Learn about the science of reading and how StrongMind uses those principles in their ELA course design.
What is the science of reading?
Science of reading is a not a reading program, it is a scientific approach to teaching reading that draws upon decades of research from various fields such as linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. It shatters traditional paradigms and emphasizes the importance of explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension—the five essential components of reading.
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5 Components of Science of Reading |
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Phonological Awareness |
What it is: The ability to recognize, use, and arrange the individual sounds in spoken language. What it looks like:
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Phonics |
What it is: The ability to connect letters to sounds to decode words. What it looks like:
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Vocabulary |
What it is: Learning words and their meanings. What it looks like:
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Fluency |
What it is: The ability to read with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression. What it looks like:
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Comprehension |
What it is: The ability to understand meaning and ideas of a text What it looks like:
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Why Science of Reading Matters
Early literacy is the key to academic success, and the science of reading provides a roadmap for laying a solid foundation. By equipping teachers with evidence-based strategies, we empower them to instill a love for reading in their students from the very beginning.
What Science of Reading Looks Like in StrongMind Courses
| Science of Reading Component Examples Within StrongMind Curriculum | |
| Component | Examples |
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Phonological Awareness |
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Phonics |
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Vocabulary |
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Fluency |
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Comprehension |
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ELA Focus by Grade Level
StrongMind has implemented science of reading concepts in Kindergarten through third grade. The base of our curriculum is the Common Core ELA standards. Content is crafted to ensure all standards are met. Layered over those standards is a structured approach to integrating science of reading components relevant to each grade level.
Kindergarten: Focuses on identifying and printing both upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet. Recognition of letters leads to letter-sound correspondence, identifying short vowel sounds, and producing rhyming words. The course examines different story elements and provides opportunities to identify and retell details of those elements. Story elements include characters, settings, and details for different types of texts such as storybooks, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folktales, fables, and poems.
Grade 1: Focuses on phonics by immersing students in learning, isolating, segmenting, and pronouncing the sounds of consonants, consonant blends, digraphs, trigraphs, long and short vowels, vowel teams, diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, and inflectional endings primarily in single-syllable words. Students decode words in isolation and in context by pronouncing initial, medial vowel, and final phonemes. While learning sounds, students will read poetry, fables, folktales, fairy tales, stories, and informational texts with concepts such as retelling, topic, key details, characters, setting, events, and theme. Language focuses on nouns, pronouns, verbs, capitalization, end punctuation, and writing complete sentences.
Grade 2: Offers comprehensive units of reading and language instruction. Each lesson begins with a phonics based component covering skills like decoding, blending, spelling patterns, and word endings. Spelling and sight words are integrated into each unit. Foundational language skills instruction provides guided and independent practice opportunities focused on parts of speech, sentence structure, word meanings and relationships. Reading selections include fables and folktales from diverse cultures, short stories, and a variety of poem types. Reading and writing topics demonstrate concepts such as character, setting, story structure, central message, point of view, dialogue, figurative and descriptive language. There is a project-based writing component to enhance language skills taught.
Grade 3: Offers comprehensive units of reading and language instruction. Each lesson begins with a phonics or language based component covering skills like sentence structure, parts of speech, syllabication, decoding, spelling patterns, word endings and relationships. Spelling and sight words are integrated into each unit. Reading selections include fables and folktales from diverse cultures, short stories, and a variety of poem types. Reading and writing topics demonstrate concepts such as character, setting, story structure, central message, point of view, dialogue, theme, figurative and descriptive language. There is a project-based writing component to enhance language skills taught.