These blogs are authored by Dr. Hempenstall and are not moderated by NIFDI.
Use Your Brain and Teach Children to Read Properly
Originally published: Use your brain and teach children to read properly (theconversation.com) (2011)
Updated: November 19, 2025
This section is the original publication. New content can be found below.
Almost half of all Australians aged 15-74 years had literacy skills below the level required to participate effectively in our society, according to a 2008 study from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The Victorian Auditor-General has noted that efforts to improve the literacy achievement have done little to improve the average achievement of students across the state, despite an investment of $1.19 billion in the six years prior to the completion of the study in 2009.
The report was also critical of the failure to assess the effectiveness of the key elements of its approach to literacy, for example, the Reading Recovery intervention for year one students.
Producing failure
The initial teaching of reading continues to follow a discredited model, and misteaching continues to produce an unacceptably high failure rate among students.
The main reason is that our system has ignored the enormous amount of research that can offer a solution to our literacy problems. This point was made in the 2005 Report of the National Inquiry into the Teaching of Literacy.
Some of this research shows us how our brains react to different teaching approaches.
Examining the brain
When functional MRI brain imaging is used to examine what is occurring when someone is reading, good readers are seen to activate several places on the brain’s left hemisphere. These areas are used co-operatively to convert letters into sounds, and then to fit the sounds together to make words we know.
Flourishing readers have realised that the alphabet’s letters are symbols intended to evoke those sounds, and they have learned how the sounds are blended to build words.
One of these left-brain regions (parieto-temporal area) is employed in sounding out words.
Building blocks
Over time, as young readers perform this sounding-out of written words, they start to build a model of that word in another section of the brain (occipito-temporal area).
After they’ve sounded a word correctly several times, their model progressively develops into a replica of the printed word. It shows the way the word is pronounced, the way it is spelt, and what it means.
These various features become bonded together so that seeing the word evokes its meaning in addition to its pronunciation.
Readers clarify and store these models in this second region of the left brain. When that familiar word is subsequently seen in print, it is routed to this second region, and its recognition is automatic and instant – in a period briefer than a heartbeat.
When this process occurs regularly, students begin to display rapid, effortless reading rather than the earlier, slower, sounding-out strategy.
Sounding it out
It is tempting to suggest that children should not be taught to sound out, because it isn’t the way skilled readers respond to print.
But, what brain science has demonstrated is that you don’t access this second fast-acting region without initially building up the first region.
Once children latch on to the logic of our alphabetic language, it doesn’t take many soundings-out to create the firm links necessary, but some children require more practice than others.
As this process continues words that look similar to now-known words are converted to models much more quickly.
Slower progress may relate to either genetics or inadequate experiences, including unhelpful teaching.
A different part of the brain
Those who struggle to read appear not to use these productive brain regions for reading. Instead, they create an alternative neural pathway.
It is purely a compensatory strategy involving the visual centres of the right hemisphere – looking at words as if they were pictures.
Little activity is observed in the phonological areas of the left hemisphere where capable readers’ activity is dominant.
The brains of people who can’t sound out words look different – there is less blood flow to the language centres of the brain.
If this sequence (from sounding out to whole word recognition) is not adequately taught, some children will still figure it out for themselves.
However, too many will be forced to employ less rapid and accurate systems, such as prediction from a story’s context, guessing from pictures or the first letter, or trying to memorise every word.
Developing experiences
We now understand that the brain responds to multiple similar experiences. These stimulate activity in particular areas, building connections in and between those active brain regions.
That is how practice makes permanent.
Practising productive strategies forms and strengthens the optimal connections that stimulate subsequent reading development.
In the same way, routinely engaging in ineffective strategies also builds circuits in the brain, but circuits that are second-rate for reading.
These routines are not easy to break when students grow older, perhaps because particularly between ages five and ten a pruning process erases under-used neural cells.
Catch them when young
Forming neural links for language is relatively easy up to about age six, and though achievable after that time, requires much more effort. That is why effective initial teaching is so important.
Among those struggling readers, there are teaching strategies that can alter the inefficient pattern of brain activation. Studies have indicated that about 60 hours of careful daily phonics teaching alters the way the brain responds to print.
Inefficient right-hemisphere activity diminishes, and left-hemisphere activity increases. Subsequent MRI images appear much more like those of good readers. The measured reading outcomes include increased fluency and comprehension.
