science of reading homework ideas

30 Science of Reading Resources

As educators, we are always learning and growing in order to improve reading instruction. It can be challenging to sift through the many resources available, so we have created a list for you. The following includes a list of 30 resources for educators who wish to further their knowledge about the Science of Reading.

5 "must see" resources to get started.

1. EAB Report: Narrowing the 3rd Grade Reading Gap (10 minute read)

A research brief for educators embracing the science of reading from the EAB District Leadership Forum.  This is an accessible read for educators who want to learn more and implement classroom instruction that is aligned to the science of reading.

2. Of ‘Hard Words’ and Straw Men: Let’s Understand What Reading Science is Really About by Louisa Moats (5 minute read)

An article about what the Science of Reading really entails and how important it is to really have an understanding of the components of foundational literacy instruction in order to implement them effectively into the classroom.

3. Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read? (45 minute listen)

Emily Hanford, educational journalist has researched reading instruction across the US. Her findings sparked conversations about The Science of Reading and how we can improve reading proficiency in the US.

4. Videos: Is My Kid Learning to Read? ( Part 1 and Part 2 ; 26 minutes)

How many students are being taught to read in the classroom can be eye-opening for parents.  Watch this two-part video series to learn more about how students may be learning to read and how to best support them as they continue to learn to read.

5. Reading Rockets website

Okay, we kind of cheated with #5, but if you read nothing else on Reading Rockets, be sure to check out their articles on Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Why Phonological Awareness is Important for Reading and Spelling .

Infographics

6. The Ladder of Reading by Nancy Young

7. Scarborough's Reading Rope

“The genesis of the Reading Rope dates back to Scarborough’s lectures for parents on the complexities involved in learning to read. Originally, she spoke of skilled reading as resembling the 'strands' of a rope, using pipe cleaners to illustrate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all the components.”

8. How Our Brains Learn to Read

Our brains are naturally set up to learn to speak, but learning to read does not happen on its own. Scientists have found that we must develop certain parts of our brains and build connections between brain areas that were not connected before. The picture (below) shows four different areas of our brains that we use when we read.

9. Educate by APM Reports

Stories about education, opportunity, and how people learn.  Emily Hanford podcasts are recommended and two favorites are listed below:

At a Loss for Words   (52 minutes; published Aug. 22, 2019)

National Assessment Shows More K-12 Students Struggling to Read (25 minutes; published Nov. 1, 2019)

10. Glean Education: Research to Practice

Dive into current research, hot topics, and success stories with our two podcast series for educators.

Why Phonological Awareness is Important to Reading? (23 minutes; published Jan. 3, 2019)

How to Make Sight Word Instruction and Reading Intervention More Effective ( 50 minutes published Oct. 1, 2020)

11. Science of Reading: The Podcast by Amplify Education

The latest insights from researchers and practitioners in early reading. Each episode takes a conversational approach and explores a timely topic related to the science of reading.

12. Teaching, Reading & Learning: The Podcast by The Reading League

Listen to speakers who have made important contributions to the educational community as they discuss reading and writing, but connect to other “literacies” that impact children’s learning .  

Websites, Blogs & Webinars

13. The Reading League

The Reading League is a non-profit organization focused on the mission to advance awareness, understanding, and use of evidence-based reading instruction.

14. Right to Read Project

A group of teachers, researchers, and activists committed to the pursuit of equity through literacy.

15. Louisa Moats

A website from Literacy Expert, Louisa Moats, includes webinars, blogs, and articles for educators committed to best practices in literacy instruction.

16. The Literacy Nest

Emily Gibbons, certified dyslexia practitioner and creator of The Literacy Nest shares resources for instruction for struggling readers.

17. CORE Learn

The Consortium on Reaching Excellence is Education (CORE) provides many excellent resources and free professional learning opportunities.

18. The Learning Spark

A kindergarten teacher who shares her experience along with many resources in the areas of literacy.

19. Education Week

A website sharing in-depth information and research serving K-12 education.

Articles & Research

20. Developing Early Literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel (2008)

21. Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching Children to Read (2000)

22. Learning to Read: Center for Early Reading ( Part 1 and Part 2 )

23. Teaching Reading Is Rocket Science: What Expert Teachers of Reading Should Know and Be Able to Do, 2020 by Louisa Moats, published by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

Teacher Resources

24. Florida Center for Reading Research: FCRR

25. University of Florida Literacy Institute: UFLI

26. The Simple View of Reading

Professional Books

27. Speech to Print by Louisa Moats (2014)

28. Essentials of Assessing, Preventing, and Overcoming Reading Difficulties by David  Kilpatrick (2015)

29. Phonics from A to Z by Wiley Blevins (2017)

30. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print by Marilyn Adams (1994)

Did we miss a resource? Please leave a comment and let us know!

Erica Suarez

Thank you. This site of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction may be of interest as it has a great deal of information and a picture of developments on the topic of reading instruction.

https://iferi.org

Is Equipped for Reading Success by Kilpatrick one that we should be sure to read?

Equipped for Reading Success has a lot of wonderful information in it and if you are looking to learn more about phonemic proficiency and build a solid foundation, Equipped is definitely a great read!

Podcast ERRR- Australian by Ollie Lovall Nessy resources- screeners, books, supports Any books written by Lyn Stone (Australian) SPELD SA

Thank you so much for sharing! We will definitely check out this resource!

I begin in January as a pre-K teacher at a private school. There is no curriculum and I get to begin from scratch. Where do I begin?

Hi Christine!

Congratulations on your new journey as a PK teacher. 3 and 4 year olds are in the earliest stages of literacy development, which is my opinion, is one of the best states. If you can work with our Early Pre-K or Pre-K Phonmeic Awareness Curriculum, as well as with oral language activities, letter naming and sound identification, you will be setting a solid foundation for your students and preparing them to read and write in Kindergarten. Good luck!

I am in the same situation. Begin with letter of the week, and teach each letter sound. Expose your students to vowels. Have visuals that begin with each letter sound. Teach children CVC and CVCV words.

I am looking for decodable sets for k-2 (hard copies) for my school to purchase.

Have you checked out our Frog and Toucan series on our website? Check them out, and we are happy to answer any additional questions: https://heggerty.org/decodable-books/

Love your resources. We are trying to encourage K-3 teachers to get engaged with the Science of Reading and are providing coursework and supports–Reading Rockets being a major part of that. What we do not have available is an assessment of the teacher’s knowledge that is independent of other requirements. We are willing to pay for the assessment administration but cannot expect this number of teachers to agree to additional hours of practicums and other requirements. Any resource you can point us to would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Stephen,

It sounds like you are doing great work in equipping teachers with the necessary knowledge to teach reading correctly. What kinds of resources are you looking for? LETRS training is widely used to provide teachers with the necessary knowledge in foundational skills. Have you looked into that?

Where can I find research studies that support hands-on learning? Specifically for reading.

Hi Monica! Within the Heggerty website, we have a section dedicated to research, this could be a great resource for finding research to share with your colleagues. You can view that page here: https://heggerty.org/research/

You forgot SPELL-Links to Reading and Writing is excellent!!

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15 Useful Science of Reading Activities for Upper Elementary

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Science of reading activities can be so helpful for students of all ages. Reading is an essential skill to have in order to succeed in school and life. It’s not just about being able to read the words, it’s about understanding what you are reading and connecting those ideas with what you already know.

In this blog post, I will share some amazing science of reading activities that any teacher can use in the classroom. These activities are sure to engage your readers while helping them build important skills along the way! So let’s get started!

15 Science of Reading Activities for Upper Elementary Students

Just a quick note before we dive into these science of reading activities . . . each of these strategies supports at least one of the big 5 essential components of reading (phonemic awareness, phonics, reading fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary). Check out this blog post for more details on those components.

1. Word Squares

Word squares are a great way to help students learn new vocabulary words and increase their word recognition skills. In this activity, students must fill in a square grid with nine letters. They can either use the nine letters provided or come up with their own unique set of nine letters. Once they have created the grid, they must then find and fit words into the grid that meet certain criteria such as starting with specific letter combinations.

This exercise helps students become familiar with prefixes, suffixes, and root words which aids in improving their reading comprehension abilities. This one is a must-do in the world of science of reading strategies!

2. Word Jumbles

Word jumbles are another great way to help students stretch their reading muscles! A favorite among science of reading activities, word jumbles require students to unscramble a series of mixed-up letters to form meaningful words or phrases. Once they have identified the correct answer, they must then use those words in sentences or explain what the word means. This encourages deeper thinking about language and helps build important vocabulary skills.

3. Creative Writing Exercises

Creative writing exercises can help 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders practice their ability to express ideas through written language while also improving their understanding of grammar and sentence structure rules. These science of reading activities involve writing stories, poems, plays or other forms of literature based on given prompts or topics of interest determined by the teacher or student themselves. ( Ready-to-go writing prompts are the perfect starting place for this strategy!)

Through these exercises, students can develop strong narrative skills that will transfer over into other areas of reading comprehension such as summarizing or analyzing texts more effectively.

4. Picture Book Analysis

Picture books provide an excellent resource for teaching literacy skills such as inference, visualization, theme development and more! In this activity, upper elementary readers are asked to analyze a picture book by looking at elements such as characters’ motivations, settings, plot development and other literary devices used by the author throughout the story’s progression.

After discussing their observations in small groups, they then write an essay that summarizes what they learned from their analysis of the picture book and how it relates to real life events or experiences.

5. Storytelling Circle

Storytelling circles provide a great opportunity for students to practice active listening skills while also deepening their understanding of stories’ themes and characters’ motivations through retellings from multiple perspectives!

During this activity, students sit in a circle where one person begins telling a story he/she has previously read aloud from beginning to end without interruptions from others in the group until reaching its conclusion point; at which time another person starts telling his/her version of the same story but adding some personal spin before passing it along again until everyone has had an opportunity to tell part(s) of it! This exercise encourages better engagement with text and a deeper level of comprehension.

