The Science of Reading (SOR) is based on basic empirical research studies that describe the processes that underlie how humans become proficient readers. The Science of Reading Instruction (SORI) is based on applied empirical research studies that validate the effectiveness of instructional recommendations about how to teach humans to read. Duke and Martin (2011) distinguish between two important terms — research-based and research-tested. Research-tested means that “one or more research studies tested the impact of that particular practice, approach or product” (p. 17). Research-based means “that the particular practice, approach, or product has not been tested in a research study but has been designed to be consistent with [other related] research findings” (p. 17). In view of this distinction, a Science of Reading Instruction should firmly rest upon research-tested rather than research-based empirical findings. To sum up this distinction, no matter how well the corpus of basic research findings supports a Science of Reading, recommendations for instruction to support a Science of Reading Instruction must be tried out and studied in the intended context of their use and with the intended recipients of their assumed benefits. The Report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) and the Report of the Early Literacy Panel (NIL, 2008) provide a synthesis of strong scientific evidence for teaching a collection of reading foundation skills to young students as well as activating background knowledge and the teaching of comprehension strategies leading to proficient reading ability. Another excellent source of Science of Reading information is found in a recent compilation of Science of Reading findings entitled “How the Science of Reading Informs 21st-Century Education” in Reading Research Quarterly (Petscher, et al., 2020). Taken together, all of these reports describe the instructional elements included in The Science of Reading Instruction as shown below:

• Oral Language Skills — Learn to speak and comprehend aurally phrases, sentence structure, connecting terms, and discourse patterns.
• Concepts of Print — Learn how print works, including directionality (L>R, Top to Bottom), print not picture, punctuation, number of words and letters, and ordinal concepts such as first, last and middle.
• Phonological Awareness — Learn to hear, identify, and manipulate units of oral language larger than a single sound or phoneme – including onsets, rimes, syllables, and words.
• Phonemic Awareness — Learn to hear, identify, and manipulate individual spoken sounds (phonemes) in words and syllables.
• Phonics — Learn the relationships between spoken sounds (phonemes) and the letters (graphemes) that represent these spoken sounds in written language. Students develop the skills of blending sounds of letters in words to read and segment sounds in words to write or spell. Blending and segmenting sounds in words to read and write are often referred to collectively as “sounding out.”
• Morphological Analysis — Learn how to determine unknown word meanings by identifying meaningful word parts such as prefixes, suffixes, and other word endings, e.g., possession, plurals, and grammatical tense. Students learn how the addition of word parts to a root or base word changes meaning, e.g., read vs. reread.
• Spelling — Learn to use knowledge of orthographic or spelling patterns to accurately write the combination of letters to represent the sounds they hear in spoken words.
• Fluency — Learn to read text accurately, with appropriate speed and expression to free up attention to be used to construct meaning from text. Fluency forms a bridge from decoding to comprehension.
• Vocabulary Development — Acquire and use a vast knowledge of word meanings. Background Knowledge — Building and activating knowledge of the world, events, facts, experiences, and information. Building background knowledge is an essential element of evidence-based reading comprehension instruction.
• Comprehension Strategies — Learn a collection of scientifically researched comprehension strategies to use to unlock the meaning of difficult, unfamiliar, or complex texts.
• Text Discussion — Participation in extended discussions of text with teachers and peers.
• Writing — Write for varied purposes and in differing genres, including writing about what is read to cement comprehension of text.