Science of Reading

The science of reading is the discipline that studies the objective investigation and accumulation of reliable evidence about how humans learn to read and how reading should be taught, drawing on cognitive science, developmental psychology, education, educational psychology and special education. Foundational skills such as phonics, decoding and phonemic awareness are treated as important parts of the field, alongside oral reading fluency, vocabulary, morphology and reading comprehension. Researchers note a gap between the discipline's own scientific progress and classroom practice, since determining policy or practice should rest on studies that directly evaluate the effectiveness of a practice rather than on basic research alone, and many teachers lack adequate training in the science of reading itself.