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The Science of Reading: Decoding - What EdLeaders Need to Know

Science of Reading: Decoding


In the first blog post of this series, I spent time introducing the Science of Reading. If you have not read that post or listened to the corresponding episode on the EdLeader podcast, I would like to encourage you to spend a few moments with it as it grounds the series and undergirds the deconstruction of Reading Comprehension that I am attempting. If you are looking for that episode on your favorite podcast player, it is episode 69 on the EdLeader playlist.

Previous blog posts in the Science of Reading series have focused on the strands of fluency, background knowledge, sight word recognition, verbal reasoning, and literacy. With this episode, we continue deconstructing the reading rope.

In this blog post, I am pulling out the strand of decoding. Decoding “is the first skill that must be mastered to achieve reading fluency, build a vocabulary, and master reading comprehension.” (Rosenkrantz, 2021)

The Science of Reading is undergirded by theories of how students learn to read and comprehend text. At the very basic level is the Simple View of Reading Theory which states that there are two elements that combine to result in Reading Comprehension. The Simple View of Reading formula states:

Decoding x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

From this grew Scarborough's Reading Rope as conceived by Dr. Hollis S. Scarborough. Dr. Scarborough believed that the elements of Word Recognition and the elements of Language Comprehension all weave together into the rope of Reading Comprehension. Just like a true rope, the more strands present and the stronger each strand is, the stronger the rope is. It is surmised that if a student is weaker in one strand, the strength of the other strands can still help the student comprehend what she is reading.

The strands of Word Recognition include Decoding, Phonological Awareness, and Sight Word Recognition.

The strands of Language Comprehension include background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge.

In this blog post and corresponding podcast series, my goal is to peel apart the individual strands of reading comprehension and build our shared understanding of what EdLeaders need to know about learning to read.

So metaphorically, we grab Scarborough’s reading rope and separate the strands of Word Recognition and Language Comprehension. Within the Word Recognition strands, we find the strand that most people think of first when considering the act of learning to read, the strand of decoding.

Our good friends at Reading Rockets define decoding this way: “Decoding is the ability to apply your knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words. Understanding these relationships gives children the ability to recognize familiar words quickly and to figure out words they haven't seen before.”

Before I go further with decoding, please let me pause briefly to highlight the work of Reading Rockets. Reading Rockets is “a national public media literacy initiative offering information and resources on how young kids learn to read, why so many struggle, and how caring adults can help.” Through the “power of public television, Reading Rockets show how parents and educators can help children become better readers.” The Reading Rockets website provides links to “hundreds of articles on teaching reading, classroom strategies, in-classroom video, parent tips in multiple languages, video interviews with top children’s book authors, a daily news service, and more.” There is also a free, online course for Pre-K through third-grade teachers called, “Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing.” I have provided a link to the Reading Rockets website below.

Okay, with that public service announcement behind us, let’s return to decoding.

I mentioned that decoding is what most people think of when they think about teaching someone to read. Perhaps one of the greatest indicators of that statement is that none other than US News and World Report released an article in November 2021, titled, “What is ‘Decoding’? The article is written by Holly Rosenkrantz, a freelance writer, and editor based in Washington, DC, former White House correspondent, and frequent education author.

In the US News article, Ms. Rosenkrantz writes that “decoding is just a recognition that written language, at its basic level, is a code in which letter symbols represent sounds.”

In pulling out these reading strands of Scarborough’s Reading Rope, I like teasing out the meanings of the educational terms we use and boiling them down to the ‘basic level’. Reading is simply breaking a code and decoding is just that, figuring out the code and then using that code to ascertain the meaning of the words an author has strung together for our enjoyment or enlightenment.

Readers as code-breakers… I like that! Let’s keep digging deeper.

R. Kali Woodward, founder and executive director of the American Youth Literacy Foundation believes that decoding goes back to the origins of written language when spoken sounds, known as "phonemes," were codified in the form of letters and groups of letters.

You may recall that I briefly discussed phonemes in the first blog post of this special series. In that post, I shared that the English language is made up of 26 letters and 44 sounds, called phonemes.

Mr. R. Kali Woodward says that "the early inventors of writing and reading were able to isolate the phonemes and give them unique values in written form." He goes on in the article to say, "So when we talk about 'decoding' in the context of school and teaching children how to read, we’re really talking about finding the phonetic pieces in any given word."

Finding the pieces, again readers as code-breakers.

The US News article shares that decoding involves a series of smaller skills, such as taking apart the sounds in words, known as "segmenting," and then blending them together. It also uses knowledge of letter and sound relationships, and the ability to use that knowledge to identify written words and understand what they mean. In the end, it is the process of transforming print into speech by quickly matching letters or a group of letters to their sounds and being able to recognize the patterns that form syllables and words.

Students benefit from and need explicit instruction in this area. Explicit instruction in this area is often referred to as Phonics, an approach to reading instruction that teaches students the principles of letter-sound relationships, how to sound out words, and the various exceptions to the various rules. (i before e, except after c, and in words like weird!)

To break the code, readers need knowledge of the complete phonemic code. Miscese Gagen, a self-described “mother with a passion for teaching children to read proficiently by using effective methods,” described the complete phonemic code for Right Track Reading.