6. Reading Board Games

Reading board games are a fun and interactive way to help 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders practice and refine their ELA skills! To play, get out a set of reading task cards and any board game. Use the reading task cards as game play cards. Every time a student gets an answer right, he or she can advance on the game board or take a turn rolling the dice, moving a checkers piece or advancing a token.

Playing these types of games encourages critical thinking by requiring players to recall information from the text as well as make inferences to come up with accurate answers quickly.

7. Main Idea Bingo

Main Idea Bingo is an excellent way to reinforce the concept of summarizing while also improving reading comprehension skills at the same time. To play this game, each student is given a bingo card filled with words (or phrases) related to a particular topic that they must then find within a given text or passage. Whoever identifies the most words in relation to the main idea first wins!

This exercise provides students with an opportunity to pick out key information from longer pieces of writing which will help them become better readers in general.

8. Alternative Book Reports

Book reports don’t have to be boring, but they surely can be beneficial to increasing engagement with a specific book or story! Increase comprehension and understanding of main idea, characters, theme, etc., with a fun, hands-on book report, such as this FREE Book Report Lapbook! This is a favorite of students and teachers alike! Did we mention that it’s free?

9. Vocabulary Map Exercises

Vocabulary map exercises are yet another science of reading activity that helps upper elementary learners learn about and study new vocabulary words! During this activity, students use graphic organizers like webs, double bubble maps, Venn diagrams etc., depending on what type of vocabulary terms they are trying to learn.

This helps students gain deeper insights into how language works so that they can use new vocabulary correctly when communicating orally or through writing later on down the line! Vocabulary maps are great science of reading activities!

10. Word Walls

Word walls have become increasingly popular among teachers looking for creative ways to get their 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders engaged in language acquisition processes! This strategy involves displaying words across multiple surfaces throughout classrooms such as bulletin boards, chalkboards etc., so that students can easily reference them throughout lessons whenever needed. This allows for greater exposure and usage opportunities when it comes time for assessments later on in school year.

11. Summarizing Strategies

These Science of Reading strategies are a great way for older students to learn how to make sense of longer pieces of writing by condensing them into shorter, more concise versions. To do this, they must first identify main ideas and supporting details within a given text before selecting the most important parts of it. Then, students can use these elements to compose their own summaries that can be shared with the class!

Doing this exercise regularly will help students develop better comprehension skills as well as critical thinking abilities.

12. “Find Someone Who”

“Find Someone Who” is an interactive way to practice language skills while also having fun at the same time! This exercise works by giving each student in a class a list of questions related to a particular topic or subject area (i.e., grammar rules, vocabulary terms etc.) that they must then answer by finding someone in the room who knows the answer. Whoever finds all of their answers first wins!

This game is one of my favorite science of reading activities! It encourages active engagement with material while also helping build social skills like communication and cooperation among peers too.

13. Word Study

Word study is an excellent strategy for helping upper elementary students become more independent readers and writers in general! To do so, teachers typically provide targeted instruction on specific word patterns or rules that are designed to make understanding new words easier (i.e., phonics, morphological analysis, roots etc.). Then, through regular practice exercises such as creating sentences using certain vocabulary terms etc., students can put what was learned into action so that it eventually becomes second nature when it comes time for assessments later on down the road!

This Greek and Latin Roots Word Wall is perfect for word study!

14. Read Alouds

Read alouds are an effective activity for improving comprehension development among 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade learners since they allow students to listen and interact with stories being read out loud! During these Science of Reading activities, teachers typically provide contextual clues about characters/settings before reading passages out loud which helps cultivate curiosity around what’s next!

Afterwards, open-ended discussion questions and other reflective tasks encourage active engagement with material which ultimately leads to deeper understanding of content overall. This makes read alouds an excellent tool for developing comprehension for all levels of learners!

15. Text Talk

Text Talk is another favorite among science of reading activities for older students; one that encourages collaboration and higher-level thinking at the same time! This exercise works by dividing students into small groups. Learners are given short pieces of writing (i.e., articles, poems etc.) before being asked various questions about it such as characters, main idea, or theme connections.

Asking these types of questions encourages deep thinking about topics covered within text while also promoting problem-solving skills too!

So there you have it, a list of 15 science of reading activities that are super helpful in the upper elementary grades ! Each one is designed to foster comprehension development as well as critical thinking abilities which are invaluable tools in any student’s academic toolkit.

Whether you’re looking to increase retention rates or just want your kids to enjoy learning more, these science of reading activities should help get the job done!

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Shelly Rees

Hi, I’m Shelly! Thank you for being here. I love helping third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers with fun and engaging activities that require no to little prep! Let me help you by taking some of the stress and work off your plate.

Hi, I'm Shelly

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The research behind how students learn to read is complex — but putting it into practice doesn't have to be. By mastering the key concepts and finding the right tools to supplement your core curriculum, you can implement the Science of Reading with confidence and success.  

To get you started, here are some of our top Science of Reading resources to enhance your structured literacy plans this year.    

Professional Resources for Literacy Instruction

As a teacher, it's always a good idea to brush up on your skills. Professional books are a great way to deepen your understanding of Science of Reading concepts and quickly learn effective  instructional practices and strategies. 

For instance, 7 Mighty Moves is the perfect place to start. In this professional book, Lindsay Kemeney introduces seven simple ways to modify your current literacy instruction to better align with the Science of Reading. 

We'd also highly recommend the fourth edition of the Wiley Blevins classic,  Phonics: From A to Z . With updated information on the Science of Reading, this best seller is packed with fresh ideas for teaching phonics and phonemic awareness. 

Reading Instruction for the Classroom

Research shows that the best way to teach students how to read is through systematic and explicit instruction. While that sounds serious, it still leaves plenty of room to have fun and instill a love of reading.

For instance, the  Laugh a Lot Phonic Series is the perfect way to practice phonics skills — and have fun doing it! These hilarious decodable readers gradually introduce students to new sounds, sight words, and word families — boosting their confidence with each new phonics reader. 

Meanwhile, picture books like  There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed the ABCs  and  LMNO Peas  use eye-catching illustrations and humor to engage children’s imaginations. They're also a great way to focus on other Science of Reading skills — like literacy knowledge and language structure.  

As you adopt new strategies and practices this year — remember that teachers everywhere are relearning how to teach reading just like you. So be kind to yourself, celebrate the small wins, and we'll be here to support your Science of Reading journey every step of the way!

THE SCIENCE OF READING

What is “the science of reading”.

The Science of Reading is the culmination of an extensive body of scientifically-based research that spans more than 50 years. It illuminates how the brain learns to read and the best practices for instruction. The research stems from thousands of studies in multiple disciplines, such as cognitive psychology, communication sciences, developmental psychology, education, linguistics, neuroscience, and school psychology. The findings provide information needed to gain a deeper understanding of how we learn to read, what skills are involved, how they work together, which parts of the brain are responsible for reading development, and why some students experience more difficulty than others. The cumulative research of over five decades supports evidence-based best practices for the systematic and explicit instruction of foundational literacy skills.

Bingo Bang-O, What’s the Lang-O?

It is widely known that education is full of a bunch of confusing lingo, complex jargon, and ever-changing acronyms that make our heads spin! Terms that describe early foundational skills are especially confusing because they have similar sounds and meaning that all fit into the same puzzle. As educators work diligently toward improvements in the teaching of reading, it's helpful to know and use the same language. Before we dive into what the research says, let’s explore some key terms.

The Language of Literacy Glossary:

• Phoneme - smallest unit of sound in speech.
• ‘phon’ = sound ‘eme’ = unit
• Grapheme - a letter or letter string that represents one sound (phoneme).
• ‘graph’ = write ‘eme’ = unit
• The word ‘night’ consists of three sounds (phonemes): /n/ /ī/ /t/ and is written using three graphemes: ‘n’ – ‘igh’ – ‘t’ .
• Phonological awareness - having an awareness of the sound properties of words (can be done with your eyes shut). This is an umbrella term for sound (phonemic) awareness, rhyming, alliteration, and syllables.
• ‘phon’ = sound ‘log’ = word/study ‘ic’ = like/of/relating to ‘al’ = action/process
• Phonological awareness skills include:
• Identifying the individual words in a sentence spoken aloud
• Identifying and generating rhyming words
• Separating and combining words into onset and rime
• Separating and blending words into syllables
• Phonemic awareness - a category of phonological awareness that is being aware of the individual sounds with in words.
• ‘phon’ = sound ‘ne’ = in/on ‘ic’ = like/of/relating to
• Phonemic awareness skills include:
• Hearing the word purple and naming the initial sound - /p/
• Hearing the word cat and segmenting it into these three sounds: /c/ /a/ /t/
• Hearing the word ran , substituting the /p/ sound for the /r/ sound to get pan
• Phonics - systematic instruction that involves teaching children the sound to symbol correspondence to help them read, write, and spell.
• Grapheme-phoneme correspondences - aka 'letter-sound correspondences' are the relationship between letters (graphemes) and the sounds (phonemes) they represent.
• Morphemes - smallest unit of meaning in language. For example, the word ‘dog’ is one morpheme and ‘dogs’ is two morphemes (the ‘s’ indicates there is more than one).
• ‘morph’ = shape/form ‘eme’ = unit
• Morphology - the study of the internal structure of words.
• ‘morph’ = shape/form ‘ology’ = the study of something
• Orthography - the correct spelling of words.
• ‘ortho’ = correct/straight ‘graph’ = writing ‘y’ = full of
• Orthographic mapping - the mental process we use to store words for automatic retrieval; it involves the formation of letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory. It explains how children learn to read words by sight, to spell words from memory, and to acquire vocabulary words from print.
• Decoding - when you translate printed letters or words into sounds to read.
• Encoding - when you translate spoken words or phonemes into sounds to spell.

Phonics work incorporates written letters. Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness only deal with sounds.

* It is important to remember that letters do not ‘make’ sounds, people ‘make’ the sounds while letters are symbols that represent a sound. Avoid saying that letters make sounds.

