rope was developed by literacy researcher Dr. Hollis Scarborough and has become one of the most widely used frameworks for understanding reading development. If without being able to see it right now if you can imagine a rope made up of all these different strands and at first those strands are separate and they're fragile but over time they become stronger and more tightly woven together as skills develop and this rope visual really helps us understand that reading isn't one skill it's not just phonics It's many interconnected skills working together. And in the Scarborough's Reading Rope, there's two major sections. There's word recognition and language comprehension. And as children strengthen these skills and weave them together, they become increasingly skilled readers. And as we're really talking about those younger early childhood kiddos, zero to five even, a lot of the things that we're going to be talking about are really going to be addressing the language comprehension piece. So let's kind of unpack that first side of the rope. What are the strands that make up word recognition? So word recognition consists of three important strands. The first strand is phonological awareness, which is the ability to hear and manipulate the different parts or sounds in spoken words. Children learn to recognize rhymes, identify beginning sounds, ending sounds, blend sounds together, and eventually they'll be able to segment words into those individual phonemes. The second strand is decoding. This involves understanding the relationship between letters and sounds and using that knowledge to help read words. The third strand is sight recognition of familiar words. Through repeated exposure, children begin recognizing familiar words automatically without needing to sound them out each time. And together, these strands help children recognize words efficiently so they can focus on understanding what they read. And what about that the language comprehension side of the rope? This seems really important for our audience. Yes, absolutely. So this is really the key part for our early childhood providers. So language comprehension includes several interconnected strands, including background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and their literacy knowledge. Children build these skills through conversations, books, play, exploring, having experiences and interactions with caring adults and their peers. So this is the exciting part. Early childhood educators and families have tremendous influence on these strands doing the types of activities I was just talking about long before children are formally reading. I appreciate how that reading rope really gives us a visual way to understand that literacy development is much bigger than just phonics alone. Absolutely. So now we're going to kind of move on to the kind of the so what, why does this matter? So one thing I love about the reading rope is that it validates so much of what early childhood educators already do. So can you help us connect some everyday early childhood practices to the strands of the rope? Sure thing, Kayla. And just like you were saying about how it ties everything together, that's one of the things that I get whenever I talk about the show, the Reading Rope and talk about it in trainings is that people are like, oh, I'm doing so many of these things. I'm doing the science of reading, right? And I didn't even know I was doing it. So this is where many educators realize that they're already supporting the science of reading every day. When they're engaging children in those rich conversations, we're building vocabulary, we're building language structures, we're increasing their verbal reasoning, and we're developing that background knowledge that's so critical. They're doing things like interactive read allows that strengthen multiple strands simultaneously. Songs, rhymes, finger plays, and word games are going to support that phonological awareness. Storytelling and dramatic play strengthen vocabulary, comprehension, and verbal reasoning. Print-rich environments help children build literacy knowledge. The science of reading isn't asking us to abandon any of these practices. In fact, it's helping us understand why they're so important to children's later reading success. I love this so much as someone that works in early intervention, because I think so many times, you know, we talk about these strategies using them with families and, you know, they don't realize what a big impact just doing a finger play has on, on. Exactly. Yeah. It's wonderful for them to see the big picture and not only how it's helping their children right now, but how that's going to help their child later. Yeah. I love that. Could you give us an example of how one simple classroom activity might strengthen several strands of the rope at the same time? Yeah, sure. Let's maybe take, let's just do simple read alouds about animals. That's something that most of us are doing, right? So during that one experience, children might learn some new vocabulary. They're going to build some background knowledge about animals' habitats. They're going to hear some complex sentence structures. They're going to be able to make some predictions about what's going to happen next in the text. They'll be able to answer probably some open questions and really engage in a back and forth reciprocal discussion. And then they can connect that story to their own experiences. That is multiple strands of the reading rote being strengthened all at the same time. It reminds us that literacy learning is integrated, right, rather than isolated. Right. And I think as adults, we often oftentimes want to isolate all the subjects like this is math. This is literacy. This is. But when you look at something like this, where you're just talking about simple read a lot with animals, you can you can hear the different parts of science and math and all these other things that are included as well, especially when it comes to young children, like it's all happening. Exactly. Exactly. Love it. Many educators feel pressure when they hear discussion about the science of reading. So some wonder if they've been doing things wrong. What would you say to professionals who maybe feel overwhelmed or really intimidated by these conversations? Yeah, it can be intimidating. I would say the first thing would be give yourself some grace. You know, our goal isn't to be perfect. Our goal is to reflect and to grow. And as the research continues to evolve, and good educators are going to evolve too. So the more we know, the better that we do. And what I love about the science of reading is that it validates so much of what high quality early childhood programs have always done well and continue to do well. You know, we aren't throwing out play, storytelling, conversations, or relationships. We're actually understanding more deeply how important those practices are and how they attribute to children's later reading success. Yes. So how do we ensure we don't lose the joy of literacy while also using evidence-based practices? That's a really important question, Kayla. So the science of reading doesn't mean worksheets, drills, or removing play from early childhood settings. As we know, children learn best when they're engaged and curious, connected, and having meaningful experiences. Storytelling, songs, dramatic