Welcome to our survey on the five pillars of reading. This survey is designed to gather your feedback and insights on how you teach and assess these essential components of effective reading instruction. Before we begin, let’s review the five pillars of reading, based on the National Reading Panel Report:
-
Phonemic awareness: This is the ability to hear and manipulate the sounds in spoken words. For example, you can blend sounds to make words, segment words into sounds, and delete sounds from words.
-
Phonics: This is the relationship between letters and sounds, and how to use them to decode and spell words. For example, you can use letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, and word parts to read and write words.
-
Fluency: This is the ability to read text accurately, quickly, and with expression and comprehension. For example, you can read with appropriate speed, accuracy, intonation, and phrasing.
-
Vocabulary: This is the knowledge of words and their meanings, and how to use them in context. For example, you can learn new words from reading, listening, speaking, and writing, and use strategies to figure out unknown words.
-
Comprehension: This is the ability to understand and interpret what is read, and to apply various strategies to enhance understanding. For example, you can use prior knowledge, make predictions, ask questions, summarize, and infer meaning from text.
Based on our research, the best way to teach the five pillars of reading is through systematic and direct instruction. Systematic instruction means that you follow a carefully planned sequence of teaching that builds on what students already know, moves from simple to complex concepts, and is designed before you plan your activities and lessons. This helps ensure that students have the necessary background knowledge and skills to learn new material efficiently. Direct instruction means that you explicitly teach a concept, model how to do it, guide students through practice, and provide feedback until they master it.
We hope this review was helpful to you. Now we would like to hear from you! Please answer the following questions about your teaching practices related to the five pillars of reading. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers – we want your honest perspective and experiences. All information gathered through this survey will be confidential. We will not share your identity with anyone.