Other Important Terms:

• Schwa - the most common vowel sound, an unstressed vowel that sounds like /ih/ or /uh/.
• *Blends - aka ‘consonant clusters’ are two or more consonants (graphemes) that each have their own individual sound (phoneme) but are pronounced quickly, so they ‘blend’ together.
• Digraph - two letters (graphemes) that represent one sound (phoneme). There can be vowel digraphs (two vowels) or consonant digraphs (two consonants).
• A split digraph is when a vowel digraph is split by a consonant (a_e, e_e, i_e, o_e and u_e), for example; cake, bike, hope, eve, and cute .
• Trigraph - three letters (graphemes) that represent one sound (phoneme).
• Vowel Team - two or more vowels that form a grapheme to represent one phoneme (sound).
• Diphthong - two vowels that form a grapheme, but the first vowel phoneme glides into the the second vowel phoneme to produce a unique sound.
• R-controlled vowel - a vowel followed by an ‘r’ has their sound altered.
• Blending - fluently merging together segmented phonemes/graphemes in the word in order to create the whole word.
• Segmenting - breaking down words into their individual phonemes/graphemes.
• Manipulating - adding, deleting, or substituting phonemes/graphemes to make new words.
• Syllable - a single, unbroken unit of sound in a spoken (or written) word, having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, and forms the whole or a part of a word.
• Homonyms - two or more words having the same spelling AND/OR pronunciation but different meanings and origins.
• Homonyms can refer to both homophones and homographs.
• Homograph - words that are spelled the same but sound different.
• ‘homo’ = same ‘graph’ = write
• Homophone - words that sound the same but are spelled differently.
• ‘homo’ = same ‘phon’ = sound

* In a sense, all words are blends, blends of sounds. So if students are taught to segment and blend words through word building, word reading, and sound swapping, they are much less likely to drop consonants from words when reading and writing these more complex structures.

It is advised to use caution if/when teaching ‘blends’ because it can amplify the amount of code knowledge children have to learn. It is suggested that explicit ‘blends’ instruction should be used as an intervention for students who are struggling and have fallen behind. It is also important to be very clear that ‘blends’ have individual phonemes so students do not confuse them with a single sound.

What Did the Research Find?

The extensive research examined by the National Reading Panel is supported by the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NELP). NELP confirms that alphabet knowledge, oral language, and phonological awareness provide the foundation for reading success. With a strong foundation, other essential reading skills such as fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary become more accessible for students to acquire.

Phonemic awareness is essential to reading and the National Reading Panel confirmed that:

• Phonemic awareness can be taught. Children learn to hear, think about, and work with the sounds they hear in words.
• Phonemic awareness is required for reading. It enables children to read words rapidly and accurately, freeing up brain space for comprehension.
• Phonemic awareness helps children learn to spell. Students learn to connect sounds to letters in predictable patterns.

The report of the National Reading Panel confirmed the benefits of phonics instruction and clearly found that:

• Students who receive explicit phonics instruction become better readers than students who do not receive phonics instruction, or who receive spotty phonics instruction.
• The most effective phonics instruction is:
• Systematic - it teaches a clearly defined sequence of the major sound-spelling relationships of consonants and vowels.
• Explicit - the teacher provides precise and direct instruction.
• Systematic phonics instruction has the greatest benefits when it begins in kindergarten or first grade.
• Systematic phonics instruction improves reading comprehension, as the ability to read words accurately and quickly is correlated to reading comprehension.
• All students, regardless of their backgrounds, make greater gains in their reading when they receive systematic phonics instruction. Even students who learn phonics quickly and easily gain vocabulary, increase their reading fluency and build critical thinking skills when they receive systematic phonics instruction.

The National Reading Panel identified vocabulary instruction as an essential skill that students need to improve reading performance (NICHHD, 2000).

• Research conducted after the NRP report confirms that expanding the size and depth of a student’s vocabulary is linked to higher levels of reading comprehension (Adolf & Perfetti, 2014; Kamil et al., 2008; Rasinski et al., 2011).

Who Benefits from Explicit and Systematic Instruction?

Overwhelming evidence has shown that explicit and systematic phonics instruction can benefit all learners, not just the struggling ones. Some learners can acquire the necessary decoding skills easily and independently, but they are typically already equipped with experiences, background knowledge, and vocabulary acquisition to help them do so.

What Do the Experts Say?

• “A significant proportion, close to 40% , of children manage to learn to read without explicit and systematic phonics instruction (or with phonics instruction of variable impact) due to a confluence of biological and environmental advantages. The remaining 60% of children taught in this way are highly vulnerable to falling behind as readers. And the proportion of vulnerability increases with the level of disadvantage. ”
• https://theconversation.com/why-every-child-needs-explicit-phonics-instruction-to-learn-to-read-125065
• “Systematic, explicit phonics instruction helps children to make the neurological connections between the areas of the brain that are devoted to visual (writing), phonological (sound), and semantic (meaning) processing. Some children form these neurological connections quickly, while others require more intensive instruction and repeated exposures. A very small number of fortunate children are able to make the connections on their own, without explicit teaching.
• https://www.teachermagazine.com/au_en/articles/learning-to-read-and-explicit-teaching
• “Explicit instruction is helpful not only when discovery is impossible, but when discovery may be inaccurate, inadequate, incomplete, or inefficient.”
• https://explicitinstruction.org/
• “Although it is possible for kids to read without the help of phonics, the research is overwhelming that they do better in learning to read when they receive such teaching (Adams, 1991; Bond & Dykstra, 1965; Chall, 1968; NELP, 2008; NICHD, 2000). In such cases, teaching usually provides a boost—and according to dozens of experimental studies in this case, this boost improves students’ abilities to read words, to read fluently, to comprehend what they are reading, and so on. And, while phonics may only be helpful rather than essential for most kids, there are a group of kids for whom phonics seems to be absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, we can’t easily identify who can thrive without phonics and who can’t—just like we can’t tell which kids will get the measles or other horrible diseases. Phonics is essential to some, useful to most, and does no harm to anyone, and that’s why it is so valuable.”
• https://shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/the-great-american-phonics-instruction-test-part-i

What's the Take Away?

While the SOR research confirms that systematic and explicit phonics instruction is beneficial for all learners, that is only one component of becoming a proficient reader. Often the term ‘SOR’ gets roped in with being solely focused and consumed on teaching phonics, but that is far from what the research states. A deeper dive into the research will illuminate the multi-faceted components that work together to develop reading skills. The literature and interpretation of its findings do have a strong emphasis on the importance of teaching phonics, because without building that solid foundation first, other reading skills of fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary are much harder to acquire.

Vocabulary development is another essential factor in reading success. As texts increase in complexity, students need strategies to continue to expand their oral and written vocabulary abilities (Kamil et al., 2008; Loftus-Rattan & Coyne, 2013). The most efficient method to develop vocabulary is to understand that every word in English is composed of both units of sound (phonemes) and units of meaning (morphemes). In robust readers, the brain uses two pathways to derive meaning: the lexical and the phonological routes (Dehaene, 2009.) The lexical zones of the brain (the middle temporal lobe) are where words are understood if the word’s spelling does not reflect its pronunciation and where the brain stores the meaning of prefixes, base words, and suffixes (Dehaene, 2009; Diggory, 1992).

Conclusive research reported explicit vocabulary instruction in the early grades results in children learning more words (Graves & Silverman, 2011, citing Beck & McKeown, 2007). Morphology instruction can begin from a young age and is an effective tool for vocabulary development. When students are presented with explicit instruction in the morphemes of words, they are then able to use this information to deconstruct a word using the lexical encoding, as well as the phonemic encoding, resulting in a deeper comprehension of a text.

Want to know more? Check out these resources:

• https://www.whatisthescienceofreading.org/science-of-reading-guide A wealth of knowledge, resources, and visual aids to help understand Science of Reading research and its importance.
• https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/what-science-reading Shanahan clarifies a common SOR misconception, “The ‘science of reading’ includes more than phonics and phonological awareness.”
• https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/resource-documents/rrq-sor-executive-summary.pdf A balanced and unbiased look at the Science of Reading research that examines it through a broader, more inclusive lens. The executive summary contains 26 articles written by a total of 77 authors who represent diverse, innovative, challenging ideas, and perspectives that reframe the science of reading debate. Together, these pieces bring a supportive and critical perspective to the conversations, and identify next steps for the field.
• https://www.ascd.org/el/articles/the-science-of-reading-research Gain a better understanding of the “science” behind the Science of Reading and the importance of using scientific evidence to inform instruction.
• https://www.readingrockets.org/blogs/shanahan-literacy/what-should-morphology-instruction-look Shanahan responds to an inquiry about morphology instruction and elicits a response from a well-known expert in the field, Peter Bowers.
• https://www.uwo.ca/fhs/lwm/teaching/dld2_2017_18/Zeh_Morphological-Awareness.pdf A wealth of resources that explain in more detail the benefits of morphological instruction and provide many ideas for how to integrate into classroom practices.
• https://education.wm.edu/centers/ttac/resources/articles/teachtechnique/teachingmorphology/index.php Additional information on morphology and ideas/resources for how to incorporate it into the classroom.
• https://blog.stenhouse.com/richard-gentry-on-brain-words A podcast (with transcript) interview with Richard Brantley on his recent book, Brain Words: How the Science of Reading Informs Teaching. In the book, Richard Gentry and Gene Ouellete explain the latest research and theory on lexical representation and its relation to rapid and accurate word reading, a necessary skill to mastering literacy.

Incorporating the Science of Reading in Your Homeschool

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Classroom teachers across the country are teaching Science of Reading. Can it work in a homeschool setting? You bet!

What Is the Science of Reading?

The Science of Reading (SoR) summarizes scientific research on teaching reading rather than prescribing a specific approach.

It concludes that developing specific skills in five areas is the most effective way to teach reading.

To become a proficient reader, a student needs phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, fluency exercises, vocabulary building, and reading comprehension.

For more on the Science of Reading, check out this article .

Teaching Science of Reading in Homeschool

You can incorporate the recommended strategies from the Science of Reading into your homeschool reading lessons. Even if your 10 year old can’t read well, these strategies and ideas will still work well!

Phonemic Awareness

All words are made up of basic sounds called phonemes.

