The Primacy of Science in Communicating Advances in the Science of Reading

Abstract

A recent article in this journal claims that the simple view of reading represents a long‐outdated account of what underlies the ability to read. Its authors argue that if teachers are to be better informed about what is known about reading then the simple view must be replaced by a more current model, one that captures the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding through the science of reading. In this comment on that article, we discuss the authors’ perspective on the simple view and the three advances in research they claim invalidate it, clarifying misconceptions and critically reviewing presented evidence. We argue that the SVR, centered on the proximal causes of reading capacity under a large grain‐size perspective, has garnered strong empirical support, has achieved an important level of consensus within the field regarding its validity, and has shown utility in helping education professionals understand and maintain focus on the most important cognitive capacities underlying reading success. We also argue that the proposed replacement represents a weaker, unproven model that could lead education professionals astray if applied in practice.

Reading and Math Achievement in Children With Dyslexia, Developmental Language Disorder, or Typical Development: Achievement Gaps Persist From Second Through Fourth Grades

“…As predicted by the simple view of reading (SVR; Hoover & Gough, 1990;Hoover & Tunmer, 2022), both DLD and dyslexia convey risk to the development of reading comprehension skills, which relies on strong word reading abilities (a problem for children with dyslexia) and strong linguistic comprehension skills (a problem for children with DLD). The SVR also suggests that children with weak skills in both domains (i.e., children with combined DLD+dyslexia) will usually experience the greatest impact on reading comprehension.…”

Reading Strategies for Children with Developmental Language Disorder

“…In this sense, the simple view of reading (SVR) [ 8 ] explains the convergence/divergence of oral language and word recognition skills in those learning to read. This was extensively documented in the National Reading Panel report [ 9 ] and recently revised by its authors [ 10 , 11 ]. The SVR argues that reading comprehension is the product of two factors: word recognition and language comprehension.…”

“…The SVR argues that reading comprehension is the product of two factors: word recognition and language comprehension. Nonetheless, in the original proposal of the SVR, the ability to recognize printed words was referred to as decoding but is now better expressed by the broader term of word recognition, which includes both more indirect recognition through grapheme-phoneme correspondence and more direct recognition through orthographic mapping [ 10 ]. Its constructs can be defined as follows [ 10 ]: Reading comprehension is the ability to extract and construct literal and inferred meaning from linguistic discourse represented in print .…”

“…Nonetheless, in the original proposal of the SVR, the ability to recognize printed words was referred to as decoding but is now better expressed by the broader term of word recognition, which includes both more indirect recognition through grapheme-phoneme correspondence and more direct recognition through orthographic mapping [ 10 ]. Its constructs can be defined as follows [ 10 ]: Reading comprehension is the ability to extract and construct literal and inferred meaning from linguistic discourse represented in print . Language comprehension is the ability to extract and construct literal and inferred meaning from linguistic discourse represented in speech .…”

¿Es el vocabulario profundo una habilidad necesaria para la comprensión lectora en los primeros cursos de Educación Primaria?

“…Estos resultados fundamentan una importante relación entre la identificación de palabras, elemento indispensable de la comprensión lectora, y la capacidad para establecer relaciones semánticas. Esto ocurre sobre todo en los primeros cursos de la educación obligatoria (Dehaene, 2019;Hoover y Tunmer, 2021), y se va diluyendo a medida que avanza la etapa: se obtienen resultados más bajos en el segundo curso que en el primero. Sin embargo, el vocabulario profundo demuestra ser clave en estos procesos de identificación, suponiendo un nexo entre los tres niveles de representación de las palabras: ortográfico, fonológico y semántico (Dujardin et al, 2021) que, cuando está suficientemente consolidado, facilita la comprensión de aquello que se está leyendo.…”