Reading Basics

Learning to read is a process of learning certain separate, basic, skills first, and then combining those skills for faster, smoother reading and understanding, or what we typically call “fluency and comprehension.” The first skills children need for reading are to understand the connection of individual sounds and letters to complete words. From there, children can build up to recognizing words and learning their meaning—the vocabulary skills that can make them fluent readers.

Basic reading skills fall into groups or categories. These categories of skills, the components of reading, build on one another. The main components are Recognizing Words and Understanding Language. Recognizing Words includes all the skills related to word-level reading, like learning letter names and sounding out letters and words, or what we call phonological awareness, phonics, and decoding, and learning certain familiar words on sight. The Understanding Language component of reading skills includes concepts of writing or print, including an orientation to printed material, vocabulary, and listening comprehension.

The main goal of learning to read is comprehension, or the ability to understand a written language. For fluent readers, reading may seem effortless, but reading comprehension is a complex skill that is based on a foundation of different skill sets. For example, higher-order skills like fluency and comprehension are built on lower-order skills like sounding out words and vocabulary. Select a resource article above to learn more about how these skills are tested and measured.