Before a child can learn to read, he needs to hear, separate, and manipulate the sounds in words.

Before formal reading instruction, teach your child phonemic awareness through play.

Here are some ideas:

• Play with rhyming words
• Teach the letter names through play with foam letters, letter magnets, or sandpaper letters
• Use chants, pictures, and activities to teach the letter sounds
• Teach kids to recognize syllables by clapping their way through a word
• Link letters to their beginning sounds in words

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Phonics Instruction

The Science of Reading is clear. Do not teach reading by sight words or through a blended approach.

Teach your child to read with systematic and explicit phonics instruction.

Only teach actual sight words that are not decodable (like of, people , and said ).

To get started, check out these articles on teaching reading:

• How to Teach CVC Words
• Teaching Vowels and Consonants
• How to Teach Vowels
• How to Teach Blending Sounds

If you are looking for a homeschool phonics program, try one of these suggestions that will work with all types of homeschooling methods :

• The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading
• Phonics Pathways
• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Fluency Exercises

Fluency is a skill that progresses in stages, from emergent reader to novice reader to decoding reader and finally fluent reader.

A fluent reader reads a text smoothly and with expression, fully comprehending the content and ideas.

Fluency takes training. Teaching Science of Reading in your homeschool means practicing fluency exercises.

At the emergent stage, this simply means reading aloud to your child. Don’t ever stop doing this! Read aloud for twenty minutes a day.

Your novice reader will need to decode a sentence, listen to you repeat the sentence back to him, and then read/recite the sentence back to you.

A decoding reader (and a reader working toward complete fluency) needs to practice fluency with passages of text.

Step 1: Choose a language-rich selection. This should be a high-quality text (not an easy reader or graphic novels ).

Step 2: Read the passage (or poem) aloud to the child

Step 3: The child reads the passage back to you multiple times, focusing on correct pronunciation, expression, and pacing.

Vocabulary Building

Having a sizeable working vocabulary helps students to become able readers.

You can promote vocabulary building in your homeschool through two tactics.

The first is to read aloud to your child (or have him listen to audiobooks ). Children can understand books far above their reading level.

Read aloud to your child even after they have learned to read; read chapter books, nonfiction books, and classics.

The second tactic is to work vocabulary practice into your homeschool reading lesson .

You can teach target words for the week that are incidental to the child’s reading.

Or you can use a formal vocabulary program.

Learning vocabulary does not have to be dull; check out these ways to make it fun!

Reading Comprehension

If you are teaching Science of Reading with the above strategies, reading comprehension will naturally develop.

The Science of Reading uses this formula: RC = D x LC .

This means that reading comprehension (RC) is the product of decoding (D) and language comprehension (LC).

Decoding skills happen through systematic and explicit phonics instruction.

Language comprehension evolves more slowly.

If you have worked with a novice, struggling, or beginning decoding reader, you are familiar with the following scenario.

You have a sentence before you. The child struggles but successfully decodes the sentence.

You ask, “What was that sentence about?” And they can’t say.

While you may despair, this is quite normal and part of learning to read.

Fluency exercises (where you read the sentence back to the child, and then he reads it to you) and vocabulary building pave the way for language comprehension.

You can further enhance reading comprehension by using guided reading instruction and identifying the main idea of a book or passage.

How to Incorporate the Science of Reading into Homeschool

The conclusions and practical applications of the Science of Reading should not be isolated to the traditional classroom.

As a homeschooling parent, you can provide personalized reading instruction that aligns perfectly with the Science of Reading.

Your child will soon become a fluent reader if you incorporate these activities and exercises that focus on the five areas of reading instruction.

That’s now backed up by science!

You May Also Like:

• 7 Ways to Help with Reading Difficulties at Home When Homeschooling a Child with Dyslexia
• 10 Ways to Build Confident Readers and Help Students Love Reading
• 5 Supports for Teaching Reading

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5 Classroom Reading Games based on the Science of Reading

April 10, 2019

As s teacher, you confront a daily challenge to balance a pre-set curriculum for your little learners and a desire to make learning fun. Your students need to meet a certain set of standards, but you encounter that students easily lose interest if the lesson is not exciting and interactive. At Jett Publishing, we know how difficult it is to cater to the differing interest and skill levels of your students, and we applaud you for your efforts in teaching future generations. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of five classroom reading games and dyslexia activities designed to help get your students excited while focusing on the well-researched competencies of the science of reading, including:

Phonemic awareness

Comprehension.

Each of these activities is designed to strengthen the skills in each respective competency, allowing you to build a fun, interactive environment from which students learn how to read.

Phonemic awareness is all about a child’s ability to recognize sounds within a spoken language. These sounds are known as phonemes - the smallest unit of spoken language - and allow students to understand rhymes, syllables, and letter sounds. Because phonemic awareness involves listening, rhyming, and syllables, there are a variety of games that can be played to help your students engage with the material.

A great listening that is popular in classrooms across the country is “Moo-Moo, where are you?” To play, have your students sit in a circle and choose one student to lie in the middle with their eyes closed. You then choose a child from the circle to go somewhere in the room and make an animal noise. The child lying in the middle must, with their eyes still closed, point to the direction in which the sound came from. Once they are correct, is it then that child’s turn to choose a spot in the room and make an animal noise while another child guesses where it comes from.

This activity helps children with listening skills by preparing them to listen closely to sounds in words. Though basic, listening skills help lay the foundation for more advanced listening skills.

When learning phonics, children are beginning to read written phonemes and graphemes and identify the sound that corresponds to this written language. Phonics is a core skill that children with dyslexia and other learning differences struggle with, making it a great focus when looking to incorporate more enrichment and dyslexia activities in the classroom.

Try out the sound relay race. Either divide your students into teams or allow them to work together, with each time lined up side by side one another. You stand at the beginning of each line and hand students flashcards with letters on them. Students follow down the line reading the letter sound to the person behind them and the last student in line then has to yell out a word that begins with that letter. If they are correct, that student moves to the front of the line and they continue until each student has yelled out a word. Once everyone has a turn, the team must sit down, and the first team to sit down wins!

This game is great for practicing the sounds that letters make and recognizing sounds in everyday words, which is a huge step for children learning to read.

Fluency is the skill related to children learning to recite written language as it is naturally spoken as opposed to the work broken down into graphemes.

A great way to practice fluency is with an activity called “Read the Room.” Rather than reading from a book, ask students to read the room and the signs that are in there. From instructions to motivational signs, students will get the chance to share their increasing fluency with their classmates. You can either select students at random, pick a volunteer, or assign a daily “room reader” that helps read important signs both inside and outside the classroom to others.

Reading to others is one of the most common ways of teaching reading fluency . By having students read both familiar and unfamiliar signs and instructions, they’ll be challenged to read new texts every day.

Building vocabulary is an ongoing process throughout life in which we learn new words , what they mean, and how to use them in sentences. Because learning vocabulary is an ongoing process, it’s important to note that there are a variety of different activities for learning vocabulary, many of which are more appropriate for certain age groups over others.

Great for all ages to practice vocabulary is a game of Pictionary. Students pick a vocabulary word from a hat and have 60 seconds to draw it and while their classmates guess the vocabulary word.

Pictionary is great because it forces children to decode the meaning of a word while others interpret the meaning and assign a word, making for two levels of vocabulary building and understanding.

Reading comprehension is the key to understanding written language and involves the development of analytical skills and retelling. Students develop comprehension skills by learning what questions to ask and answer while reading a text.

A great comprehension game for early reading comprehension involves a game of Beach Ball. Using a Sharpie, write a variety of questions on the ball, including:

• Who is the main character?
• What happened at the beginning?
• What happened at the end?
• What was the conflict in the story?
• What is the setting?
• What was your favorite part?

Students throw the ball around the room and must answer the question that lands closest to their right hand when they catch it. Once correct, they get to throw the ball to the next student.

This game is not only fun and active, but allows students to retell and understand the story. Additionally, it fills in understanding gaps for other children playing the game.

Getting your students involves in reading games and dyslexia activities is key to creating a fun, lively classroom that is ready to read. Give your students the boost they need by choosing the Secret Codes curriculum from Jett Publishing , designed to give your students a boost and prevent reading failure.

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Achieve life-changing results with the Science of Reading—we’ll show you how.

Watching students learn to read is magic. But knowing how they get there? That’s science.

Making the shift to the Science of Reading is commendable, but it is no small feat. Our extensive experience, field-tested resources, and stories of literacy success will help you deliver the true transformation you need in your district—and see the results your students deserve.

The science of teaching reading, coupled with the art of change management

Shifting to the Science of Reading isn’t just an overnight curriculum swap—it’s a profound culture change with multiple stages and stakeholders. We’ve helped educators succeed in that shift for years, and now we’re here to guide you every step of the way. Through each stage of implementation, our Change Management Playbook will help you mobilize your practice, process, and people to make the shift that matters most.

What is the Science of Reading?

Learning to read is not innate, but it can be taught—and science tells us how. The Science of Reading refers to the vast body of growing research that deconstructs how children learn to read, and the instructional practices that can get them there.

Reading fluency requires a complex combination of skills, taught explicitly and systematically. There are two main frameworks that can help us break it all down: The Simple View of Reading and Scarborough’s Rope.

The Simple View of Reading

The Simple View of Reading, formulated by Philip Gough and William Tunmer in 1986, is the theory that proficient reading requires two main components:

• Converting written words into speech, otherwise known as decoding .
• Understanding that speech, otherwise known as reading comprehension .

The Reading Rope

Scarborough’s Reading Rope , developed by Dr. Hollis Scarborough in 2001, helps us visualize the strands of specific skills and instruction that support students in decoding and comprehension.

From research to results: Professional development to support your shift to the Science of Reading

Learn everything you need to know about Science of Reading instruction with Susan Lambert , chief academic officer for Amplify and host of Science of Reading: The Podcast. Dive into  eight transformative modules , unlocking literacy insights and supercharging your teaching journey. Enjoy  20–25 hours of self-paced learning on an easy to navigate online platform, accessible around the clock with 12 months of access !

