A recent article in this journal claims that the simple view of reading represents a long-outdated account of what underlies the ability to read. Its authors argue that if teachers are to be better informed about what is known about reading then the simple view must be replaced by a more current model, one that captures the substantial progress that has been made in our understanding through the science of reading. In this comment on that article, we discuss the authors' perspective on the simple view and the three advances in research they claim invalidate it, clarifying misconceptions and critically reviewing presented evidence. We argue that the SVR, centered on the proximal causes of reading capacity under a large grain-size perspective, has garnered strong empirical support, has achieved an important level of consensus within the field regarding its validity, and has shown utility in helping education professionals understand and maintain focus on the most important cognitive capacities underlying reading success. We also argue that the proposed replacement represents a weaker, unproven model that could lead education professionals astray if applied in practice.

In this chapter we discuss the cognitive skills needed to master the two main components of reading, language comprehension and word recognition. For language comprehension, we first present an information processing model of the stages needed to convert speech sound to meaning in a linguistic system. We use the model to frame our thinking about the knowledge-skill sets of phonology, syntax, and semantics that support the derivation of the literal meaning of sentences; we also discuss the roles of background knowledge and inference making in moving language comprehension beyond literal meanings. We end this section with a discussion of a graphic display of the cognitive foundations underlying language comprehension.

Having described the cognitive foundations of both reading and learning to read, we now turn to the applications of the Cognitive Foundations Framework as an aid to understanding the development of reading skills as well as reading difficulty during such development. We first describe what reading development looks like within the framework of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Hoover & Tunmer, 2018). This is followed by a discussion of Matthew effects in reading, which are important to understand given that much of reading, especially following initial skill development, is learned through reading itself. We then give brief overviews of the typical development of language comprehension and word recognition. In turning to reading difficulty, we describe both proximal and distal causes of such difficulties, and then discuss specific difficulties within language comprehension and word recognition. We close with a discussion of some key issues in the details of our descriptions, a summary of the chapter, and some questions for further thought.

In this chapter we first discuss core instructional programs, focusing on the early elementary school grades where reading is largely taught. We contrast two main types of programs and describe what is known about instructional program effectiveness. We then turn to instructional components. We revisit the work of the National Reading Panel and its study of the evidence underlying certain instructional components, providing an update of its findings and recommendations based on two subsequent reviews that considered more recent research. We also provide maps of the instructional recommendations from each of the three reviews onto the Cognitive Foundations Framework, summarizing the recommendations made and how they address the cognitive components of reading. We then describe some of the specific ways the review panels gave for implementing their recommendations. We follow this with an example of a curriculum map, which takes a one-week instructional sequence from a kindergarten supplemental curriculum and maps it onto the Cognitive Foundations Framework. We close with a discussion of some select issues in curriculum and instruction, a chapter summary, and some questions for further thought.

Having concentrated to this point on specifying the cognitive skills that underlie reading and learning to read, we now focus on the application of this knowledge to teaching and learning. In the remaining chapters of this book (Chaps. 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 and 13 ) we show how reading professionals can use the Cognitive Foundations Framework to build coherence in their reading practices. This involves explicitly linking what students must learn to become readers to the tools reading professionals have available to support such learning. These are the tools of standards, assessments, and curriculum and instruction. A brief overview of what these contain and how they are generally used follows; each will be discussed in detail, respectively, in the three chapters that follow this one.

We now describe how the Cognitive Foundations Framework can provide a general understanding of reading within writing systems that represent the phonology of a language. Below we first describe the key, general features of phonologically-based writing systems and the broadened definitions needed in the Cognitive Foundations Framework to accommodate them. We then provide a generalized version of the Cognitive Foundations Framework that applies across such writing systems, followed by a discussion of learning to read in a second language. We conclude the chapter with a discussion of some select issues in reading in languages other than English, a chapter summary, and questions for further thought.

In this chapter we first describe our rationale for writing the book: To help reading professionals bring an empirically grounded coherence to their practices through an understanding of the cognitive requirements underlying reading and learning to read. We discuss the book’s focus and unique features, including its descriptions of the major cognitive components underlying reading, their interrelationships, and the capacities that must be developed within them to advance reading. We then discuss the book’s intended uses and describe processes for linking the cognitive foundations to the primary tools reading professionals have available to support reading development – reading standards, assessments, and curriculum and instruction. We argue that bringing coherence to the use of such tools will help reading professionals better support all students learning to read but especially those who struggle – and we further argue that the framework can specifically strengthen use of response-to-intervention approaches. We end with a brief description of the topics covered in each of the book’s chapters and the common chapter structure used in presenting each topic.

