The Reading Well Blog 2025

What is Reading? 
By Anne Glass / May 2025

If you are an adult who enjoys reading, you may be surprised how complicated reading for meaning actually is. It requires the simultaneous orchestration of phonics, oral language, and prior knowledge. It’s helpful to break down reading into a simple model:

Reading = Decoding x Language Comprehension

This is  the “Simple View of Reading” (SVR) originally defined by Gough and Tunmer, 1986. Under SVR, reading is the product of decoding words (identifying words accurately) and understanding those words in spoken language. Dr. Hollis Scarborough represented this model in the following ‘Reading Rope’ diagram:

Looking at this diagram, it becomes clear just how complex reading for meaning is. It involves multiple cognitive functions, including decoding, listening comprehension, and verbal reasoning. If there is a weakness in any of these intertwined ropes or skills, the process of reading can break down.

It is crucial to understand that development of skills in the top rope and the bottom rope are mutually dependent. Concurrent development will support fluent, skilled reading for meaning.

From my personal teaching experience, I would add focused attention to this diagram, which is not part of Scarborough’s otherwise thorough model.

Breaking Down Reading Skills

Decoding can be broken down into a set of subskills: phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. 

Phonological awareness is the sensitivity to the sound structure in spoken language. This includes recognition of words, syllables, and the individual sounds (phonemes) in words. 

A child develops early reading skills by listening to the sounds of spoken language, learning the names of letters in the alphabet, and then mapping those sounds (phonemes) onto letters. Research shows us that phonological skills exert a causal influence on learning alphabetic reading skills, which in turn support the development of phonological skills.  In other words, phonological awareness and alphabetic reading skills are mutually reinforcing.

Decoding refers to the process of translating written letters and words into their spoken equivalents. This involves using knowledge of letter-sound relationships (phonemes) and spelling patterns to sound out and recognize words. Decoding is a key skill in early reading development, helping learners to read unfamiliar words by sounding them out based on their phonetic components.

Sight recognition of words refers to the ability to recognize and read words instantly, without needing to decode them by sounding out each individual letter or sound. Put another way, these common words can be recognized instantaneously (on sight) because of their high frequency in written text. Attaining sight word proficiency requires practice.

Sight word recognition skills develop as a student encounters words frequently enough that they become stored in memory, allowing for quick recognition. Recognition of sight words is typically applied to high-frequency words and irregular words that do not follow standard phonetic patterns and cannot easily be decoded using phonics rules.

These are words break decoding rules and should be taught as an automatic recognition task. Also, pointing these words out in connected text is very helpful, so readers can see them in context. 

Children also learn the rules of syntax and grammar through conversation and listening to stories read aloud. Even without the formal knowledge of parts of speech, a child learns that subjects and verbs must agree. Students should learn to understand that there is a difference between I and me and they and them, etc. This is one of the ways oral language supports the development of written language.

Once a child is able to accurately decode words, they can begin to make sense of written text. They probably already have experience making sense of text from listening to grown-ups read aloud. Talking about stories read aloud is a very important part of developing reading comprehension. This practice develops listening comprehension, a crucial component in the Simple View of Reading. Now that they have begun to break the code of written language, they can begin to do it for themselves and make sense of stories..

For most children, the move from oral phonemic activities to mapping spoken language to print happens fairly easily, especially with the support of direct, explicit instruction. Nevertheless, for nearly 20% of children, breaking the reading code does not come easily. For struggling readers, Scarborough’s Reading Rope can be a helpful conceptual tool to identify the area with which a student is struggling. If the area of weakness is decoding, for example, a phonics-based reading curriculum will help to improve accuracy and fluency, thereby preventing reading difficulties later on. 

Starting at a very young age and listening to a variety of texts helps children develop familiarity with new vocabulary, conventional syntax, learn new vocabulary, add to and/or challenge their prior knowledge (also called schema), and identify other perspectives. Listening to stories read aloud does a lot of work to prepare children to read independently!

If you find that your child has unusual difficulty breaking the phonics code to learn to read, you should definitely schedule a meeting with his or her teachers. Your child may be at risk of a lack of effective instruction, a reading disability, or dyslexia.

For more on the topic of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) from Anne, check out her How Cast video below!