To teach students how to read, educators have to use strategies that will reach every student. Literacy instruction is primarily divided into two categories: Structured Literacy and Balanced Literacy. With the growing literacy crisis in the US, more people are questioning which approach is better. Students can’t hope to enjoy reading if they don’t have the foundational skills and strategies to actually understand and engage with what they are reading.

Literacy matters, but how we teach it matters even more. Educators must understand the difference between the Balanced Literacy approach and the Structured Literacy approach to ensure they are providing students with meaningful learning experiences in the classroom.

 

Literacy and the Science of Reading

 

The whole language approach to literacy assumes that students will expand their understanding of text and reading concepts through repeated exposure to rich children’s literature. Although phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, decoding, and spelling are addressed in word study, they are not taught through explicit instruction or systematically. Rather, through word study, students are encouraged to use the “three cueing systems,” which promote guessing based on semantics (context clues, pictures, background knowledge), syntax (use of language patterns), or graphophonic cues (sounding out words). These can become a crutch that makes it more difficult for students to progress in their reading abilities.

Although no one would argue that the use of context clues is a beneficial strategy in reading, Dr. David Kilpatrick, a professor of psychology for the State University of New York College at Cortland and a certified school psychologist, reminds us that context helps identify the meaning of words but should not be promoted as an effective strategy for word identification (2015). To some extent, when students solely rely on context clues, it limits their literacy abilities because they are guessing rather than decoding. Students should be carefully analyzing each word to truly comprehend the meaning of the passage.

As the whole language approach took root in elementary classrooms across the country, the use of phonics instruction has faded away. Over time, students have become more reliant on compensatory strategies which are not proven to be as effective.

Research has even shown that 95% of people can learn to read through the use of evidence-based assessment and instruction. We know that Structured Literacy works, as it has been proven to be effective for all students, including those with dyslexia, and implementing this approach across the US is the key to solving the literacy crisis.

 

Balanced vs. Structured Literacy: What You Need to Know.

 

Decades of research into how students learn to read have shown that reading is not an innate ability. Unlike learning to speak, children must receive instruction and exposure to learn how to read. As the necessity for phonics instruction has made its way to the forefront once again, followers of the whole language approach adopted phonics lessons as an addition to the cueing system and referred to the enhancement as “Balanced Literacy.”

Children cannot encode or decode naturally because they are literacy concepts that must be developed. The Balanced Literacy approach exposes young readers to unfamiliar text causing compensatory strategies, such as relying on picture cues, while valuable instructional time passes. Not only are these strategies not helpful for every student, but they don’t provide students with the foundational skills that set them up to succeed when reading and engaging with more difficult texts as they progress in school and life. 

The bottom line is that students need to be taught how to read with an early emphasis on phonics, as these help children learn to read and write fluently by connecting small sounds with letters or groups of letters to understand the full meaning of a text. Without explicit knowledge of the building blocks of literacy, students will be left behind as their curriculum becomes more difficult. 

With a heightened awareness of the rising number of students reading below grade level combined with an increase in advocacy for dyslexia intervention, “Structured Literacy” stepped into the spotlight and became a leading theory to teach students how to read. This literacy approach has been proven to be effective for all students and is based on decades of research. Through the use of explicit teaching methods that prepare students with the tools to decode. 

Structured Literacy is an umbrella term that the International Dyslexia Association adopted to refer to the many programs (like Orton-Gillingham) that teach reading by following the evidence and research behind the science of reading. Programs that demonstrate the components and methods that are highlighted in Structured Literacy are beneficial for all students, especially those who struggle with reading.

 

Orton-Gillingham and Other Methods in Structured Literacy

 

Starting in the 1930s, Dr. Samuel T. Orton, a neuropsychiatrist and pathologist, collaborated with Anna Gillingham, an educator and psychologist, to formulate the Orton-Gillingham approach to reading instruction. Their approach integrates explicit instruction and multi-sensory teaching techniques with a meticulously structured sequence of phonemic awareness and phonological awareness to support students as they develop foundational skills in literacy.

Orton-Gillingham is based on the science of reading and places a strong emphasis on systematically teaching phonemic awareness and phonological awareness so that students can learn smaller literacy lessons that all build upon and relate to one another. The Orton-Gillingham approach has been specifically proven to be effective for students with dyslexia. This science-based approach is significant because not only is it effective for all students, but it also helps teachers identify students who are falling behind and struggling early on. Early intervention is the key to ensuring students are being met with the extra support they need before they move on to the next grade level and independent reading.

 

FAQs About Structured Literacy vs Balanced Literacy

 

 

What is the difference between Balanced Literacy and Structured Literacy?

 

Structured Literacy and Balanced Literacy are two approaches used to teach students how to read. When using a Balanced Literacy approach, teachers usually group students based on content and theme, length of book, or words. The basis of this approach is to teach students how to love reading, but it is not necessarily effective for every student in the classroom. Some students fall behind because they adopt bad reading habits, such as relying primarily on context cues rather than fully comprehending the text, to guess what the passage is about. As those students continue to move up in school, their reliance primarily on context cues will not be helpful as readings become denser and there are fewer pictures describing the content of the text passage.

A Structured Literacy approach, alternatively, is based on the science of reading and decades of research on how students learn. This approach combines systematic, cumulative, and explicit instruction so that students learn not only the most important aspects of literacy, but they also learn why these aspects are significant to reading comprehension. Specifically, through the use of phonics instruction, practicing word patterns, and teaching high-frequency words, students are given the tools to understand the smallest units of words, literacy instruction, and language comprehension so they have the foundational skills to break down more complex concepts.

 

What is an example of a Structured Literacy practice?

 

Structured literacy is so effective because students are taught lessons about the same concepts in ways that stimulate all of their senses. A few examples are:

 

 

What are the six pillars of Structured Literacy?

 

The six pillars of Structured Literacy are phonology, semantics, sound-symbol, syllable instruction, syntax, and morphology. 

 

 

Who is Structured Literacy for?

 

Structured Literacy has been proven to benefit all students at every grade level, but especially those who struggle to learn how to read and spell. This reading approach emphasizes highly explicit and systematic teaching of all the important components of literacy by introducing new concepts in a chronological order that is easy for every student to follow. 

While the Balanced Literacy approach is not necessarily the “wrong” approach, it is not always based on evidence and science-backed instruction strategies. Structured Literacy has been proven to be effective for all students, even those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia, and includes the five primary components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Reading instruction needs to have all five of these pillars ‌to be fully aligned with the science of reading so that students can be set up to become successful readers and engage in meaningful language comprehension.

 

 

 

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