Science of Reading: Focus on Phonics and Knowledge
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why the science of reading should stay focused on phonics and content knowledge.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize Phonics - Students need decoding instruction, not cueing systems or guessing strategies like 3Qing.
- Knowledge Drives Comprehension - Reading comprehension grows from content knowledge, not from practicing abstract skills in isolation.
- Skills Aren’t Truly Transferable - What look like reading skills are often functions of what students already know about a topic.
- Avoid Priority Creep - Science of reading conversations lose focus when every issue is treated as the top priority.
- Keep the Main Pillars Clear - For instruction and policy, phonics and content knowledge should be the central emphasis.
Transcript
I think the science of reading boils down to two main things, and I think we need to prioritize these two things as the science of reading. Number one, phonics, not 3Qing or guessing. And number two, content knowledge, not skills. See, the problem with teaching skills is that they're not transferable. They're actually functions of knowledge. So when we've approached reading as this collection of kind of abstract skills, and you can just give kids lots of short test prep uh you know passages and exercises to do and then you can develop like general reading comprehension no reading comprehension comes from content knowledge and of course students also have to be able to decode there is lots more to reading of course but i think we should focus on these two things and when we talk about the science of reading we talk about science reading legislation these need to be the pillars that we emphasize
And I think within the science of reading community, especially, there's a tendency to say, my thing is the big thing. Whatever I'm fixated on, my pet issue, which you may be totally right about. It may be a very important thing. But I think everybody wants to make their priority the top priority. And if everything is the priority, nothing is. So I think we've got to narrow the science of reading focus on those two things, phonics and content knowledge.
Let me know what you think.