A taxing effort
The brain imaging studies have also shown how difficult and exhausting is the task of reading for struggling students. They use up to five times as much energy when reading as do fluent readers. It is not surprising that they prefer not to read.
Slow early literacy development usually predicts a progressive decline in academic progress across the primary and secondary years. Such students increasingly lose access to the curriculum, and many become early school-leavers.
The 2005 Australian NITL report called for a renewed emphasis on the phonological approach to beginning reading, in which children take their first steps toward skilled reading by breaking words into sounds and syllables.
This can make a huge difference to the many students for whom reading is unnecessarily difficult, whether the cause involves brain anomalies (very few) or inappropriate teaching (the vast majority). Recent inquiries in the US and Britain reached similar conclusions.
At a time when real reform is possible, it is unfortunate that some politicians and teacher organisations decry both the need for change and the strong evidence upon which the recommendations are based.
Our children’s future is at stake. And it’s time to move on this.
New Content
While the science of reading has made real and substantive change within education, there unfortunately remain too many misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what the science of reading is, and stubborn resistance to all it has to offer. Now more than ever it is vital that we work towards an understanding of the science of reading and what it has to say about teaching our students how to read.
Written for beginning or seasoned teachers, homeschoolers, teacher educators, as well as parents who want to fully engage in their child’s literacy development, this updated and highly readable new edition presents brain science, reading research, and theory in ways that can be understood and directly applied in teaching, ultimately leading to efficacious science of reading based literacy instruction.
Gentry and Ouellette show how an understanding of the science of reading can shape teaching to help make all students literate. Building on their science of reading based framework of “brain words”—dictionaries in the brain where students store and access word spelling, pronunciation, and meaning—the authors offer a wealth of information to transform your thinking and practice. They offer:
- an updated review of models of reading, developmental theory, and brain research that help explain the reading brain
- a new exploration of how oral language provides the foundation for learning to read and write, and how elements of oral language directly contribute to literacy learning throughout the school years
- an evolving critique of classroom practices that aren’t as effective as once believed
- explicit guidance on how spelling can be used to teach the critical skill of word reading
- a deepened understanding of dyslexia through the lens of the science of reading
With the insights and strategies in Brain Words, you can meet your students where they are and ensure that more of them read well, think well, and write well.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter Chapter 1|14 pages
The Science of Reading: Rethinking Reading Instruction as Building a Dictionary in the Brain
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 2|18 pages
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 3|14 pages
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 4|12 pages
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 5|22 pages
What Works and What Doesn’t: An Evolving Critical Look at Current Teaching Practices
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 6|24 pages
Phase Observation for Early Spelling to Read
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 7|22 pages
Spell-to-Read: Building Brain Words in Kindergarten and First Grade
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 8|16 pages
Building Brain Words in Second Through Sixth Grade
Title
Abstract
chapter Chapter 9|18 pages
Understanding and Supporting Children with Dyslexia in Light of the Science of Reading
Title
Abstract
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Related Books
The Literacy Coaching Handbook
A High School English Teacher’s Guide to Writing Literary
________________________________________
The science of reading meets the science of learning: memory systems, structured literacy, and the role of AI (2025)
“As terms like the Science of Reading and Science of Learning gain prominence in education policy and practice, there is a growing need to clarify what learning entails at a cognitive systems level. In this perspective review, we argue that meaningful instructional practice, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence (AI), must align with the distinct yet interacting memory systems that support human learning across development. Drawing on cognitive science, neuroscience, and educational psychology research, we provide a functional overview of implicit and explicit memory systems and examine their relevance for literacy development. We then frame Structured Literacy within the instructional hierarchy, illustrating how each learning phase (i.e., acquisition, fluency, generalization, adaptation) involves specific learning mechanisms and instructional demands. Finally, we evaluate how AI tools may support or undermine these processes and propose phase-specific approaches to responsible integration. AI should be judged not by its technical sophistication, but by its capacity to support memory systems, preserve teacher agency, and promote lasting, transferable literacy outcomes, especially for vulnerable learners. These are empirical questions. This perspective review is intended to motivate future research into Structured Literacy framed within a more expansive understanding of the science of learning and the responsible, efficacious use of AI in education.”
