Dr. Lindsey Rouch, Associate Professor in the School or Arts, Sciences and Education at Walsh University, explains the Science of Reading in the Ohio Capital Journal.
Reading instruction that prioritizes phonics and decoding words is gaining emphasis
A chunk of Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposed budget zeroes in on what’s called the science of reading method.
Specifically, it includes $64 million for science of reading curricula, $43 million each year for the next two years to offer science of reading instruction for educators, and $12 million to support 100 literacy coaches in schools and districts. Read the full article
Here's an excerpt:
“To have a student say that they can comprehend what they’re reading, there’s two components to that, that go hand in hand, and it’s word recognition and language comprehension,” said Lindsey Roush, an assistant professor at Walsh University’s division of education.
Walsh University, a private Catholic college in North Canton, converted all their education courses to be aligned with the science of reading method in 2019, Roush said.
The method focuses on how letter sounds and printed letters work together, she said.
“We want their eyes to stay focused on the word and start from those little points of the sounds to bigger chunks of the word to analyze the word to be able to decode it and understand it,” Roush said.
Which is where phonics comes into play.
“Phonics is a very big part of this in terms of really getting down to those phonemes the letter sounds and understanding which sound each of those letters make, individually, and as they’re grouped together in different formats,” Roush said.
