How do we interpret basic research on teaching reading instruction?

March 17, 2021

What constitutes a science of reading instruction? Recently, the term science of reading has been used in public debate to promote policies and instructional practices based on research on the basic cognitive mechanisms of reading, the neural processes involved in reading, computational models of learning to read, and the like. In this article, the author cautions against instructional over- generalizations based on various kinds of basic research without an adequate consideration of instructional experiments. The author provides several examples of the premature translation of basic research findings into wide-scale pedagogical application. 

Citation: Shanahan, T. (2020). What constitutes a science of reading instruction?. Reading Research Quarterly55, S235-S247.

Link: http://textproject.org/assets/Uploads/Shanahan-Science-of-Reading-2020.pdf