Imagine not being able to read. Your academic career would suffer, seriously hampering your chances of ever working your way up in the world. You could never apply for a job without assistance, being incapable of filling out an application form. You couldn’t correspond with friends, read for pleasure, or treat your children to bedtime stories. You would be unable to read road signs, the instructions on a medicine bottle, or the menu in a restaurant. In essence, you would be severely challenged in a reading world.
Reading is a fundamental skill, and getting it right early can make all the difference to a child’s future success. Here are eight facts about teaching reading that you should know:
Teaching reading fact #1: Reading is a complex skill
Playing the piano to the uninitiated is intimidating: learning the proper finger movements, working the pedal, reading notes, and keeping time. To children with reading disabilities, comprehending a simple word can be just as daunting.
“People just don’t get that reading is a complex skill,” says G. Reid Lyon, PhD, Education Leadership and Policy Professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Learning disabilities can manifest in many ways, such as difficulty with mathematics or written expression. However, reading disabilities are far and away the most common variety. “They compose anywhere from 80 to 90 percent of learning disabilities in general,” Lyon says.
Dr. Louisa Moats agrees. “Contrary to the popular theory that learning to read is natural and easy, learning to read is a complex linguistic achievement,” she writes in her booklet Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science. “For many children, it requires effort and incremental skill development.”
Teaching reading fact #2: Phonics instruction is vital
Phonics instruction helps children connect the dots between letters and the sounds they represent in spoken language. At the heart of reading lies the alphabetic principle — the understanding that written letters stand for spoken sounds. When children decode, they’re using this principle to sound out written words and turn print into speech.
Phonics teaching begins with the basics: linking individual letters to their sounds. From there, children learn to blend those sounds together to form words. Instruction then expands to more complex sound patterns — like digraphs and trigraphs (e.g., “sh,” “tch,” “ow”) — and moves from simple one-syllable words to longer, multi-syllable ones.
With clear, systematic phonics instruction, young readers don’t have to guess spelling patterns or rules. Instead, they’re equipped with tools to confidently decode words and make sense of even the trickier parts of English.
Teaching reading fact #3: Reading is more than knowing sounds
While phonics and decoding are essential for learning to read, reading is much more than just sounding out words. True reading involves making meaning from text. A child may be able to pronounce every word on a page perfectly yet still not understand what they’ve read. Goodman and Goodman (1994) assert:
Reading is not simply knowing sounds, words, sentences, and the abstract parts of language that can be studied by linguists. Reading, like listening, consists of processing language and constructing meaning. The reader brings a great deal of information to this complex and active process. […] As readers make use of their knowledge of all the language cues, they predict, make inferences, select significant features, confirm, and constantly work toward constructing a meaningful text. Not only are they constructing meaning. They are constructing themselves as readers. (pp. 112–115).
Reading is a complex process that blends decoding with thinking, understanding, and reflection. Teaching reading effectively means supporting all these components—not just the mechanics of sounding out words but also the magic of making sense of them.
Teaching reading fact #4: Fluency bridges decoding and comprehension
Fluency is the critical link between recognizing words and understanding what they mean. Children who become fluent readers can decode words automatically without pausing to sound them out. This frees up their cognitive energy to focus on meaning rather than mechanics.
Fluent readers read with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression, which supports better engagement and understanding. Without fluency, comprehension suffers—because too much effort is spent on figuring out the words themselves. Building fluency through guided oral reading, repeated reading, and modeling fluent expression helps children become confident, capable readers who can understand and enjoy what they read.
Teaching reading fact #5: Vocabulary and background knowledge matter
A strong vocabulary and broad background knowledge are key ingredients for reading comprehension. When students understand the words in a text and are familiar with the subject matter, they can more easily make sense of what they’re reading. This becomes especially important in higher grades, where texts are denser and more complex.
Even fluent readers can struggle to grasp meaning without the proper vocabulary or context. Teaching new words in meaningful contexts, exposing students to a wide range of topics, and reading aloud regularly all help build this foundation—empowering learners to tackle unfamiliar texts with confidence and curiosity.
Teaching reading fact #6: Comprehension is not a ‘skill’ to be practiced in isolation
Reading comprehension is often treated like a set of strategies—finding the main idea, making inferences, or answering multiple-choice questions. But true understanding doesn’t come from endlessly practicing these skills on random passages. Comprehension depends heavily on what students already know. If a child reads about photosynthesis or the civil rights movement without prior knowledge or vocabulary, no strategy will magically create meaning.
Real comprehension develops when students build background knowledge, engage with rich content, and discuss ideas deeply. Teaching reading means building knowledge and language over time—not just drilling comprehension “skills” in a vacuum.
Teaching reading fact #7: Reading challenges are wide-spread
Learning to read transforms lives. It is the basis for acquiring knowledge, cultural engagement, democracy, and success in the workplace. Lower literacy rates directly correlate to higher unemployment rates and reduced income.
Still, low literacy remains a pressing and widespread issue across the globe. Even in wealthier nations, around 1 in 5 fifteen-year-olds struggle to reach the level of reading needed to fully engage with everyday life. In the United States, the picture is equally concerning: more than half of adults read below a sixth-grade level, and nearly 20% read at or below a third-grade level.
The cost of illiteracy to the global economy is estimated at USD $1.19 trillion (World Literacy Foundation, 2015).
Teaching reading fact #8: Some children need more explicit, intensive support
While many children learn to read with high-quality, structured instruction, others need much more targeted support. These children may have learning differences such as dyslexia, attention difficulties, or language processing disorders that make reading acquisition especially challenging. For them, casual exposure to books or general instruction isn’t enough—they need explicit, systematic, and intensive teaching that breaks down skills step by step. This often includes structured literacy approaches that build cognitive skills and teach phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension using evidence-based methods.
Early identification and intervention are crucial. With the right support, these students can make significant progress and develop into capable, confident readers—but they can’t do it without specialized help.
Edublox offers cognitive training and live online tutoring to students with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and other learning disabilities. Our students are in the United States, Canada, Australia, and elsewhere. Book a free consultation to discuss your child’s learning needs.
Teaching Reading: 8 Facts You Should Know was authored by Sue du Plessis (B.A. Hons Psychology; B.D.), an educational and reading specialist with 30+ years of experience in the learning disabilities field.
