The science of reading has made genuine progress in understanding reading and the teaching of reading, but is the science of reading just the science of reading English? Worldwide, a majority of students learn to read and write in non-European, nonalphabetic orthographies such as abjads (e.g., Arabic), abugidas/alphasyllabaries (e.g., Hindi), or…

We face constant choices about how we read. Educators must select classroom materials. College students weigh their textbook options. Parents make decisions for their children. The digital revolution has transformed reading, and with the recent turn to remote learning, onscreen reading may seem like the only viable option. Yet selecting digital is…

Referring to the "vital parts" of speech that do not appear in print, E. B. Huey (1908/1968) described prosody in reading as "the rise and fall of pitch and inflection, the hurrying here and slowing there, what we have called the melody of speech." In this paper, we discuss the role prosody plays in reading, contextualized in…

In this article, we provide a cross-linguistic perspective on the universals and particulars in learning to read across seventeen different orthographies. Starting from the assumption that reading reflects a learned sensitivity to the systematic relationships between the surface forms of words and their meanings, we chose a broad group of…

This article draws on Philip Barnard's model of the interactions between theory and practice, between basic and applied research, to investigate the paradox of reading as an experience both private and public. It uses internal reader experience as a starting point for exploration, evoking the concept of a readerly sense of presence as a selection…

This experimental mixed-methods study explores what happens to student Lexile scores when they use closed captioning. Since the emergence of closed captioning tools in the 1980s, closed captioning has become more mainstream and easier to access today than at any other time in history (Rickelman et al., 1991). Thus, it is through harnessing this…

Eliminating the reading achievement gap is essential for long-term school success. In "Who Says I Can't?," the authors explain how to close the third-grade reading gap for marginalized students. They supply educators with research, strategies, structure, and support necessary to revise current practices so that all children, regardless…

Debates about how to teach reading have continuingly aligned with political agendas in the United States. In this article, we reveal ways in which educational journalism uses metaphor to align the "science of reading" with values and beliefs held by conservative Christian religious groups. Through a critical metaphor analysis of 24…

Reading in English is an essential skill that emergent bilingual students in the United States (U.S.) must master to be successful in school and to fully take advantage of the affordances reading in English offers. The current meta-analysis examined the extent to which reading instruction improved English reading outcomes for preschool to grade 12…

A majority of fourth grade students in the United States aren't reading proficiently (NAEP Reading: Reading Results, 2022). Deeper analysis of these assessment data surfaced a large gap between how our education system is serving students of color and their white counterparts. These gaps represent gaps in opportunity as access to quality…

There is an interconnected issue of lack of student achievement in reading and professional training around reading for teachers. This study sought to understand if self-reflective professional development in the area of the science of reading improves teacher confidence in teaching reading. The participants of the Cycle 1 process consisted of K-2…

Purpose: In the Fall of 2019, Marietta College and Marietta City Schools, in Marietta, Ohio, piloted a program to improve literacy knowledge and pedagogy through completing LETRS training, a two-year literacy professional development based on the science of reading, as peers. Design/methodology/approach: This project was aligned to effective…

The science of reading (SOR) refers to the sum of what we know about how people learn to read based on empirical studies across multiple disciplines. The purpose of this review was to identify research evidence to inform the SOR for multilingual learners (MLs). We reviewed 30 systematic reviews related to reading and reading instruction for MLs…

We provide a meta-analytic review of all group-comparison studies that used reading-level match design, were conducted in highly consistent European orthographies, included children with dyslexia younger than 13 years of age as participants, and included measures of one or more of the potential causes of dyslexia. We identified 21 studies meeting…

The question of how children learn to read and how they can best be taught, has gained a significant amount of interest over the years. Cognitive research confirms there is a science-based approach to reading instruction. It provides answers to the decades-old question about how children learn to read and what is the best approach to teach them.…