THE SCIENCE OF READING, LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION
To truly understand a Structured Literacy approach, we also need to understand the science reading , the science of learning and the science of instruction. These three bodies of evidence work together, and understanding the difference between them is one of the most important things we can do as educators, parents, and advocates.
- The Science of Reading tells us what children need to learn.
- The Science of Learning helps us understand how children learn,
- The Science of Instruction helps us understand how teachers can teach that learning effectively.
When these three areas come together, they form the foundation of a Structured Literacy approach.
The Science of Reading – What We Teach
The Science of Reading brings together decades of research about how children learn to read and write. It tells us the knowledge and skills children need to become successful readers and writers. This includes areas such as phonological awareness, phonics, decoding, spelling, fluency, vocabulary, morphology, oral language, comprehension, written expression and the many other components that contribute to literacy across all year levels.
These core components don’t change depending on whether a child is receiving Tier 1 classroom instruction, Tier 2 intervention, or Tier 3 specialist support.
The destination remains the same. Every child deserves access to these essential components of literacy.
The Science of Learning – How Children Learn
Knowing what to teach is only part of the equation. We also need to understand how children actually learn.
The Science of Learning helps us understand how information moves from working memory into long-term memory, how children retain learning, why retrieval practice matters, how automaticity develops, and why practice and review are so important. It also helps us understand why a child is not learning.
It helps us understand concepts such as cognitive load, attention, memory, motivation and consolidation. In other words, it helps us understand what is happening inside the learner’s brain while they are learning. Understanding this changes the way we teach; it helps adjust the learning to the learners needs.
The Science of Instruction – How We Teach
The third piece of the puzzle is the Science of Instruction. This is where teachers make informed decisions about how learning should be delivered. It includes practices such as explicit teaching, modelling, scaffolding, guided practice, independent practice, assessment, feedback, cumulative review and responsive teaching.
This isn’t about following a script!!!!!!!!!!
It is about understanding why one instructional approach is more effective than another, when to slow the pace, when to provide more support, when to revisit previous learning and when a child is ready to move forward. Teaching is a profession built on informed decision-making, not simply delivering lessons from a programme.
Why All Three Matter
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is treating these three bodies of science as though they compete with one another. They don’t. They complement one another.
- The Science of Reading tells us what children need to learn.
- The Science of Learning explains how children acquire that learning.
- The Science of Instruction guides how teachers design and deliver that learning.
You need all three.
- If we only understand the Science of Reading, we know the destination but not necessarily how to help every child get there.
- If we only understand the Science of Learning, we understand how learning happens but not necessarily what literacy knowledge children need.
- If we only focus on instruction without understanding the evidence behind reading development or learning, we risk using teaching approaches that are engaging but ineffective.
A Structured Literacy approach brings these three areas together.
How we deliver a structured literacy approach comes from the research and studies from the science of learning, and instruction and it must be applied flexibly. We need to understand how to differentiate, adjust pace scaffold when needed. It’s not a one-size-fits-all model.
A one-size-fits-all model fits nothing in life… and honestly, I can’t think of anything that truly works that way.
Let’s take something as simple as bread. You go to the supermarket thinking “bread is bread,” right?
But then you’re faced with shelves full of options, sourdough, ciabatta, white, wholemeal, thick, thin, Vogel’s, gluten-free… At the end of the day, it’s all bread. It all serves a similar purpose. Toast, sandwich, soldiers for your boiled egg, or French toast in the morning. You get my point.
What we don’t do, is choose the same bread for everyone. Here’s the important part…
Bread always has the same core ingredients: flour, yeast, and water.
It is always baked in an oven, and over the years, the type of oven has changed from open fires, in the ground, community ovens, conventional ovens to bread makers.
Why, because new and better options became available. And when we follow the science, that’s exactly what happens. Nothing stays the same.
We keep evolving our practice as new evidence emerges, refining what we do to remain relevant, purposeful, and effective for the learners we serve. In the bread analogy, that’s what makes it bread, not a muffin or a waffle; a structured literacy approach is the same.
Just like bread can be adapted, gluten-free, seeded, thick, or thin, a structured literacy approach must be adaptable for the learner in front of us. It has to be!!!
How we deliver a structured literacy approach in a whole-class Tier 1 is different from Tier 2 support, and again different for Tier 3.
