The science of reading supports evidence-based practices for teaching which areas?

• A. Phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension strategies
• B. Spelling alone
• C. Silent reading only
• D. Grammar and punctuation only

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that effective reading instruction draws on several interrelated areas that together build a reader’s ability to decode, understand, and express meaning from text. Specifically, teaching should integrate phonological awareness (recognizing and manipulating sound structures), phonics (mapping sounds to letters to read unfamiliar words), vocabulary (knowing word meanings), fluency (reading with speed, accuracy, and expression), and comprehension strategies (using planning, questioning, predicting, summarizing, and monitoring understanding). Each piece supports the others: phonological awareness and phonics develop decoding skills; fluency bridges word recognition and comprehension; vocabulary and comprehension strategies deepen understanding of what is read and how to think about it while reading.

Choosing to focus only on spelling misses the broader decoding and language-meaning aspects; focusing only on silent reading neglects the explicit, systematic instruction that builds decoding, fluency, and strategy use; and concentrating solely on grammar and punctuation ignores the word-level knowledge and cognitive processes essential for understanding texts.