11/07/2025
🧠 Ending the Reading Wars: What Science Really Says About How Children Learn to Read
Why is learning to read so hard—and why do we still debate how to teach it?
In their landmark 2018 paper, Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert, researchers Castles, Rastle, and Nation bring clarity and scientific consensus to a topic that has too often been clouded by ideology and misinformation. Their aim? To equip educators and parents with what the evidence actually says about how children learn to read—and how we can better support them.
Let’s break down their insights into five key ideas:
🔤 1. Reading Is Not Natural
Unlike spoken language, which children acquire simply by being exposed to it, reading is a learned skill. It doesn’t emerge naturally, even in language-rich homes. It requires explicit instruction, time, and practice.
Reading is also a heritable trait, influenced by genes and environment—but regardless of aptitude, virtually all children need support to crack the written code.
🧩 2. Cracking the Code: The Role of Phonics
The core insight children must develop is the alphabetic principle: the idea that letters (graphemes) represent sounds (phonemes). This doesn’t usually happen on its own—it must be taught.
Research consistently shows that systematic phonics instruction—teaching letter-sound relationships in a planned, sequential way—significantly improves:
• Decoding skills
• Spelling
• Reading comprehension
Phonics helps children sound out unfamiliar words, which bridges their oral vocabulary to written text. Without this step, learning to read would involve memorizing thousands of words by sight—an ineffective and overwhelming strategy.
📖 3. Reading Is More Than Phonics
But reading is not only about decoding.
As children progress, they move from "novice" readers—who rely heavily on sounding out words—to "expert" readers—who recognise familiar words instantly and automatically, a process known as orthographic learning.
Eventually, reading becomes less about decoding and more about fluent word recognition and comprehension—constructing meaning from text.
Understanding this progression is key: phonics is essential, but it’s a stepping stone, not the final destination.
🧠 4. Brain Pathways and the Shift to Fluent Reading
Neuroscience backs this up. The brain has two main pathways for reading:
• A dorsal pathway that supports decoding (phonologically mediated reading)
• A ventral pathway that enables rapid recognition and direct access to meaning
In skilled readers, the ventral pathway becomes dominant. But building this automatic recognition still relies on a solid foundation of phonics.
🔄 5. Why the Debate Continues—and What We Can Do
Despite strong scientific consensus, debate continues—especially in educational systems where outdated or inefficient practices persist. Part of the issue is that phonics alone doesn’t teach reading comprehension, and some educators worry that phonics-focused instruction ignores the bigger picture.
But the authors argue the opposite: by grounding early instruction in phonics and then progressing to vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension, we set children up for success at every stage.
They also highlight the importance of decodable readers—books that match what children are learning in phonics—so children can apply skills immediately.
💡 What This Means for Us
Here’s the takeaway:
• Children need explicit instruction in phonics to break the reading code.
• But they also need rich language experiences, exposure to diverse vocabulary, and support in making meaning from text.
• Reading comprehension, the true goal of literacy, develops best when instruction is both systematic and meaningful.
Let’s move beyond the reading wars. The science is in—and our children are counting on us to use it.
🔗 Reference:
Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100618772271
