The term science of reading (SoR) is often interpreted to mean “more phonics.” This interpretation has led to significant pushback, with some educators and literacy experts arguing that reading involves more than just sounding out words—and that requiring children to spend hours on daily phonics drills is both misguided and potentially harmful.
But SoR advocates aren’t necessarily calling for more phonics instruction. In many cases, they emphasize the need for more effective phonics instruction. They also acknowledge that skilled reading requires other crucial components. In fact, both sides of the phonics debate point to the same key elements: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.
Still, many in the SoR movement haven’t focused on problems with reading instruction beyond those related to phonics. As a result, many educators and policymakers have come to assume that schools need to change only their approach to phonics in order to align with science. That assumption overlooks the fact that the standard approach to teaching reading comprehension, which focuses heavily on skills, also conflicts with a substantial body of evidence.
To resolve the debate about SoR—and help all students become fully literate—we need to define the science of reading to include the well-established evidence that academic knowledge plays a key role in comprehension. Expanding the definition to include building academic knowledge would clarify that a two-hour reading block shouldn’t be devoted just to phonics. It would also help counter the argument that SoR-aligned instruction will prevent students from discovering the joy of reading: Reading aloud to children from complex, engaging texts can build their academic knowledge while sparking their interest in books.
As I argue in my book Beyond the Science of Reading: Connecting Literacy Instruction to the Science of Learning (ASCD, 2025), the science of reading should also be seen as part of a broader science of literacy that includes listening, speaking, and writing. Beyond that, the science of literacy needs to be viewed as a subset of cognitive science, or the science of learning.
That argument rests on the recognition that our ability to understand or produce text reflects whatever we’ve been able to learn. At the same time, reading is a way of learning, and writing can deepen and reinforce knowledge. It follows that scientific evidence related to how we learn in general is inextricably linked to evidence on how we learn to read and write—and instruction in those areas should be linked as well.
Leveraging Academic Knowledge
If we look at typical literacy instruction through the lens of cognitive science, it becomes clear that we’ve been making reading and writing much harder for students than they need to be. Reading and, especially, writing impose a heavy cognitive load on students who are not yet proficient in those areas. Trying to make sense of unfamiliar information is also cognitively challenging. But the typical approach to literacy instruction routinely requires students to read and write about unfamiliar topics.
Comprehension instruction has students practice an isolated skill using texts on random topics they may not know anything about. And writing curricula or prompts often provide only limited information on a topic before asking students to write about it.
Typical literacy instruction is based on the theory that writing skills and reading comprehension strategies, like finding the main idea of a text or making an inference, are transferable. Evidence from cognitive science, however, indicates that they’re not. Whether a student can apply a skill like making an inference depends far more on their knowledge of the topic than on an abstract ability to make inferences.
The explanation for that finding lies in a concept called cognitive load theory, which is premised on the limited capacity of working memory—the aspect of our consciousness that takes in new information. Generally, working memory can only hold four or five items of new information for about 20 seconds before it starts to become overwhelmed. If, however, learners can withdraw relevant information they already have in long-term memory, they have more capacity in working memory to understand, analyze, and retain new information.
If a student is not yet a proficient reader, the task of reading imposes an additional burden on working memory. That explains why it’s important to introduce new topics through teacher read-alouds and class discussion. Because listening and speaking don’t in themselves impose a cognitive load, students’ ability to absorb new information and transfer it to long-term memory is expanded. Once students have acquired background knowledge of a topic, evidence indicates that they can read and write about that topic at a higher level. Eventually, as they continue to acquire more academic knowledge, they become better able to read and write about a range of topics.
When students are taught to write about the content of the curriculum, their ability to learn can be boosted in multiple ways.
To be sure, there is evidence from education research that prioritizing comprehension strategy instruction over knowledge-building can improve comprehension. But students get all the benefits of such instruction after just a few hours—and it’s unclear how long those benefits last. On the other hand, a well-established body of evidence from cognitive science demonstrates the crucial role of knowledge in both reading comprehension and learning in general.
Based on that evidence, cognitive scientists have identified instructional practices that enable students to absorb, retain, and access knowledge. However, those practices assume that teachers are focusing either on a truly transferable skill, like decoding, or on substantive content, like history or science. Since typical comprehension instruction focuses on non-transferable skills like making inferences, it isn’t possible to apply science-backed practices to those lessons.
For example, evidence shows that when students try to recall information they’ve learned but may have slightly forgotten—an activity known as retrieval practice—they’re better able to retain and access that information, making it easier for them to engage in analytical thinking and additional learning related to the topic. But if the focus of a lesson is, for example, making inferences, the teacher might briefly model the skill using one text before having students practice it on other texts, on a random variety of topics that have been determined to be at their individual reading levels.
In this kind of lesson, there is no common content for students to practice retrieving. And even if students diligently practice the supposed skill of making inferences using a text on one topic, they’re unlikely to be able to make inferences about a text on another topic that is unfamiliar, especially if the vocabulary and syntax are more complex. An iconic cognitive science text is called Make It Stick, but the problem with comprehension instruction is that there’s no “it” that can actually be made to stick.
From Science to Strategy
Understanding and applying the science of reading, the science of literacy, and the science of learning might sound like a daunting task for educators. But it doesn’t have to be. The first step is to adopt a curriculum that is rich in content, ideally beginning in the early grades. Rather than jumping quickly from one topic to the next, because the focus is on teaching comprehension skills, effective literacy instruction requires deep dives into topics in history, science, and full-length novels. That content both builds the background knowledge essential for comprehension of complex text and also provides the context students need to develop their writing skills and critical thinking abilities.
In addition, when students are taught to write about the content of the curriculum, their ability to learn can be boosted in multiple ways. Writing can be a highly effective form of retrieval practice, helping students retain information. It can also be an effective way to engage in “elaboration,” or explaining concepts in one’s own words, which helps with comprehension. In addition, if students learn to use the complex syntax of written language, then they’re better able to understand that syntax when they encounter it in their reading.
The catch is that writing imposes such a heavy cognitive load that inexperienced writers won’t get these benefits if they’re simply asked to write without much guidance, which is often the case in typical literacy instruction. But explicit writing instruction that begins at the sentence level can make the cognitive load manageable, enabling writing to become a powerful lever for learning.
If teachers combine rich content with explicit writing instruction, they’ll have a good chance of implementing the science of learning—and they’re likely to see all their students, especially those who struggle the most, blossom and thrive.
Beyond the Science of Reading
The best way to end the "reading wars" is to recognize that learning to read is inextricably linked to learning in general.
