Journey Trail Notes Simple View of Reading

Welcome to the Journey To Better Reading Trail Notes Blog! This blog will make it easier for parents, teachers, and homeschoolers to find practical tools grounded in research to ensure that every moment you spend trying to improve reading does just that. We will start with one of the most important topics for anyone supporting a child’s reading growth: how the brain actually learns to read. Understanding this process helps parents, teachers, and homeschoolers know why certain approaches work and what to prioritize. Whether you teach in a classroom, guide learning at home, or support readers as a caregiver, you’ll find insights here that make reading instruction clearer and more purposeful.

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Literacy Landmark

Spotlighting strategies and research to support all adults who are a part of a child’s reading growth.

A fantastic place to begin is this short video, “How the Brain Learns to Read”

This video shows a powerful introduction to what decades of research have shown: reading is not a natural, automatic process. The brain must form new neural pathways to connect speech sounds, letters, and their meanings. This is why structured, explicit instruction is so effective, because it aligns with how the reading brain develops.

This aligns perfectly with one of the most influential models of reading development: the Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986), which explains that:

Decoding (D) × Language Comprehension (LC) = Reading Comprehension (RC).

Both components must be strong—and they multiply, not add.

When instruction aligns with the reading brain, explicit phonics, strong vocabulary, and rich discussion, children thrive. When instruction relies on guessing or memorizing whole words, the brain cannot form the connections needed for fluent reading.

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Resource Roadmap

Offering practical books, guides, and downloadable resources that families, teachers, and homeschoolers can use right away.

Learning how the brain learns to read is interesting, but we need to figure out how we can help build the necessary skills to ensure it happens. To learn more about the journey to better reading, consider exploring one of these books.

• Speech to Print by Louisa Moats explains the speech and language underpinnings of decoding.

• Shifting the Balance by Burkins & Yates offers practical classroom shifts that strengthen decoding and comprehension in tandem.

🖋️Side note: These recommendations are not sponsored. They are included because they reflect evidence that supports all readers, especially those who struggle.

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Parent Pathway

Giving parents, family members, and caregivers useful ideas for encouraging reading development at home.

Trail Tots: Birth–5

Try “repeat and extend.”
If your child says “cup,” respond with “Yes, a blue cup with cold water inside.” This expands language comprehension, one half of the Simple View equation, long before reading begins.

Trailblazers: Grades K–3

Blend one word during story time.
Say the sounds—“/s/…/ă/…/t/”—and help your child blend sat. This builds decoding pathways that the reading brain depends on. Even one word a night reinforces strong habits.

Trail Masters: Grades 4–8

Become a word detective.
Take a multisyllabic homework word and break it into meaningful parts (con + struct). This supports both decoding and comprehension, strengthening overall reading proficiency.

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Teacher Tips

Supporting teachers with clear, practical strategies for helping students strengthen reading skills in the classroom.

Trail Tots: Preschool

During read-alouds, use “repeat and extend.”
If the student sees a picture of a bug in a book, and says “bug,” respond with “Yes, that bug is flying across the blue sky.” This expands language comprehension, one half of the Simple View equation, long before reading begins.

Trailblazers: Grades K–3

Model first, then practice.
Show students how to read a word step-by-step—“/f/…/l/…/ă/…/g/ becomes flag.” This explicit modeling aligns with how the brain forms decoding pathways.

Trail Masters: Grades 4–8

Begin with a morphology warm-up.
Teach one prefix, root, or suffix—tele (far), micro (small)—and have students find it in text. This supports meaning-making and thus boosts language comprehension.

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Homeschool Highlights

Helping homeschooling families establish simple and effective literacy routines that make learning engaging and consistent.

Trail Tots: Birth–5

Use talk-rich routines.
Narrate everyday tasks—“I’m slicing the apples into thin pieces”—to strengthen language comprehension.

Trailblazers: Grades K–3

Use a simple three-part reading block.
Sound practice → one decodable text → one dictated or copied sentence. This structure strengthens decoding and reinforces the connections needed for fluent reading.

Trail Masters: Grades 4–8

Incorporate morphology.
Teach one prefix, root, or suffix—tele (far), micro (small)—and find it in text. This supports meaning-making and thus boosts language comprehension.

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