science of reading
The Science of Reading refers to a vast body of research that reading researchers have conducted to determine how people learn to read. This body of research has provided educators with the information needed to understand how people learn to read, what skills are involved, how these skills work together, and which parts of the brain are responsible for reading development.
Sortegories translates some of the key principles from this research into practice. See how Sortegories aligns with these areas of reading research.
the reading brain
The human brain is designed for oral language—listening and speaking—not for reading. In order to read, a new network must be developed. In fact, research into how the brain does this has become the foundation for the Science of Reading that impacts instructional practices.
"We human beings were never born to read; we invented reading and then had to teach it to every new generation. Each new reader comes to reading with a 'fresh' brain - one that is programmed to speak, see, and think, but not to read."
Four processor model (Seidenberg & Tunmer, 1989) represents how the reading brain connects the areas of the brain involved in learning to read. In representing what is involved in learning to read, it also guides the development of instructional practices to include all dimensions of word learning.
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is the foundational formula for reading.
In its components D x LC = RC, we know what is required to develop skilled reading.
In the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer,1986), reading comprehension (RC) is the product of two components: decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC). Sortegories provides practice in BOTH: D and LC.
Decoding requires a high degree of accuracy and automaticity. Sortegories provides practice in essential dimensions of decoding: phonemic awareness, phonics and word building.
Strong language comprehension—including vocabulary—helps readers decode words. Sortegories provides vocabulary practice with examples, nonexamples, synonyms, antonyms, multiple meanings and more!
Reading comprehension requires reasoning skills and syntactic knowledge. Sortegories provides practice with analogies, cloze sentences, phrase building and sentence building!
For more on the Simple View of Reading click here.
Structured Literacy (SL) translates evidence of how we learn to read and what we know about what works instructionally. SL encompasses both what to teach (elements) and how to do it (instructional practices).