A Common Sense Perspective on Reading
On some distant planet, people are people, but life is strange. Actions that we on Earth complete as individuals often require two people to complete on this far off world.
For example, the process of understanding a written text requires two people: one person to do the technical work of turning sequences of letters into words and reading out loud, one person to do the mental work of comprehending the words and interpreting the message he or she is hearing.
Which person is doing the reading?
For years I posed this question for discussion to adult students in my reading instructional methods courses early in the course, a requirement in both elementary and secondary teaching credential programs in California, as a simple way to help future teachers begin to assemble a coherent professional theory of reading to guide their instructional decisions in classrooms.
Adults who would love to be able to help a child can help once they understand reading not as magic but as complex, patterned behavior—in many ways much more complex than listening.
The goal of my first focused essay will be to outline my view of the widely respected simple view of reading1 (decoding plus comprehension) with its tilt toward early phonics in instruction. Vowels, consonants, syllables, and sight words are essentials worth careful attention. We will begin to explore the underlying role of language in literacy learning with a tilt toward whole language. Unfortunately, these terms often are distorted when they get tangled up in politics rather than instruction.
https://improvingliteracy.org/sites/improvingliteracy1.uoregon.edu/files/briefs/Learing-to-Read-The-Simple-View-of-Reading.pdf