Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science, 2020 (Louisa C. Moats)

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Best notes and quotes from the book:

"Reading is not simply a desire; it is a fundamental skill necessary for virtually everything we do. And we need to ensure all of us, particularly our children, learn to read and read to learn so they too can do everything."

"The most fundamental responsibility of schools is teaching students to read. Because reading affects all other academic achievement and is associated with social, emotional, economic, and physical health, it has been the most researched aspect of human cognition"

"In today’s literate world, academic success, secure employment, and personal autonomy depend on reading and writing proficiency."

"The development of automatic word recognition depends on intact, proficient phoneme awareness, knowledge of sound-symbol (phoneme-grapheme) correspondences, recognition of print patterns such as recurring letter sequences and syllable spellings, and recognition of meaningful parts of words (morphemes)."

"Language comprehension, the other essential domain that underlies reading comprehension, depends on background knowledge, vocabulary, ability to decipher formal and complex sentence patterns, and recognition of the devices that hold a text together."

"Reading requires sufficient visual acuity to see the print, but the act of translating alphabetic symbols into meaning is only incidentally visual.21 Rather, the recognition of printed words depends first on awareness of the speech sounds (phonemes) that the alphabetic symbols represent and then on the brain’s ability to map sounds to letters and letter combinations (graphemes). As reading develops, the mapping of speech to print includes recognition of letter sequences, including syllable patterns and meaningful units (morphemes). The reading brain gradually builds neural networks that facilitate rapid processing of symbol-sound and sound-symbol connections. Once these networks for mapping speech to print are developed, the brain can recognize and store images of new printed words with little conscious effort."

"Good readers do not skim and sample the text when they scan a line in a book. They process the letters of each word in detail, although they do so very rapidly and unconsciously. Those who comprehend well accomplish letter-wise text scanning with relative ease and fluency. When word identification is fast and accurate, a reader has ample mental energy to think over the meaning of the text."

"Learning to read is not natural or easy for most children. Good readers process the letters of each word in detail, although they do so unconsciously."

"The term dyslexia refers to a reading problem characterized by inaccurate and/or slow development of skills in printed-word reading and spelling. The origins of dyslexia are typically within the phonological system of language processing. Phoneme awareness, rapid automatic naming of symbols, phonic decoding, spelling, written expression, and automatic word reading (reading words seemingly “by sight”) are the core problems in dyslexia."

"A focus on language comprehension can—and should—begin long before children can read text on their own. Reading aloud to children from well-written text serves to develop their vocabularies and knowledge, their familiarity with academic language, and their appreciation for the pleasures of the written word"

"The ability to read nonsense words depends on rapid and accurate association of sounds with symbols. Strong readers do this easily so they can decipher new words and attend to the meaning of the passage. Weak readers usually are slower and make more mistakes in sounding out words. Their comprehension suffers as a consequence. Weak readers improve if they are taught in an organized, systematic manner how to decipher the spelling code and sound words out."

"Good readers process every letter of almost every word when they read. It is weak readers who skip words and try to make sense by relying on pictures or other cues."

"While background knowledge can be gained from reading, those who already know more about a topic make better inferences and retain meanings better."

"Teachers need to connect the teaching of skills with the joy of reading and writing, using read-alouds and motivating activities with a rich, knowledge building curriculum."

"The science of early identification is quite advanced. Several tools are available for determining which students in K–3 are at risk for having difficulty in learning to read."

"What specific skills that should be present at the end of kindergarten are the best predictors of later reading achievement? Essential skills consist of the ability to segment the phonemes in simple words, to name alphabet letters presented randomly, to produce the sounds represented by most consonants and the short vowels, to spell simple words phonetically, and to demonstrate age-appropriate vocabulary development."

"unlock the power and joy of reading for our children.” —Louisa C. Moats

Read more about reading training:
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