Teachers have heard about the “5 pillars” woven together to build and support strong readers. These pillars are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (National Literacy Panel Report, 2008).
As discussed in my book, The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development (ASCD), I believe there are 6 “pillars” that form the weave that supports efficient and effective readers.
The National Literacy Panel identified five foundational pillars essential to foundational reading. However, I see a difference between basic comprehension and higher-order comprehension.
Teachers must understand how to strengthen and weave all six threads to build strong and efficient readers.
Learning to Read as Young Children
As young children, we are surrounded by oral language that helps us build an awareness of the sounds of our mother tongue. Even in the womb, we hear the “lilt” of our language and begin early in life to imitate the sounds we hear.
As we grow, we master the various phonemes that make up the syllables and words of our language, and we learn to express ourselves orally.
This is called “phonemic awareness,” an essential skill upon which our reading skills will begin to be woven.
As students begin school, they will learn that there is a relationship between the sounds of our language (phonemes) and special symbols or letters (graphemes) that represent those sounds.
While English is indeed a complex and often contradictory language, students can learn some basic rules (phonics) to help them identify or decode unknown words they encounter.
These three foundational skills—phonemic awareness, phonics, and an ever-expanding vocabulary—are the threads of an efficient and effective reader. They help children become strong readers.
Supporting Strong Readers with Decoding Skills
Once an individual can decode the text’s words, they can pay closer attention to the meaning being conveyed.
Just as with any other skill, reading requires extensive practice. Reading is a “participation sport” that improves with practice. Our skills and fluency develop as we practice, and we can read smoothly and accurately.
Reading also requires us to make meaning out of the words and sentences on the page. While some children can verbalize all of the words on the page, they do not understand what they have read.
When children concentrate on decoding the words on the page, they find it difficult to attend to meaning. For this reason, young children must master decoding skills in order to become competent readers.
Basic comprehension is a vital thread to becoming an efficient and effective reader.
Learning to Make Deeper Levels of Meaning
When readers are able to apply basic comprehension to a text, they can answer the simple questions of who, what, where, why, and how.
While this is a necessary foundational skill for making meaning, it does not mean that students can analyze or reflect on the text at more complex levels. A sixth “pillar” or thread must be present, and that is higher-order comprehension.
Even as adult readers, we never truly “master” the reading of all text. We have all been stumped by unfamiliar vocabulary and content while reading material about which we have little background knowledge.
For example, remember that legal document you had to sign or the stack of mortgage papers? You will lose your reading fluency unless you have a strong background in either of these areas.
Without background knowledge of this content, your comprehension would be at the “basic level.” On the other hand, a skilled lawyer or mortgage broker would be highly fluent in this content.
Because of their prior background knowledge and familiarity with this type of text, these individuals would have the comprehension skills to assess the ideas and statements in these documents.
They could even read these documents at the analysis, synthesis or interpretive levels.
Even though a lawyer or mortgage broker might be proficient with this type of document, they might struggle with other forms of text—say, a scientific journal article —when attempting to read the material.
This would be true even though they are proficient complex text readers within their discipline.
Fluent and efficient reading can occur when background knowledge and reading comprehension interconnect.
Supporting Strong Readers Through Reflection
We want our students to attain this complex level of reading. They must be able to analyze, synthesize, and make meaning at deeper levels of understanding.
These are the skills they will need to succeed in college and their careers.
Most of a child’s school career is focused on helping them build strong background knowledge. They must apply this knowledge and higher-order comprehension skills in as many areas as possible.
Throughout our lives, we grow and expand as thoughtful and reflective readers.
As we build our life experiences, we enrich and expand our vocabulary and background knowledge. With more knowledge, our fluency grows. We can process different types of text with increasing comprehension.
We become more fluent and thoughtful readers by continuing to read and expand our world knowledge.
To learn more about the six pillars of reading, check out The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development at your favorite bookseller today.
You May Also Like:
Should Students Learn Sight Words?
5 Ways to Strengthen Decoding Skills in Primary Readers
My book, The Threads of Reading: Strategies for Literacy Development from ASCD, is also a great source of tips for teachers on teaching reading.