Enroll for just $65 per seat in our course. This special price is only valid until Sept. 1, 2024! Don’t miss this unique opportunity to steer your professional journey toward success.

Science of Reading: The Podcast

Tune in to hear the latest insights and trends in early reading, right from leading literacy experts and practitioners.

Build your background knowledge of the Science of Reading.

Our Science of Reading principles and primers explain the essentials: what the Science of Reading is, how it works, and why it matters for every student.

Science of Reading guiding principles

Decades of research—and seven key principles—make the case for the Science of Reading. Use these principles to guide your shift to evidence-based literacy instruction, and see real results in student performance.

Science of Reading A Primer: Part 1

In part 1 of our definitive Science of Reading primer, we discuss literacy as a societal goal, walk you through how the brain learns to decode and comprehend text, and present the patterns that top-performing schools and districts follow to achieve early reading success.

Science of Reading A Primer: Part 2

In part 2 of our Science of Reading primer, we establish the importance of prior knowledge for comprehension, lay out the process of micro-comprehension, and demonstrate how literacy skills build on and accelerate themselves.

“The greatest achievement that I have in the Science of Reading I feel is truly having the teachers know that every kid can be a reader. It's knowing that these teachers have the skills in order to teach these kids, and it doesn't matter what level they're at. We have complete confidence that every kid can learn to read.”

—Heather Campbell, Learning Coach Sunset Elementary, Washington County District, Utah

Why undertake this crucial change?

When we bring proven methods based on the Science of Reading into schools, we make sure kids are learning to read and help teachers and caregivers support a culture of reading. Together, we can solve the reading crisis and make literacy a reality everywhere.

You'll change lives with literacy.

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 35% of fourth graders in the United States are proficient in reading. But schools using a Science of Reading approach have seen significant improvements in literacy rates. Using research-based methods, educators can help give all children the chance to become successful readers.

You'll build a foundation with explicit, systematic skills instruction.

Reading skills don’t come naturally. We actually need to rewire our brains with intentional, structured literacy instruction—starting with sounds.

You'll improve outcomes with knowledge building.

Longitudinal research shows that knowledge building doesn’t just happen as a result of reading, but is also a vital prerequisite for and component of it. And when delivered intentionally and systematically, knowledge delivers literacy results.

“It’s not just about the curriculum. It’s about the science behind how people, how children, and how we as humans learn to read… It’s working. I wish I had this years ago. ”

—Javonna Mack, Lead Content Teacher Caddo Parish Schools, Louisiana

Are you ready to transform your district with the Science of Reading?

We’re ready to help. Speak with a representative about a free sample.

We work with you to create customized early literacy suite packages that meet your needs.

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The Science of Reading: First Steps

This blog post is part of a Science of Reading series. This post is written by Lindsay Kemeny .

The term “science of reading” has become a buzzword recently and there is often confusion over what the term means. Sometimes teachers think this refers to a specific curriculum, program, or method, but the term actually refers to a large body of research on reading. It encompasses thousands of studies on reading. Perhaps my favorite explanation of the science of reading comes from Louisa Moats who explains , “First, the body of work referred to as “the science of reading” is not an ideology, a philosophy, a political agenda, a one-size-fits-all approach, a program of instruction, or a specific component of instruction. It is the emerging consensus from many related disciplines, based on literally thousands of studies, supported by hundreds of millions of research dollars, conducted across the world in many languages. These studies have revealed a great deal about how we learn to read, what goes wrong when students don’t learn, and what kind of instruction is most likely to work the best for the most students.”

The Science of Reading: Where it Started

What’s devastating is that this information is not new. In fact, a pivotal report on reading called The National Reading Panel (2000) was published back in the year 2000. Instead of fully embracing the research, many professors, departments of education, publishers, and authors ignored it and continued to promote resources and methods that were not aligned with research. Even though there were many reading experts, cognitive scientists, researchers and more who were expressing the science behind reading acquisition, this information was not filtering down to those who needed it most: teachers.

The Science of Reading: Where it is Now

Perhaps a major contributor to why the science of reading is gaining so much traction recently is APM reports reporter: Emily Hanford. If you haven’t listened to her podcasts on reading, I highly recommend them! Start with Hard to Read , then Hard Words , and then At a Loss for Words . I recommend the podcasts over reading the articles. My journey to learn about the science of reading began about 3 years ago when my 7 year old son was diagnosed with severe dyslexia and depression (you can read more about it here ). As I began to research what dyslexic students need in order to read, it led me to learn what everyone needs in order to read. I was shocked, angered, and disgusted! Why had I never been taught these things? Even worse, I had been taught ineffective methods for teaching reading. I felt guilt over the students I could have helped if I had been taught these things in college! I began to apply the things I was learning with my son and as his reading steadily improved, so did his self-esteem. I witnessed his wounds healing through the power of effective reading instruction. I know that sounds dramatic, but he had literally hit rock bottom and I learned first-hand how the ability to read has such a powerful impact on a child’s life.  Please read about his journey with depression and dyslexia here .

The Science of Reading: 8 Simple Steps You Can Take

It can be overwhelming to overhaul your reading instruction, but you don’t need to do everything at once. Here are some simple steps you can take to begin your journey into the science of reading. 1. Learn Begin to gradually learn all you can about the science of reading. You won’t learn everything at once and that’s okay. It’s a process. I have been steadily studying for 3 years and I am still constantly learning new things! Read books, listen to podcasts, watch webinars, participate in professional development trainings. An easy place to start is with a PD training that I created for my master’s program. I feel strongly that every student deserves a teacher knowledgeable about the science of reading, so I am offering these for free. You can go to this website and if you are on a mobile device, make sure to click the drop down menu in the top left corner to access all the different modules. Please know that this is only meant to be the beginning of your journey…there is so much more to learn! I highly recommend going to this page for a list of some of my favorite, well-respected resources for learning more about the science of reading.

2. Stop using the 3 cueing system You may not be familiar with this term, but the cute and popular “beanie baby” reading strategies are based on the 3-cueing system. This is when you are asking students to figure out a word by looking at the picture, the first letter of the word, skipping the word and then figuring it out by using context, etc. These are guessing strategies not reading strategies. There is no research to support these. In fact, what the research tells us is that these are things that poor readers do, not good readers. So when we teach our students these strategies, we are literally teaching them to read like a struggling reader and we are inhibiting the process that is necessary for them to store these words in their memory. We want our students to keep their eyes on the words, to process each letter, and to decode from left to right. No guessing! 3. Replace predictable texts with decodable texts The only way for a brand new reader to “read” a predictable text is by using the 3 cueing strategies described above. This creates ineffective habits that are hard to break and will ultimately lead to reading failure. What happens when there are no more pictures and the sentence structure and vocabulary are more complex? Some time around 3rd or 4th grade the strategies that held these students afloat will fail them. 

Replace those repetitive, predictable texts with decodable books that are filled with sounds and words they have been taught and are able to decode. These generally include all the F&P levels A-D. Also, remember that decodable books are like training wheels…they are temporary and you want to get rid of them as soon as you can. Once students have a solid foundation in phonics, you can move to regular trade books.

4. Teach phonics explicitly and systematically One of the big differences between balanced literacy and structured literacy (instruction aligned with the science of reading) is the approach to phonics instruction. Balanced literacy tends to sprinkle phonics here and there, mostly addressing certain concepts as they come up in the errors students make within the texts they are reading. But there is a lot of research to support a systematic and explicit phonics approach. We want to be proactive and move through a set scope and sequence that leaves nothing to chance. If you don’t have a solid phonics curriculum, make finding or creating one a top priority. There is no one correct sequence of skills, but in general, look for a sequence that starts with simple concepts and moves to more complex ones. You can find a sample sequence here . Then make sure to plan your phonics lessons to follow an I do, we do, you do format.

5. Encourage phonemic awareness

One of the most common sources of reading difficulties is poor phonemic awareness. Make sure to spend time on this concept in your classroom! You can embed this practice within your phonics lesson, and you can also spend a few minutes before your lesson on these skills. Research supports about 6 minutes a day on phonemic awareness activities.

6. Build vocabulary and background knowledge Continue to surround your students with beautiful texts, conversations, and read-alouds. We never want to neglect the language comprehension side of reading instruction. Reading aloud to students is a wonderful way to expose them to grade level content and vocabulary. We can beef up this instruction by explicitly teaching vocabulary words and being intentional about the concepts and subjects we teach in connection with our books.

7. Create a support network It’s hard to do all these things alone! Reach out to others at your school or district for help and support. Take a quality training together, start a LETRS cohort, or create a science of reading book club. There is also a wonderful online community of educators at various stages of learning.

8. Have grace

It’s easy to become discouraged, defensive, overwhelmed or guilty for the methods you have used in the past. I know because I have been there. But there is an important phrase that is often used in the science of reading community: When we know better, we do better . Try to show compassion for yourself and others! Don’t dwell on past mistakes, but use these feelings to propel yourself forward and do the best you can for your current and future students! They need you.

In Conclusion

I wrote my first blog post on the science of reading over two years ago. I was so frustrated with what I had not been taught and wanted to shout what I was learning from the rooftops! I am so excited that the science of reading movement is FINALLY moving forward. Teaching our students to read is one of the most powerful gifts we can give them! Try not to be overwhelmed as you begin to dive into all the resources available. Just put one foot forward at a time and know that you are changing lives with each step you take!

Thank you so much Lindsay for helping us with an amazing kickoff to our Science of Reading series here on the Little Minds at Work site. Follow along with Lindsay’s future endeavors on her website, The Learning Spark . Be sure to catch all future blog posts in the series by viewing THIS tab. Thanks so much for joining in and see you again soon! – Tara West

11 Comments

Thank you so much for this valuable resource!!! I am reading the Shifting the Balance book, but going to Lindsay’s modules and listening has helped it make even more sense! I am so excited to share this with my fellow teachers and admin( maybe they will listen to me)!

That is so great to hear! I agree the modules were amazing!

I have recently starting my LETRS training course and have been quite surprised that this is the same information I learned about 20 years ago when piloting a new reading program in my district. We were actually given a copy of The National Panel on Reading Report, which I still have to this day. We read the entire thing and were shown how to apply these concepts in our reading instruction. As I read this post, I found many of the same ideas that are being taught in my LETRS course, actually word for word phrases being used. I find it all quite interesting.

So true! We know “circles back” is a common phrase for education. However, it kind of stings that this one didn’t come back around quicker! Have an amazing packet to school!

Lindsay, such great information in this article. I’ve also listened to all the podcasts you linked as well as have gone through your PD modules. I can’t get enough! Thank you for sharing and thank you Tara for spreading the word.

Good one. Thank you for sharing. informative and useful. The first into education for kids is a big task for mothers. If you’re looking for an Online playschool with all the activities and teaching, Check Vivid Oranges for the best playschool online. It provides expert teaching for kids online.

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My district uses F&P as our literacy curriculum, however, this year they have mandated that all staff complete the LETRS training. I’m a first year 3rd grade teacher and all of my students have major gaps when it comes to phonics and fluency. I’m so overwhelmed trying to provide meaningful instruction for my students with a poor curriculum and zero support from admin! SOS!! I also started late in the year (mid-October) and everyone on my team uses different resources for teaching phonics. We have reading interventionists who I have asked for help but their time is “protected” so they can focus mainly on K-2. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I know I am responding to an older post; however, I will go ahead since it may benefit someone else. Since it is now spring, take your little ones outside and practice colors, shapes, numbers, letters, writing, etc. using sidewalk chalk. It never fails to entertain and teach at the same time. Sounds like you’re doing a great job with your (now) 5 year old, just don’t be sucked in to pressuring her to handle more than she is ready to handle.

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I appreciate your article however I found the information on the three cueing systems inaccurate. You The article lists 1. Look at the picture 2. Look at the first letter and 3. Skip the word and use context clues as examples of the three cueing system. Those are examples of “strategic actions.” The three cueing system asks 1. Does it look right? (Children are taught to move left to right using visual information…decoding) 2. Does it sound right? 3. Does it make sense? Children are taught to use all three Meaning, structure, and visual together to process and decode text.

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The science of teaching reading comprehension

We think about reading comprehension as the product of word recognition and language comprehension. Nationally, we’ve done a great job getting the word out on the importance of phonics. This is, arguably, the easiest part of the equation to get right. However, that’s not all that needs to happen in the early years so students are successful readers later on.

Two pathways to teaching reading comprehension

We at NWEA recently spoke with Natalie Wexler, an education writer and author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—And How to Fix It . Natalie reminds us that “We really have to see literacy developing along two pathways that are going to be, to some extent, pretty separate in the early years.”

These pathways are word recognition and language comprehension. While phonics has a mound of intervention research on how to effectively get students to reading fluency, cognitive science tells us that students need to acquire plenty of knowledge to be able to understand the texts they encounter, and that this must start early on. Otherwise, the opportunity gaps between kids with experiences to gain background knowledge and kids without will only grow wider.

In the early years, these pathways to becoming a reader are largely separate. Younger students or older readers with decoding difficulties won’t yet be able to read texts that are building their vocabulary and knowledge. They need to have these rich and complex texts read aloud to them. What does this mean for educators? Both paths need to be effectively taught for the best chance of literacy success in the upper elementary grades and later in life. One doesn’t come before the other—decoding and comprehension both must be valued in the early grades—and both must have adequate instructional time devoted.

What is reading comprehension?

Natalie says, “we have to think of reading comprehension as a process.” Sometimes you may hear teachers asking comprehension questions about a text to students. This is thinking of comprehension as a product, not a process. Assessing students’ comprehension of a text by asking them questions is not the same as teaching students to comprehend.

Comprehension is a metacognitive skill, one that is developed through purposely choosing text sets to build knowledge and leveraging specific reading comprehension strategies to help students acquire this knowledge and apply these metacognitive skills on their own.

So how do we go about building knowledge?

Reading strategies should not be the focus of teaching reading comprehension. Instead, they should be used in service of teaching students new content. The most recent research suggests we use three strategies to help students learn the content of the texts they are reading. Specifically, when combined with instruction in vocabulary and background knowledge, these strategies are most helpful in building student knowledge and understanding. We can teach students to:

• Identify the text structure
• Using the text structure, identify the main idea
• Summarize a text by expanding on the main idea

If students can summarize a text, they now have a situation model to work from. Think of it like helping them build a web of Velcro that all the details in the text can stick to. Teaching students to use these steps will help them build the metacognitive muscles they’ll need to do this type of understanding on their own. By helping students arrive at a coherent understanding, teachers position readers to do the deep work of making inferences, generating questions, and making connections.

Imagine, for example, a class of first-grade students learning about animals and their habitats in science. They read an informational text about owls. Their teacher may then plan to use the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen to help students step into the role of the child protagonist who is going owling for the first time. Their teacher may refer to what the students learned about owls’ eyesight and sleeping patterns from the informational text. With these goals in mind, the teacher may use various reading strategies and activities to help students understand what they are reading and gain knowledge about animals and their habitats.

Before reading , the teacher may activate students’ background knowledge from the earlier lesson by asking questions like, “What are the ‘special powers’ we learned about owls yesterday?” and “What are owls’ sleeping patterns like?” Activating these concepts will help students make connections during the narrative story. The teacher may also focus students on a problem–solution sentence stem or a narrative story map to help them better understand the plot. The work could be displayed on an anchor chart in a student-friendly format so the class can take notes together. This could transition to students taking brief notes on a graphic organizer or dry-erase board once they are more independent spellers, typically toward the middle of the year.

During reading , the teacher may ask connecting questions to help solidify knowledge, such as, “When did this happen?” and “Why do you think Pa chose to take them owling so late?” The teacher may also highlight the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary that is related to understanding the content, such as “pine trees,” “meadow,” or “clearing.” The teacher can list these words on index cards so students can refer to them and use them in their writing throughout the unit. As they encounter a plot element, they can record it together on their graphic organizer.

After reading , the class could talk about the plot structure and use the completed graphic organizer or sentence stems to summarize the story. The teacher could also have students add descriptive words about the owl’s habitat to their science journal. This could be extended to a few sentences to explain why it was so difficult to find an owl. Students may also be guided to use a graphic organizer to compare their learning about the owl habitat to the habitat of a field mouse they explored while reading Frederick by Leo Lionni.

Notice that each of the strategies and activities—from recognizing a story’s structure, to summarizing, to eliciting details and answering questions, to comparing and contrasting—are all in service of learning content related to the science unit on animals and their habitats. The focus of reading a new text is not on learning a certain strategy but using the strategies to learn the content.

Natalie notes, “There is evidence that teaching kids comprehension strategies, or at least certain kinds of comprehension strategies, does boost their comprehension. But we’ve been trying to do this in the abstract… What really will work better is teaching a topic and bringing in whatever strategy or skill is appropriate to help kids think deeply about that topic and understand that text for that topic.”

Recommendations for teachers

When teaching reading comprehension, I encourage teachers to avoid choosing texts to focus on a particular comprehension skill or strategy. Choose texts instead based on the content focus. Here are some suggestions for how to align your instructional focus with best practices in reading science:

• Plan to use texts that revolve around a specific science or social studies topic. These can be both narrative and informational texts, as in the narrative example I shared earlier. Using texts around a common topic enables students to build a rich and enduring web of knowledge.
• Teach students to identify the text structure and generate a main idea statement. This enables students to understand and summarize what they are reading more easily. When students understand the main idea of a text, it empowers them to move into higher levels of understanding.
• Explicitly teach and review new vocabulary that relates back to the science or social studies topic. Help students understand how these words relate to one another and the topic at hand. Research in cognitive science suggests using distributed practice enables students to learn more words and, therefore, understand more concepts.

Recommendations for school administrators

If you’re a school administrator, here are some ways to support your teachers in this work of shifting from a strategy focus to a content focus when teaching reading comprehension:

• Provide teachers with high-quality text sets for read-alouds related to your grade-level science and social studies standards. In second grade and up, also provide multiple copies of chapter books around these topics for students to discuss in small groups or as a whole-class book study.
• Provide teachers high-quality professional learning and time to plan. Teachers need to be able to think deeply with one another about the vocabulary to highlight and strategies to use to help students acquire information and learn new concepts. Use practitioner articles to guide PLCs in integrating new practices into your existing curricula.
• Create a culture of collaboration. Give time for art, music, PE, and other shared-subjects teachers to plan lessons around the topic of study. Students are more likely to learn deeply when they are building common knowledge across class periods.

To hear more from Natalie on the importance effectively teaching reading comprehension, watch our interview with her.

For additional ideas and tips on literacy instruction from Teach. Learn. Grow. authors, browse our archive of ELA posts .

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The Science of Reading: Information for Parents

In this blog post, I share handouts, parent letters, and videos about the science of reading that will help families understand how we teach children to read and how they can help at home. These resources and handouts are perfect to share with families at back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, or any time throughout the year!

In classrooms all around the world, we are changing the way we teach our students to read.  Backed with knowledge from the science of reading , we are moving away from balanced literacy toward a structured literacy approach .  This shift is a wonderful thing for our students, but we can’t do it alone. In order for it to be most successful, we need support from families and caregivers.  

Most families want to help their children learn to read at home. Many just need information on how to effectively do so.  To help you out, today I’m sharing handouts, parent letters, and videos about the science of reading that will help families understand how we teach children to read and how they can help at home . These resources and handouts are perfect to share with families at back-to-school nights, parent-teacher conferences, or any time throughout the year!

A Science of Reading Handout for Parents

Most families are happy to help their children at home. Most just need our guidance on what exactly to do. Start by teaching your families a little bit about the science of reading.  Explain what it is and how it has changed the way we teach their children.  Then offer specific examples of things they can do to help their children learn to read at home.

These free Science of Reading Informational Handouts come as part of my free SoR Toolkit. It is the perfect way to teach families about the science of reading.  The handout includes basic information about the science of reading, defines terms we commonly use in reading instruction, and offers specific suggestions for things they can do at home to help children with decoding and language comprehension.  

Sign up below to get your own free copy of this “Science of Reading Cheat Sheet” and the “What Can I Do At Home” handouts!

*87% of the time, school spam filters block emails like mine 😩 Please use a personal address to ensure delivery

A Family Letter about Heart Words

We have long known that word recognition is key to reading success. As primary teachers, we have always spent a lot of time helping students learn their sight words. 

But for far too long, we taught sight words through rote memorization.  We believed that if a student simply saw a word enough times they’d eventually learn it.  We now know we were wrong.  The science of reading tells us that sight words are not stored in our visual memory. Therefore, we need to integrate sight words into our phonics instruction using the Heart Word Method .  

Families are used to seeing word lists and flashcards come home in backpacks.  They are accustomed to drilling these words and helping their children memorize them.  The Heart Word Method is a move away from that.  As teachers, we must help them understand what the Heart Word Method is and why we now know that it is a better way to learn sight words.  

To help families learn about this shift I included an editable family letter about Heart Word Method in the SoR toolkit.  The letter explains why we have moved away from rote memorization and helps them understand this newer, more effective method of instruction.  

Sign up below to get your own free copy of this FREE editable Heart Word Family Letter!

*87% of the time, school spam filters block emails like mine 😩 Please use a personal address so you don’t miss a thing!

Information for Parents about Spelling and Word Study Instruction

For many years, students received a list of spelling words on Monday, had a few practice activities during the week, and then a spelling test on Friday.  As soon as one set of words was assessed, another list took its place. This is what families are accustomed to and probably how they were “taught” to spell when they were young!

Research has shown that this traditional “weekly spelling list/test” is ineffective.  There is a better alternative and it is referred to as “word study”.   Word study is not based on random memorization of words but rather a systematic approach that provides students practice with word recognition, vocabulary, phonics, AND spelling!   

I recognize that this is likely new information for families, so when I created my Weekly Word Study Units for K-3 , I included a family letter with each unit. These letters help families understand the shift from spelling to word study, informs them of the focus of the unit, and offers specific ways to support their children at home.

Videos for Parents about the Science of Reading

These videos are quick and easy ways for families to gain more information about the SoR. You could play them on Back-to-School night and/or encourage families to view them at home.   

Is My Kid Learning How to Read?

This is an interesting, short 2-part video created by a mom who saw a lot of contradictions between the science of reading and the way her daughter was being taught how to read.  She shows what happens when her daughter tries to read a text without the support of pictures, context, or a repetitive sentence pattern.

In Part 2 , she gives her daughter direct phonics instruction and decodable texts. She shows us how the phonics lessons help her daughter learn to read.  It’s pretty amazing to watch! 

Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? 

In this quick, but powerful TedTalk, Heather Hotstetter helps parents understand the difference between balanced literacy and structured literacy.  She clearly explains why structured literacy is a more equitable and sound instructional approach for all students.  

The majority of parents and caregivers really want to support your work and help their children learn to read. Some just don’t know how to do so.  I hope the information and resources I have shared today will make it easy for you to educate your students’ families about the Science of Reading and show them ways they can help support their children’s reading development at home.  

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Reading Comprehension Handout & Activities - Homework Alternative Parent Guide

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Description

Imagine having extra help teaching your students the reading skills they need with a homework alternative that actually challenges them. With this Science of Reading-aligned parent guide and reading comprehension handout you will. Teach families about the value of comprehension and how to practice reading skills at home today!

What’s included in the parent guide?

⭐️ 1-page reading comprehension handout containing 5 activities 

⭐️ Editable introduction letter to families through Google Slides 

⭐️ .pdf introduction letter to families

For the full packet of parent guides with 40+ activities, click here !

This instructional parent guide includes 5 reading comprehension activities that align with all state’s standards and challenge kids to think critically about what is being read. These exercises will support your PreK, Kindergarten, or 1st Grade students with learning the skills and build a love of reading year-round! 

Included reading comprehension activities:

• Making predictions
• Making connections
• Asking questions

This classroom-tested reading comprehension handout is the perfect, convenient homework alternative and will instruct families on what to teach and how. There are clear descriptions of each activity and how to facilitate it to prevent any confusion, making it easy for parents to implement into their reading routine instantly!

The opening letter is an additional, editable piece to include for a fuller introduction to the topic in your own words or explain why family support is so important in the process of learning to read.

Unique features:

✅ Print and use immediately

✅ Guardian-friendly word usage

✅ Adaption ideas to individualize practice

✅ Concise to fit 1 page

✅ Picture examples for each exercise

✅ No additional materials or purchases needed

As teachers, we know these skills are essential for students to learn from and understand what they will read. So many people want to help their kids but don’t have all of the information on how to do that correctly or with current, research-based strategies. This reading comprehension handout is Science of Reading aligned and will give them what they need to know to help their kids!

Ideas for use:

• Parent-conference handout for students struggling with the reading comprehension or listening
• Back to School Night handout so families can begin support with simple activities early in the school year
• Homework alternative that supports a reading routine that builds reading comprehension skills

To learn more, please check out the preview or email me with any questions ([email protected]).

___________________________________

Related Resources:

→ Homework Alternative & Parent Guide for Hands-On Support and Practice (All Subjects)

→ Science of Reading Aligned Parent Guides & Data Tracking Bundle

→ Science of Reading Aligned Centers, Games, & Tools Bundle

Copyright © Marina Gallop

Permission to copy for single classroom use only.

Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this product.

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• BookWidgets Teacher Blog

20+ creative alternative homework ideas for teachers

When giving homework, it must always be based on learning goals your students have to reach, just like in your lessons. But it’s sad to see that lots of teachers are using homework as extra lesson time. Of course, as a teacher, you’re on a clock. But that doesn’t mean your students have to suffer from it and keep working on those boring textbooks and worksheets at home.

Consider goals like attitudes, real-life experiences, and practice, physical exercise, social encounters, creative solutions, and philanthropy as crucial as your lesson goals. These are things students don’t just pick up in your classroom. These are things they pick up in life.

In this blog post, I’ll give you some innovative homework ideas that will engage your students more. These alternatives to traditional homework will thereby also teach your students new things that can’t be taught in the classroom. You will find a variety of homework ideas: online and offline.

I will mention homework alternatives for primary school and high school. Some of these ideas can be changed a little bit, so they are the perfect fit for the right audience.

20 Creative homework ideas

You can divide homework tasks into the following themes or categories:

• Crafts & arts
• Outdoor activities & outings
• Games and activities
• Physical activities
• Digital or computer activities
• Philanthropy & social work

💡 Good to know : all the ready-to-use homework activities are created with BookWidgets . You can easily create activities like these yourself or duplicate an activity below for free, edit it if needed, and share it with your students. You can do so in the examples separately, or you can find all the homework examples in the BookWidgets Blog group folder .

Crafts and arts homework

1. prepare a dish from a recipe book.

2. Make a board game

3. Create a birdhouse

4. Transform a fictional book character into a hand puppet

Outdoor homework activities and outings

5. coupon game.

Students can also go grocery shopping with their parents. Here, they have to read the ingredients of the products and help their parents choose the healthiest products for the best prices, figure out the best deal between the sizes of items, …

6. Visit the zoo

7. Visit the local dumping ground or container park

8. Build a tree house

Games and activities as homework

9. bookwidgets games.

10. Minecraft

11. Play Cards

12. Play Zoo Tycoon or Rollercoaster Tycoon

Physical homework activities

13. rope skipping.

Many rope-skipping songs let your students do different tricks while rope-skipping. This is an excellent opportunity for homework as well. Ask your students to transform a rope skipping song into a song with lesson content. Let them count or spell or even sum up the different states or capitals. To engage their lifestyles even harder, you can additionally give them the assignment to create a TikTok in which they are jumping and singing.

Click here to see how you can get Tiktok more involved in the classroom.

14. Walking quest

If there aren’t any walking quests in the neighborhood, you could ask your students to create a walking quest like this for their fellow students. What a fun day it will be!

15. Obstacle Quiz

In order for students to answer the questions, they have to run and pass a challenging parkour. This is a fun homework exercise, and in the end, it’s a great lesson starter or lesson end.

16. Swimming games

After the activity, they can fill out an Exit Slip:

Digital or computer homework activities

17. create a picture album.

This teaches them to handle the online software, add pictures and write without spelling mistakes. And of course, creating memories is so much fun!

18. Video job application

19. Your life in 10 minutes - video

20. Email pen-pals

Is it still too complicated? Read the messages from your students, before they send them, and provide them with some feedback.

Philanthropy and social homework

21. grow a community garden.

22. Help in a retirement home

23. Help at a homeless shelter

24. Collect litter

Here’s another homework tip: Don’t call homework “homework”. Call it a challenge. Homework has become a negative word for students, and I bet they start rolling their eyes as you even mention the word.

Still looking for more inspiration? Check out the blog on short films and lesson activities that spice up your Google Classroom . Tip: even if you don’t use Google Classroom, there is a lot of inspiration back here.

Above you have read single assignments. But, you also have the option to involve your homework in a project. Find out more here .

So, as I mentioned earlier, there are many fun alternatives to traditional homework. Now it’s up to you to apply this in the classroom as well. In this folder , you will find all the examples you have come across.

Which idea do you or perhaps your students like the most? Let us know on Twitter . Of course, there are many more alternatives. If you have other ideas, you are always welcome to share it with other teachers in our Facebook group .

One more thing: don’t forget to say hi👋 on LikedIn .

Join hundreds of thousands of subscribers, and get the best content on technology in education.

BookWidgets enables teachers to create fun and interactive lessons for tablets, smartphones, and computers.

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• School Education /

Exciting Class 2 Holiday Homework Ideas: Sparking Creativity and Adventure

• Updated on  
• Apr 20, 2024

Class 2 Holiday Homework: While summer vacation is a time for enjoyment and rest, it’s also a fantastic chance for young children to continue learning and keeping their minds occupied. Put an end to tedious spreadsheets! There is a tonne of original vacation homework in this blog post for students in Class 2. To make summer learning exciting for kids, instructors, and parents, we will cover themes like nature exploration, arts and crafts, and even healthy living. To know more, keep reading this blog! 