Tier 2 and Tier 3 need more intensity, more repetition, smaller increments, and a more targeted focus. Aswell as more scaffolding, more explicit teaching, more intentional review and consolidation, and a deeper level of teacher knowledge.
Especially at Tier 3, even more knowledge is needed to design lessons that are truly suited to the learner in front of you.
It’s not just about delivering a structured literacy approach, it’s about understanding the question why this child can’t access this information, where is the barrier, how to adapt it, why you are adapting it, and what that child needs in that moment.
This is exactly where the science of learning comes in.
It helps us understand:
- What cognitive load is, and how much at once can overwhelm a learner?
- How memory and retrieval work, and why repetition and practice matter,
- Why and when is explicit teaching crucial?
- When to teach using implicit teaching,
We need to ask, why can’t this child access this knowledge, read this document, or comprehend this information? What is the barrier?
Instead of saying, “This child can’t do this,” we need to identify the barrier and respond to it, not exclude the child from classroom learning because it’s too difficult.
For learners, who need tier 3 resources, we must also understand what else may be going on for that child. I think it’s also important to acknowledge all the reasons a child may need support.
It could be dyslexia, ADHD, autism, a learning difficulty, disability, family circumstances, poverty, or trauma, and how well they can retain the information they are being taught.
These factors do not prevent a child from learning, but they must be considered in how we approach teaching, and, in the decisions, we make about what to teach and when.
Again, the science of learning and instruction helps us understand this and respond in ways that support the learner when delivering a structured literacy approach, and for some children, other supports may need to be in place before success in literacy is seen.
And this understanding is what allows us to design teaching that is responsive, targeted, tailored, and effective and help us with these questions –
- Do we slow things down?
- Reduce the number of skills?
- Where is the disconnect in the learning process?
- Focus on one or two areas first, like reading and handwriting and bring spelling in later?
No programme can make those decisions. But knowledge can.
It’s important we educate ourselves in this space so we can help educate others. Many on here will understand what I’m saying but may not yet have the deeper knowledge to back it up. That deeper understanding is what helps us advocate properly.
It ensures our kids get the right support, and teachers have the knowledge they need to differentiate for whom and why.
We also need to stop letting people frame a structured literacy approach as a programme, a one-size-fits-all, or a silver bullet, or its just phonics, because it is not any of these things. Nothing is, and we don’t frame this way.
A programme is not the answer, and it never will be. A manual can’t tell you why Jane can blend two sounds but not three, or why Joe can spell all the words correctly in a list, but when he writes a sentence, those same words are misspelled, or why a child uses a capital B instead of a lowercase b at the beginning of words.
It can’t help you understand how trauma, anxiety, or a fear of failing affects the brain, and why a child can go from knowing something one day to not knowing it the next.
Programmes don’t teach you how to understand the different learning profiles of the children in your classroom. Knowledge does.
Knowledge of the science of reading, the science of learning and the science of instruction allows us to understand what to teach, how to respond to the child in front of us, and how to teach the child.
And combined, this is what we call a structured literacy approach, understanding the what, the when, the how, the why, and for whom we are teaching.
I used the bread analogy 19 to show that while the core ingredients remain the same, the type of bread and how it’s made can vary from person to person. This is like a structured literacy approach. The science of reading gives us the essential ingredients all children need, while the science of learning helps us understand how the learning is happening or not happening and the science of instruction lets us adapt to suit the learner in front of us.
Just as baking methods have evolved over time, our teaching should also evolve with evidence, reminding us that one size does not fit all, and that a structured literacy approach is not a programme, but an informed understanding of what to teach and a flexible way of teaching that follows the evidence and science.
Science of Reading
- Mark Seidenberg (2013) – The Science of Reading and Its Educational Implications
- Castles, Rastle & Nation (2018) – Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert
- National Reading Panel (2000) – Teaching Children to Read
Science of Learning
- Stanislas Dehaene (2020) – How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine… for Now
- Stanislas Dehaene (2015) – Illiterate to Literate: Behavioural and Cerebral Changes Induced by Reading Acquisition
- John Sweller (1988) – Cognitive Load During Problem Solving: Effects on Learning
Science of Instruction
- Barak Rosenshine (2012) – Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know
- Dr Anita Archer – Explicit Instruction professional learning resources
- Archer & Hughes (2011) – Explicit Instruction: Effective and Efficient Teaching
Written by Sharon Scurr 19 July 2026