The Reading League Summit 2023 joint statement (Kurto, 2024) highlights a list of practices that the Science of Reading does not support. The Science of Reading is:
- NOT an ideology or philosophy
- NOT a fad, trend, new idea or a pendulum swing
- NOT a political agenda
- NOT a one-size-fits-all approach
- NOT a program of instruction
- NOT a single, specific component of instruction such as phonics
The following is a summary of the suggested directions to support positive literacy outcomes, especially for students for whom English is an additional language:
- Comprehensive instruction (language development, content knowledge, vocabulary, decoding skills, comprehension and writing).
- Explicit teaching of foundation skills (phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, encoding) to develop an understanding of the phonology and orthography of written language, leading to fluent, accurate and automatic decoding of complex texts.
- An understanding that oral language occurs naturally, but mapping oral language to written language requires explicit instruction.
- Literacy and language development are not the same, but both are required for students to comprehend text.
- Students’ home language, family, culture and interests are an asset that should be valued and nurtured as it benefits development in English oral and written language. If possible these students should have access to dual language instruction and foundation language skills should be taught in a manner that is authentic to the language of instruction.
- Neuroscience suggests multilingualism is beneficial to executive functioning.
- Instruction should integrate oral language, literacy, writing and content knowledge using a wide variety of age- and cultural-appropriate materials (both controlled decodable texts and language rich informational texts, narratives and poetry).
- Instruction should be based on a variety of formal and informal assessments.
- Dedicated time for English language development should not be replaced with interventions.
- A commitment should be made to increase the knowledge of educators in the science of reading and current research.
Note: If you are interested in knowing more about the Science of Reading in relation to English learner/emergent bilinguals, the May-June volume of the Reading League Journal is a great resource.
Reference
Kurto, K. (2024). The Reading League Summit 2023 Joint Statement, The Reading League Journal, 5 (2) 5-11.