There has been an increased focus recently on which methods are most effective to teach young children how to read. The 2022 NAEP results showed a decline in fourth graders reading on grade level. In fact, in spite of new standards and increased high-stakes assessment, reading scores have been stagnant since the early 1990s. More than half of students nationwide leave the third grade unable to read at grade level. The question, of course, is why.  Thousands of research studies by cognitive scientists and reading researchers outline effective teaching methods for reading. This body of knowledge is being referred to as “the Science of Reading.” Unfortunately, many classrooms use programs and methods that do not align with the science. In order to improve reading outcomes, it is imperative that the Science of Reading makes its way into every classroom.

What does the Science of Reading recommend?

Reading is the product of an amazingly complex combination of knowledge, strategies and understandings. All readers, even beginning readers, need to use and integrate various kinds of skills, strategies, and background knowledge to create meaning from texts. Hollis Scarborough, a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories, summarized the complexities involved in learning to read in her now-famous Reading Rope (below). The Reading Rope weaves two critical skills: word recognition and language comprehension. In the Word Recognition strand, students learn relationships between speech sounds and letters. In other words, they learn to decode text. In order to make meaning of decoded text, students must bring their vocabulary, language, background knowledge, and critical thinking skills to the task as represented in the Language Comprehension Strand. Instruction based on the Science of Reading must address all of the threads of the Reading Rope.

Scarborough’s Reading Rope

Footsteps2Brilliance curriculum is aligned to the Science of Reading.

Footsteps2Brilliance supports teachers in implementing the Science of Reading. We recognize that the path to literacy starts well before the first day of kindergarten. Our pre-reader curriculum enables preschool parents and teachers to create a strong foundation for literacy with an emphasis on language, print, alphabet knowledge, and phonemic awareness. As students continue in the program, they experience a systematic and explicit phonics curriculum as well as a rich library of eBook units that develop language and critical thinking skills. With Footsteps2Brilliance, schools can provide equitable access to the Science of Reading. The following guide outlines how.

DECODING:

Programs aligned to the Science of Reading teach phonics skills explicitly in a way that students can generalize and apply immediately to reading and writing. The most effective phonics approach teaches children to convert letters or letter combinations into sounds and then to blend the sounds together to form recognizable words. This is called synthetic phonics. Synthetic phonics instruction should follow a systematic scope and sequence with built-in review and repetition. Children should apply newly acquired phonics skills to reading real books and writing.

Footsteps2Brilliance provides systematic and explicit phonics instruction. With our synthetic phonics approach, students hear and pronounce a target phoneme so that they can link that sound to a written letter or letters (grapheme). In our Clever Kids University program, letter sounds are presented to students in a research-based sequence where the first sounds learned are the easiest for students to discriminate. Students can work at their own pace through the phonics sequence. With each lesson, students learn targeted letter sounds, word patterns, and sight words in order to read a decodable book and write about it. Children immediately apply phonics skills they are learning. 

At the heart of Footsteps2Brilliance phonics instruction, the Mega Mouth Decoder books and songs introduce fun and memorable characters designed to help students hear and pronounce the 44 sounds in the English language. Each character’s name, story, and personality emphasize the target sound in an unforgettable way. Students read along to a Mega Mouth Decoder storybook and sing along to a song introducing the character. Next, they trace the target letter and practice matching the letter to the sound. Finally, they use the new grapheme to build words and decode text. 

Sample activities:

Programs aligned to the Science of Reading include phonemic awareness instruction. The skill of understanding spoken language develops naturally from birth. By age 4, children have been so focused on communicating that they lose awareness of the individual sounds in words. Students must become aware of how sounds in words work before they can learn to associate those sounds with letters in print. Research demonstrates that phonemic awareness can be taught and learned. 

Footsteps2Brilliance includes a wealth of multi-sensory games designed to improve phonemic awareness. Phonological and phonemic awareness instruction in Footsteps2Brilliance ensures that students have the ability to recognize (1) words that rhyme, (2) words that begin with the same sound, and (3) that words are made up of discrete sounds. Games are presented in a research-based order that starts with understanding chunks of sounds in syllables and rhyming. Next, students begin to explore initial sounds. Students isolate initial, medial and final sounds, and work on blending, and segmenting. Finally, students practice adding and deleting sounds in fun riddle games.

Sample activities:

Programs aligned to the Science of Reading employ multisensory learning for decoding instruction. Educational researchers have found that multisensory activities can teach students to associate letters with sounds faster. Multi-sensory reading activities can include visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, and oral participation.

Multisensory learning is integrated into the entire Footsteps2Brilliance experience. Unlike workbooks or activity sheets, Footsteps2Brilliance offers students a way to actively engage with language, sounds, and print.  For example, Footsteps2Brilliance has invented a series of multi-sensory phonics games based on the Elkonin boxes, where children explore sounds, build words, and blend sounds using interactive phoneme tiles. Because the tiles represent graphemes instead of just letters, and because the tiles play audio as students work with them, these activities create a powerful experience for children to understand and use the alphabetic principle. Students can also touch any word or picture in order to hear it spoken. Some activities have children record themselves and listen to their recording.

Sample activities:

Programs aligned with the Science of Reading include Formative Assessment. Assessment should inform instruction. Through assessment, teachers can identify where students are struggling in order to reteach or provide additional practice before an area of weakness negatively affects a student’s reading growth.

Footsteps2Brilliance automatically provides real-time insight into each student’s development as a reader. As students read, play, and write on the programs, their performance and proficiency are automatically monitored. There is no need for teachers to interrupt important instructional time with frequent assessments. Using sophisticated scoring algorithms that evaluate a student’s performance within the context of millions of scores nationwide, we are able to present teachers with the insight they need to easily differentiate learning, target interventions, and monitor progress. 

With Footsteps2Brilliance, teachers and administrators have ongoing real-time data analytics to monitor academic achievement, classroom and home use, and family engagement.

Identify which students need help. The Class Dashboard provides quick insight on which students need help in foundational skills, including Phonological Awareness, Phonics, Language Development, Comprehension, and Logic & Reasoning.	Track progress through the systematic decoding sequence. Teachers can quickly identify which students need support making progress through the systematic phonics sequence.
Create flexible groups. Class Dashboards enable teachers to identify which students have shared areas of difficulty in order to create small groups for targeted instruction.	Monitor learning growth. Teachers can monitor student and class growth in the foundational skills of Phonics, Phonological Awareness, Language Development, Comprehension, and Logic & Reasoning.
Identify students’ strengths and weaknesses. For each student, teachers can access a comprehensive view of performance on skills in order to create a personalized learning plan that addresses the student’s unique strengths and weaknesses.	Access a portfolio of authentic student writing. As students create books and writing in the system, teachers automatically collect a digital portfolio of authentic writing as evidence of student progress.
Monitor assignments, daily activity and performance. Teachers can easily provide assignment links to students and track assignment completion. Daily activity is also presented in a log that allows teachers to analyze where students are spending time and how that is impacting their overall performance.	Monitor daily engagement. Teachers can easily monitor where and when students are using the program.

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION:

Programs aligned with the Science of Reading develop deep levels of language competencies. