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Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction

Sold a Story Podcast

by Investigative Education Reporter Emily Hanford

The entire podcast series is wonderful! I chose this particular episode for a good overview of reading. Below are highlights, and ALL of these things are addressed in EBLI instruction.

8:07 “Another big take away from decades of scientific research is that while we use our eyes to read, the starting point for reading is sound. What a child must do to become a reader is figure out how the words he hears and knows how to say connect to print on the page. Writing is a code humans invented to represent speech sounds. Kids have to crack the code to become readers.”

17:48 "Once kids can isolate the sounds in a word their next task is to understand how letters represent those sounds. In English we have 44 different speech sounds, or phonemes. Each phoneme is represented by a letter or combinations of letters. Research shows when kids are explicitly taught how letters represent phonemes, they become better readers.”

18:14 “But phonics isn’t enough. Kids can learn to decode words without knowing what the words mean. To comprehend what they are reading, kids need a good vocabulary too. Scientists came up with a model to explain the relationship between a person’s ability to decode text and their ability to comprehend what they are reading. Scientists called it the Simple View of Reading…..

Reading Comprehension = Decoding Skills X Language Comprehension. Language Comprehension is what develops naturally in children when people talk (and read) to them. Decoding is what kids have to be taught.”

45:56 “In fact research shows, phonic instruction helps them become better spellers. This doesn’t mean that phonics is all kids need….kids also need to know a lot of words and what they mean. And that’s why reading to children and surrounding them with good books is (also) really important…”

47:35 “The kids who suffer most... are kids with dyslexia. They have an especially hard time understanding the relationship between sounds and letters.”

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[ List updated 5/27/25]