Science of Reading and Learning Science
Understanding how children learn changes everything. The Science of Reading and broader learning science give us a research-based picture of how the brain develops, how children acquire skills, why some students struggle, and what instructional approaches make the biggest difference. Explore our articles to dig into the evidence.
The Talking Comes First: How Everyday Conversation Builds the Foundation for Reading
Two children arrive at kindergarten on the same day, in the same classroom — and the gap between them is already years wide. Research shows that back-and-forth conversation before school begins predicts reading comprehension more reliably than almost any other factor, because oral language is the foundation that decoding alone cannot replace. The dinner table, the car ride, the bedtime story — none of it feels like reading instruction, but all of it is building the half of reading that happens before a child ever opens a book.
Reading Is Thinking: Comprehension, Critical Thinking, and Why It Matters Now
Decades of reading research have been building toward a single destination. Comprehension is where every prior pillar of reading instruction ultimately points, and science is now clear that it does not emerge automatically once a child can read the words on a page. It has to be explicitly taught, and the world children are growing up in makes that more urgent than it has ever been.