Odegard, T.N., Gierka, M.V. (2025). The science of reading meets the science of learning: memory systems, structured literacy, and the role of AI. Ann. of Dyslexia (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11881-025-00345-y
________________________________________
Associations between screen-based media use and brain white matter integrity in preschool-aged children (2020)
Recent evidence suggests that screen-based media use poses neurobiological risks in children,16-19 yet its associations with early brain development are largely unknown, particularly during the dynamic span of development before kindergarten.10 Although sensory networks mature relatively early,11 those sensory networks for higher-order skills, such as language,12 executive function,20,21 multi modal association,13 and reading,22,23 exhibit protracted development11,14 and are dependent on constructive stimulation in the home. Specifically, the organization and myelination of white matter tracts, which enhance the efficiency of signal conduction within and between these net works, are highly sensitive to environmental factors.21,24-26
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a powerful means to quantify white matter integrity in the brain and its various factors.27 Parameters of DTI include fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD), scalar values associated with microstructural organization (e.g, bundling, packing), and myelination of white matter tracts.28 The aim of this study was to use DTI to explore the association between composite screen-based media use in the context of the domains cited in the AAP recommendations5 (access, frequency, content, and coviewing) and the indexes of white matter integrity in preschool-aged children, particularly major tracts involved with language, executive functions, and emergent literacy (arcuate fasciculus, inferior longitudinal fasciculus, and uncinate fasciculus).29-34 Given the evidence of risks associated with screen time,5,7 we administered assessments of expressive language, speed of processing, and emergent literacy skills to serve as cognitive behavioral correlates. Our hypothesis was that higher use would be associated with lower integrity in these tracts (i.e., lower FA and higher RD) and with lower scores on corresponding cognitive measures.
Hutton, J. S., Dudley, J., Horowitz-Kraus, T., DeWitt, T., & Holland, S. K. (2020). Associations between screen-based media use and brain white matter integrity in preschool-aged children. JAMA pediatrics, 174(1), e193869-e193869.
________________________________________
The science of reading and its educational implications (2013)
“While the science of reading has made real and substantive change within education, there unfortunately remain too many misunderstandings and misinterpretations of what the science of reading is, and stubborn resistance to all it has to offer. Now more than ever it is vital that we work towards an understanding of the science of reading and what it has to say about teaching our students how to read.
Written for beginning or seasoned teachers, homeschoolers, teacher educators, as well as parents who want to fully engage in their child’s literacy development, this updated and highly readable new edition presents brain science, reading research, and theory in ways that can be understood and directly applied in teaching, ultimately leading to efficacious science of reading based literacy instruction.
Gentry and Ouellette show how an understanding of the science of reading can shape teaching to help make all students literate. Building on their science of reading based framework of “brain words”—dictionaries in the brain where students store and access word spelling, pronunciation, and meaning—the authors offer a wealth of information to transform your thinking and practice. They offer:
- an updated review of models of reading, developmental theory, and brain research that help explain the reading brain
- a new exploration of how oral language provides the foundation for learning to read and write, and how elements of oral language directly contribute to literacy learning throughout the school years
- an evolving critique of classroom practices that aren’t as effective as once believed
- explicit guidance on how spelling can be used to teach the critical skill of word reading
- a deepened understanding of dyslexia through the lens of the science of reading
With the insights and strategies in Brain Words, you can meet your students where they are and ensure that more of them read well, think well, and write well.”
________________________________________
Seidenberg, M. S. (2013). The science of reading and its educational implications. Language learning and development, 9(4), 331-360.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1|14 pages
The Science of Reading: Rethinking Reading Instruction as Building a Dictionary in the Brain
Chapter 2|18 pages
Chapter 3|14 pages
Chapter 4|12 pages
Chapter 5|22 pages
What Works and What Doesn’t: An Evolving Critical Look at Current Teaching Practices
Chapter 6|24 pages
Phase Observation for Early Spelling to Read
Chapter 7|22 pages
Spell-to-Read: Building Brain Words in Kindergarten and First Grade
Chapter 8|16 pages
Building Brain Words in Second Through Sixth Grade
Understanding and Supporting Children with Dyslexia in Light of the Science of Reading
To purchase a print version of this book for personal use or request an inspection copy
Related Books
The Literacy Coaching Handbook By Diana Sisson, Betsy Sisson