In this chapter we first discuss differentiated instruction and how it might apply to those who are not making progress in reading relative to their peers. We follow this with a discussion of response-to-intervention as a multi-tiered system of support and how the Cognitive Foundations Framework can help reading professionals think about using such approaches to assist those who struggle to learn to read. We end with a discussion of a few select issues on providing support to struggling readers, a chapter summary, and questions for further thought.

This article presents an overview of a conceptual framework designed to help reading professionals better understand what their students are facing as they learn to read in alphabetic writing systems. The US National Reading Panel (NRP) recommended five instructional components for improving reading outcomes but presented these instructional components as a list without explicitly addressing their interrelations, either in terms of instruction or cognitive development. In contrast, the Cognitive Foundations Framework offers a description of the major cognitive capacities underlying learning to read and specifies the relationships between them. The central claim of this article is that what is needed to help intervention specialists achieve better outcomes is a clearly specified conceptual framework of the cognitive capacities underlying learning to read that provides the basis for an assessment framework that is linked to evidence-based instructional strategies for addressing the individual literacy learning needs of students.

In this article, we provide some comments on the simple view of reading (SVR), now some 30 years after its initial proposal and empirical work (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). We begin with an overview of what the SVR is as a conceptual model, as well as what it is not. We follow this with comments, in turn, on three papers presented in this special issue that assessed the adequacy of the SVR. We close with thoughts on the main points across the three papers reviewed. Throughout, we not only comment on the research about the simple view but also on its educational implications.

Reading Recovery (RR) was developed in New Zealand in the early 1980s to provide 30 minutes of daily individualised literacy instruction over 20 weeks for students struggling with learning to read after one year of formal schooling. Considerable research has been undertaken on the RR programme. While results indicate short‐term success for some students, each year 15–30% of students do not successfully complete the programme and are therefore ‘unrecovered’. Research on the characteristics of these unrecovered students is sparse. This review examines findings on the characteristics of unrecovered students. These RR students typically have limited phonemic awareness and phonemically based decoding skills, and lower scores on RR screening measures on entry to RR than ‘recovered’ students. In New Zealand, unrecovered students tend to be enrolled in schools serving lower socio‐economic neighbourhoods, and tend to be from Māori or Pasifika (Polynesian Pacific Island heritage) backgrounds. These students typically receive more RR lessons than recovered students. We conclude that RR does not tailor instruction to meet the needs of individual students, as claimed. The RR instructional model, developed in the 1970s, fails to recognise the importance of explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness and the use of letter–sound relations. Such instruction is essential for most students who struggle with literacy learning during their early years of schooling and especially important for students who experience the most difficulty with learning to read. Suggestions are presented for strengthening the RR programme and for reducing the number of unrecovered students.

This guide accompanies the following article: Chapman, J. W. & Tunmer, W. E. (2018) Reading Recovery's unrecovered learners: Characteristics and issues, Review of Education, https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3121

New Zealand's approach to literacy instruction is predominantly whole language. Explicit code-orientated literacy instruction is not favoured, however, most teachers are believed to include phonics in their literacy lessons. No study has been reported on phonics use in New Zealand schools. Survey responses on the use of phonics instruction from 666 primary school teachers were analysed. We also assessed knowledge of the basic language constructs related to early reading success with 55 teachers participating in a professional development program on literacy teaching. A word identification prompt task based on six common word error scenarios experienced by beginning readers was also administered. Results of the phonics survey revealed that 90% of teachers indicated they used phonics in their literacy instruction. Knowledge of basic language constructs was variable: phonological and phonemic knowledge were generally good, but understanding of phonic and morphological constructs was relatively weak. Only 40% of initial word identification prompts were focussed on word-level information; the remainder (60%) were based on context or were non-specific. The implications of these findings for beginning readers are discussed.

First published in 1986, this authoritative book contains a selection of original, research based, reports of studies conducted in Australia and New Zealand in the field of Child Development. The topics have been arranged into four major sections - cognitive issues in development, language and reading development, perpetual motor development and social aspects of development. Both pure and applied research issues are presented, and the chapters cover child development from infancy to adolescence. The book's special strength lies in the diversity of topics tackled and the range of developmental research represented. Theoretical viewpoints are raised and empirical questions answered in the studies reported. The editors have systematically drawn together important contributions which reflected contemporary topics in child development at the time. Although no one common theoretical or empirical theme unites either each section or the whole book (which reflects the general scope and diversity of child development in the 1980s), the contributors in general see the child as developing through active interaction with his or her environment. This interactionist position is clearly preferred by most researchers, who realised that simplistic genetic or environmental models are inadequate to explain the complex development of the child. The editors were all active researchers in the area of child development at the time and each co-authored a chapter in the book. All published regularly in national and international journals and books, and were aware of current developments in their main areas of expertise. All those interested in issues in child development will find this book important reading, as it provides the reader with an excellent and diverse selection of studies, bearing on a wide range of empirical research.