Table of Contents

• 1.1 1. Daily Reading Practice
• 1.2 2. Spelling Practice
• 1.3 3. Short Stories
• 2.1 5. Practice Problems
• 2.2 6. Number Art 
• 3.1 7. My Five Senses
• 3.2 8. Family Tree
• 3.3 9. All About Me 
• 4.1 10. Nature Scrapbook
• 4.2 11. Board Game Fun 

Here are the 10 Fun Things You Can Do While Staying at Home ! 

Creative Class 2  Holiday Homework Ideas: Reading and Writing

Reading and writing are foundational skills that open doors to a world of imagination and knowledge. Let us look at them now. 

1. Daily Reading Practice

Each day, spend 15 to 20 minutes reading. You can select books from the library, read your favourite school texts, or even choose storybooks that you already own.

2. Spelling Practice

Students can practice writing down in five to ten sentences what they learned from their textbook or class each day.

3. Short Stories

You may ask them to create a five to eight-line short tale about their favourite animal or their ideal career. You could even represent it with a drawing!

Also Read: Benefits of Clay Art for Children  

Class 2 Maths Holiday Homework 

The summer is a great time to practise maths in a fun and engaging way! These fantastic exercises will make you an expert in maths. Let’s look at a few of them. 

5. Practice Problems

Students can work through a few basic addition and subtraction problems from a workbook or your textbook.

6. Number Art 

Utilise vibrant pencils, crayons, or markers to draw an image by combining various forms. Each shape can be given a number, and you can use the image to calculate the basic addition total.

Also Read: 5 Best Social-Emotional Learning Activities  

Science and Social Studies Class 2 Holiday Homework 

The social studies and science homework will help students advance their knowledge. Now let’s examine a few of these activities. 

7. My Five Senses

Students can draw and label the five senses (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin) in this activity, and they can also write a brief sentence describing how each sense aids in a particular task.

8. Family Tree

Students can use drawings or images to create a basic family tree. They can use watercolours or colouring as well.

9. All About Me 

Students are required to write ten sentences about themselves, their interests, and their hobbies for this assignment.

Explore Art Therapy Courses ! 

Creative Activities for Class 2 Students 

In this section, we’ve gathered a list of innovative arts and crafts holiday homework assignments for kids in Class 2. Now let’s examine them. 

10. Nature Scrapbook

During the holidays, you could assign your kids to gather various leaves, flowers, or intriguing rocks. After pressing them in a book, adhere them to a scrapbook page using adhesive. Each item’s name can be written next to it.

11. Board Game Fun 

Among the most original ideas ever is this one! One of the best ways to encourage students to be creative and innovative is to let them design a board game with custom rules. 

Explore interesting ideas for school children here : 

If you assign students various assignments, such as artwork, tests, and the like, they will have more creative holiday homework. 

You can organise your holiday assignments by making a timetable that assigns equal weight to every part of your day. 

Make a study schedule for the two days you have allotted to finish your holiday homework, dividing it up among the many courses you need to cover. This is especially important if you only have two days to finish it. 

To engage children in other school education activities, follow Leverage Edu now!! 

Aayushi Vardhan

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NASA Seeks ‘Hail Mary’ for Its Mars Rocks Return Mission

The agency will seek new ideas for its Mars Sample Return program, expected to be billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.

By Kenneth Chang

Kenneth Chang has reported on almost every NASA mission to Mars during the 21st century.

The cost of a proposed NASA mission to gather rocks on Mars and return them to Earth is spiraling upward and slipping further into the future. So on Monday, space agency officials asked for ideas on simplifying the mission and trimming its price tag.

“The bottom line is that $11 billion is too expensive,” Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during a news conference on Monday. “And not returning samples until 2040 is unacceptably too long.”

The mission, known as Mars Sample Return, is central to the search for signs that life may have existed on the red planet. The idea is to bring samples of rock and soil back to Earth so that scientists can prod and poke at them using their most sophisticated tools.

NASA had hoped that Mars Sample Return would cost $5 billion to $7 billion, and that the rocks would arrive on Earth in 2033.

But last fall, a panel that reviewed the mission concluded that the cost was likely to be much higher, from $8 to $11 billion. NASA officials said on Monday that after they looked over the review, they agreed with that cost estimate, and that, given budget constraints, the current Mars Sample Return mission would not be able to deliver the rocks before 2040.

On Tuesday, NASA plans to issue a “request for information” seeking alternative plans from aerospace companies as well as experts within NASA, with proposals to be due on May 17. Of those, NASA would finance several of the proposals, with studies finishing later this year. Then NASA would have to decide its next step.

“We’re going to need to go off to some very innovative new possibilities for design and certainly leave no stone unturned,” said Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA’s science mission directorate.

At the same time, she said she hoped for “traditional, tried-and-true architectures” that would reduce the risk of delay and failure.

“This is the Hail Mary,” Casey Dreier, the chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a nonprofit organization that supports space exploration, said in an interview. Mr. Dreier said he had thought that NASA would simply announce a delay, which would reduce the amount it was spending on the mission in a given year, while adding to the final price tag.

“That would have been an easier way, from our perspective, to preserve the plan as it existed, to add certainty where there’s uncertainty,” Mr. Dreier said.

The first phase of Mars Sample Return is already underway. NASA’s Perseverance rover , which landed on Mars in 2021, has been drilling and collecting cylindrical samples of rock and soil in the Jezero Crater , which contains an ancient river delta.

The current Mars Sample Return plan, devised by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, involves a complex choreography . First, a new robotic spacecraft would land near the Perseverance rover, which would then hand over about 30 of its rock samples. Those would then be launched into orbit around Mars. Yet another spacecraft, from the European Space Agency, would retrieve those samples, take them back to Earth and drop them off within a small disk-shaped vehicle that would land in a Utah desert.

To undertake a mission that would move more quickly and at a lower cost, one idea might be to leave some of the samples behind on Mars. That would reduce the size and complexity of the spacecraft needed.

If scientists were forced to choose which rocks they want most, “I think that will be some very, very lively and very exciting scientific chatter,” Dr. Fox said.

In February, Mr. Dreier wrote an essay about whether NASA could turn to Elon Musk’s SpaceX for a cheaper robotic Mars Sample Return mission. SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket is being designed with the goal of sending people to Mars .

“The answer is almost certainly ‘no,’” Mr. Dreier wrote then. “At least, not anytime soon.”

But if Mr. Musk and SpaceX are interested, NASA is now willing to listen. Mr. Dreier said that SpaceX would need to solve numerous technical challenges, including how it could produce propellants for the return trip.

“Is this getting to be less, or more expensive and time-consuming and risky than the original J.P.L. concept?” Mr. Dreier said, referring to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s plan.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Dreier said that, as an optimist, perhaps Mr. Nelson was right and that someone would offer a better solution.

But he added that NASA’s announcement on Monday could be a pretext for canceling the mission, or trying to convince Congress that it indeed needed $11 billion.

“It may just be that people don’t want to accept that that’s what it costs,” he said. “I guess that’s one of the things we’ll find out.”

Kenneth Chang , a science reporter at The Times, covers NASA and the solar system, and research closer to Earth. More about Kenneth Chang

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Never miss an eclipse, a meteor shower, a rocket launch or any other 2024 event  that’s out of this world with  our space and astronomy calendar .

Scientists may have discovered a major flaw in their understanding of dark energy, a mysterious cosmic force . That could be good news for the fate of the universe.

A new set of computer simulations, which take into account the effects of stars moving past our solar system, has effectively made it harder to predict Earth’s future and reconstruct its past.

Dante Lauretta, the planetary scientist who led the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve a handful of space dust , discusses his next final frontier.

A nova named T Coronae Borealis lit up the night about 80 years ago. Astronomers say it’s expected to put on another show  in the coming months.

Is Pluto a planet? And what is a planet, anyway? Test your knowledge here .

Reading the Rocks: The Importance of the Margin Carbonate Unit on Mars

After more than two and a half years of driving and exploring, Perseverance is closing in on an eagerly anticipated destination: the margin carbonate unit.

The Mars 2020 scientists have been buzzing with excitement this past week as Perseverance makes its final approach towards a special rock unit that played a pivotal role in selecting Jezero as the landing site for exploration. Located in a narrow band along the inner edge of Jezero’s western crater rim, this layer showcases pronounced signatures of a mineral known as carbonate. On Earth, carbonates typically form in the shallow shoals of freshwater or alkaline lakes. It's hypothesized that this might be the case for the margin carbonate unit on Mars too—over 3 billion years ago, the waters of a lake in Jezero crater might have lapped against its shores, depositing this carbonate layer. An alternative hypothesis is that the carbonates formed through mineral carbonation, where silicate minerals (like olivine) react with CO₂ and are converted to carbonates.

Carbonates are intriguing for several reasons. Firstly, carbonates can offer insights into Mars' bygone atmosphere. These minerals form through a series of chemical reactions that begin when carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere reacts with liquid water. Thus, by studying the presence, abundance, and isotopic composition of these carbonates, our team may be able to infer Mars’ past atmospheric CO₂ levels and glean insights into its climatic history.

Second, carbonate minerals are an excellent medium for preserving traces of ancient life if it existed. When carbonates precipitate early in the rock-forming process, they can capture a snapshot of the environment in which they formed, including any signs of microbial life. On Earth, carbonate minerals have been observed to form directly around microbial cells, encapsulating them and rapidly turning them to fossils. This is particularly valuable because once an organism is encased in carbonate it can be preserved for a very long time. Another example of carbonate fossilization on Earth is stromatolites—layered structures created by microbial colonies growing in mineral-saturated waters. Stromatolites represent some of the earliest records of life on Earth.

Although we don’t yet know exactly how the margin rocks, or the carbonate within them formed, the team is eager to drill into these rocks and unlock their secrets.

Written by Erin Gibbons, Student Collaborator at McGill University

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• Perseverance (Rover)

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