The Science of Reading

First things first - the Science of Reading is not one program. The term refers to a body of evidence (from different areas of education) that provides evidence about how we learn to read.

Reading is not a skill that is naturally acquired, in the way that learning to speak is. Learning to speak is a biologically primary skill that humans have evolved to learn or ‘pick up’ naturally… Reading is not!

So, if it’s not natural, how does it happen?

Because our brains aren’t hard-wired for reading, we have to manually build those connections. Scientists have found that to become a skilled reader, the brain needs to master two very different skills at the same time.

This is often called the "Simple View of Reading", and it looks like a multiplication equation:

Decoding (Reading the words) x Language Comprehension (Understanding the words) = Reading Comprehension

Think of it like a math problem. If either side of that equation is a zero, the end result is zero. If you can sound out the words perfectly but don't know what they mean, you aren't really reading. On the other hand, if you understand the language perfectly but can't lift the words off the page, you aren't reading either.

The evidence has identified specific sub-skills that are essential to the acquisition of word recognition and language comprehension. They include: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. We also know that oral language is the essential foundation of reading, because to understand what you read, you must first understand what you hear.

At Brisbane Tuition, we don't leave reading to chance. By teaching these skills in a structured, step-by-step way, we ensure that we aren't just crossing our fingers that your child learns to read - we are actually teaching them to.