Every Child Is Unique… and Every Child Has to Learn the Same Skills

Teachers need to know every child learns to read the same way

Every teacher should have a chance to learn what science has discovered about skilled reading as illustrated, for example, by Seidenberg-McClellan’s four-part processing model of how the brain reads.

We deserve to be taught how to use valid and reliable data (opens in a new window) to diagnose reading difficulties. And before we cultivate our own philosophies of education, we need to understand what scientists already know.

Our beliefs shape our teaching

Observing our students is a critical skill, but only when our observations are informed by an understanding of how proficient reading actually works. As cognitive scientist Dr. Mark Seidenberg explains: 

“Because most of what goes on in reading is subconscious: we are aware of the result of having read something —that we understood it, that we found it funny, that it conveyed a fact, idea, or feeling — not the mental and neural operations that produced that outcome. That is why there is a science of reading: to understand this complex skill at levels that intuition cannot easily penetrate.”

Most teachers are trained to observe each child’s reading behaviors, determine an instructional plan based on those observations, and deliver one-on-one coaching, which we then must monitor to begin the cycle all over again. But observations that are not informed by an understanding of the science of reading cannot guide us to the instruction that most effectively rewires the brain for skilled reading.

Without an understanding of the reading brain, these observations of reading behavior are not a good use of the precious few minutes we have to work with each student

“Parents and educators must have a better understanding of what reading changes in a child’s brain. Children’s visual and language areas constitute an extraordinary machine that education recycles into an expert reading device. [There is no question that] increased knowledge of these circuits will greatly simplify the teacher’s task.”

— Dr. Stanislas Dehaene, Reading in the Brain (opens in a new window) (2009)

When educators understand how the brain learns to read — that reading requires the repurposing of parts of the brain evolved to perform other cognitive functions — we are compelled to rethink our instruction and our assessments, and to reexamine our previous beliefs about why students struggle. 

Our beliefs shape our expectations

Recently, a brave group of teachers who had shifted to scientifically-aligned reading instruction reflected on their old beliefs.

A kindergarten teacher explained to the group:

“I think teachers like to believe that every child learns to read differently because it explains our lack of success.”

The others nodded in agreement. 

A second grade teacher added:

“It seems to explain the spread of abilities in our classrooms. Like, ‘They all learn to read differently and that’s why a third of my students can’t read.’ It seems to give a reason for why we didn’t reach them all.”

And another added:

“It justifies the lag. When some kids start to fall behind, we can tell ourselves, ‘Some of them are just learning differently. They’ll catch up later.’”

The belief that because each of our students is a unique individual, each one follows a unique path in learning to read, is so entrenched in our educational culture that teachers (and even parents) are not adequately alarmed when students leave kindergarten or first grade without basic reading skills. 

The hardest part of coming to understand the science of reading is realizing that the learning delays we’ve come to expect in the primary grades can be an early sign of reading failure.

“We can not read the tea leaves of the behavior of five year olds and definitively determine who is going to be dyslexic and who isn’t, moreover, it’s going to depend on how they are taught. So, we’ll cast a wide net, we’ll find the kids who seem to be falling behind, on things like “Do you know your letter names?” “Can you associate a sound with the letter?” “Have you begun to start sounding out simple words?” There are a number of very simple sorts of measures you can use to find the children who are at risk… they get extra help, extra monitoring, and many of them will go on to become fine readers.”

— Dr. Mark Seidenberg in the podcast Lexicon Valley: Why We Stopped Teaching Children How to Read (opens in a new window)

The best part of learning the science of reading is the discovery that we can raise our expectations for student and school achievement, and, consequently, improve the public perception of teachers.

Low reading achievement, more than any other factor, is the root cause of chronically low-performing schools, which harm students and contribute to loss of public confidence in our school system. When many children don’t learn to read, the public schools cannot and will not be regarded as successful — and efforts to dismantle them will proceed.

— American Federation of Teachers

Every teacher deserves to know the science of reading. And every child deserves a teacher who knows it.