play, movement, read-alouds, and conversations all support literacy development while still preserving the joy of learning. The truth is research and joy can absolutely coexist. This is true. You know, we also know children develop differently and bring diverse strengths and experiences into learning. How can educators use the science of reading principles while still honoring developmentally appropriate practice? Developmentally appropriate practice and the science of reading actually go hand in hand. So the research helps us understand what skills matter. Developmentally appropriate practice helps us understand how young children learn those skills best. So we can be intentional while still honoring play, relationships, exploration, creativity, and children's individual differences. So what I'm really hearing is that the science of reading isn't asking early childhood educators to completely change what they're doing, but really instead it's helping us to understand the science behind why practices like conversations and play and storytelling and read-alouds are that powerful. That's exactly right. The reading rope gives us a framework for understanding that literacy development begins long before a child reads their first word. Every meaningful interaction helps strengthen strands that will support reading success later on. All right. So now we're going to move into the kind of now what portion of our conversation. So for someone listening today, maybe it's a preschool teacher, a home visitor, early intervention provider, parent, what are some really practical things that they can start doing immediately to support literacy development? Well, Kayla, I may start to sound like a broken record on this, but one of the most powerful things adults can do is simply talk with children. And that's not just giving them directions, but engaging in meaningful back and forth conversations. Read aloud every day. Ask children open-ended questions. Expand children's language. Sing songs with them. Play rhyming games. Tell stories and just explore together. These everyday actions have an enormous impact. So what are some simple kind of high impact interactions adults may underestimate? Well, the first one that comes to mind is that shared reading is huge, especially interactive reading. If people aren't familiar with it, one of the most evidence-based shared reading strategies is called dialogic reading. We should probably do a podcast on that someday, but it's really a very scripted way to do the things that I'm going to talk to you about next. So in shared reading, we want to pause and ask children questions. We want to talk about the pictures. We want to make predictions and connect stories to children's lives. So we don't have to think so much about reading every single word on the page, but really experiencing and exploring that story together and by talking about the things on the pages that children are drawn to. Meals, transitions, outdoor play, diapering, and dressing routines are also all opportunities for language and literacy learning. Yeah, you know me. I love the everyday routines and really looking at ways to kind of embed learning. And I do. I think so many times we just go about our day and we're doing things fast and we're trying to get things done. And, you know, there's just these little moments that come up that we have those opportunities that we can take advantage of to really encourage development. You know me, that's something I'm passionate about. How can educators partner with families in ways that feel encouraging and empowering? Well, I think very similar to what you were just saying, Kayla, about those daily routines and activities is the key is going to be to help families understand that literacy development happens during everyday life. When I think about shared book reading, which is a great strategy, but that's just one way we can do all of those things we were just talking about during our daily routines, right? Families don't need expensive materials or formal lessons. They need to make time to talk together, to read together, to sing those songs, tell family stories, and again, exploring the world together. And I think in this day and age of so much technology at our fingertips that those experiences can really take a backseat, right? But they're powerful. So it's important to affirm families and recognize the strengths that they already bring into those daily routines and activities. And while technology isn't going anywhere, we need to remember to have those strong adult-child interactions. so if a program wants to strengthen literacy practices through a science of reading lens where should they start yeah so I would always start with kind of examining what's going on in our program already so let's reflect ask ourselves do we have language rich environments are the children engaged in meaningful conversations are we intentionally building vocabulary? Are we doing activities that support phonological awareness? And are we helping children build knowledge about their world? These small but intentional improvements over time can make a tremendous difference. We have another resource that we can share here too, Kayla, about it's kind of a checklist, a language-rich environment checklist that we can share. Yeah, we'll add that. If you guys are listening to this, anything that we're talking about, we will go ahead and add to our show notes. We'll try to add all those as clickable links so that you guys can check those out, the resources that Lynn's mentioning. Gosh, we've had so much great conversation. If there's only one thing that you hope our listeners remember about Scarborough's Reading Rope and the science of reading, what would it be? I know this is a tough question, but go for it. Yes. What I hope people remember is that reading is not a single skill. It's the result of many strands developing together over time. And again, the wonderful news for early childhood professionals and families is that so many of the things you're already doing, the talking, the singing, the reading, the playing, the exploring, the building relationships are exactly the things that are going to strengthen those strands. You know, the work that we do in the early years matters and it matters more than we even realize sometimes. Lynn, thank you so much for sharing your expertise, helping us better understand the science of reading through that lens of Scarborough's reading rope. You know, what stands out to me is, is just that reminder that literacy development begins long before children learn to decode words. It's, it's in every conversation and every song and every story and every meaningful interaction that helps strengthen the strands that support future reading success. To our listeners, thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Early Childhood on the Go. We hope that today's conversation leaves you feeling encouraged and validated and inspired to really continue to support literacy development through everyday interactions that really matter a lot. So until next time, keep meeting children and families where they're at and keep building strong foundations for lifelong learning. Thanks, Kayla. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Early Childhood On-The-Go podcast from the Early Childhood Center team at Indiana University. Learn more at iidc.indiana.edu.