“The complete phonemic code is the specific print=sound relationships written English is based on. The English phonemic code is complex. Letters and sounds do not have one-to-one correspondence. There are 26 letters and 44 sounds. Some letters represent more than one sound. Many sounds are made from a combination of letters. There is an overlap where one sound can be written in several ways. Then to top it off, our language includes spellings from other languages and some irregular words. Although it is complex, English is not completely random chaos. English is mostly phonetic or follows predictable patterns. If all sounds are learned and patterns practiced, most words can be phonetically decoded.”

In a later blog post, I will get further into phonemic code when I pull out the strand of phonological awareness. For now, I’ll turn again to Ms. Gagen who goes on to share that,

“The student needs to acquire knowledge of the complete phonetic code. Knowledge of the basic alphabet is not sufficient. The student needs to know the multiple vowel sounds, consonant digraphs, vowel combinations, r-controlled vowels, and other complexities that comprise the vast majority of printed words. Phonograms are the distinct printed letters or combinations of letters that symbolize specific sounds within written English words. Depending on exactly how they are classified, there are between 70 to 80 phonograms. In addition to the 26 single letters of the alphabet, the student needs to learn consonant digraphs (th, sh, ch, wh, ck, ph, wr…), vowel combinations (ee, oa, oe, ai, ay, oi, oy, ea, ow, ou, ue, au….), r-controlled vowels (ar, or, ore, er, ur, ir, ear, eer, air...) and other combinations (a+l, w+a, c+e, igh, ough…). It is no surprise that vowel combinations and other complexities are frequently the sources of reading and spelling difficulties. Many students lack the necessary knowledge of the complete phonetic code. Instruction often fails to teach these complexities or teaches them in an indirect, incomplete, or haphazard manner. The most effective way to ensure students acquire complete and accurate knowledge of the complex phonemic code is to directly teach all phonograms to the student.

Her worry about the quality of phonics instruction is the very reason that states, like my own home state of North Carolina, began passing legislation requiring evidence-based reading instruction. In fact, noting that universities were slow to move away from Balanced Literacy, North Carolina passed legislation that required that teacher-prep courses include a “substantive understanding of reading as a process involving oral language, phonological and phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.” (NC Statute Session Law 2021-8, signed into law by Governor Roy Cooper on April 9, 2021)

Decoding is a vital step in the reading process. Readers use this skill to sound out words that they may have heard before but may not have seen written out. This ability is the foundation for all other reading skills.

Andrew Lee says that “Phonemic awareness lets kids hear individual sounds in words (known as phonemes). It also allows them to “play” with sounds at the word and syllable level. Decoding also relies on connecting individual sounds to letters. For instance, to read the word sun, kids must know that the letter s makes the /s/ sound. Grasping the connection between a letter (or group of letters) and the sounds they typically make is an important step toward “sounding out” words.”

If I return to that thought of readers as code-breakers, I can see young readers in full-out detective mode “playing with sounds at the word and syllable level” as they try to decode or “break the code” of reading.

Of course, it must be noted that some words just cannot be decoded. Decoding relies on the rules of phonics. Julie Rawe reminds us that, “Most words in the English language follow those rules. But some words don’t. For example if kids try to sound out the word “of”, they might pronounce it “off.” Or they might try to spell it “uv.”” Readers simply “need to memorize these words so they recognize them instantly instead of trying to sound them out.”

Memorizing words that do not follow the rules or that appear frequently is the basis of the Sight Word Recognition strand of the Reading Rope. I pulled out that strand on a past episode of this special series.

As an aside, I have now referenced two additional strands of the Reading Rope while discussing the strand of decoding. That happens frequently when discussing any of the strands. This entanglement of the strands adds to the legitimacy of Scarborough’s approach to understanding reading comprehension as a braided rope.

For EdLeaders, as we consider how we can help readers become better decoders, we should see activities in our classrooms where students are playing with magnetic letters or writing on whiteboards. At the earliest level, this might simply be putting the letters in alphabetical order while singing the alphabet song. Later it might be writing notes, emails, or letters to family and friends as the student attempts to represent each sound they hear as they write. We might also encounter students who are being directed by their teacher to scan the classroom or school environment for familiar words or letter patterns.

Regardless of whether you might sort yourself into the Balanced Literacy camp or regard yourself as a Science of Reading enthusiast, there appears to be universal agreement around the need for systematic and explicit phonics instruction.

For our readers to ‘break the code,’ they have to know the rules. There are no secret decoder rings falling out of a Cracker Jacks box that will allow them to skip over learning how the written word works.

Although there may be no secret decoder rings, we know that our students can become ‘Cracker Jack’ readers and writers when taught by the amazing teachers in our classrooms. It never ceases to amaze me how much our teachers must know, understand, and be able to communicate back to their students. It also never ceases to amaze me how much outstanding EdLeaders need to know about what is happening in every subject, every course, and in every classroom. Thank you for joining me in this ongoing exploration of what we need to know about the Science of Reading.

Word Decoding and Phonics posted at Reading Rockets

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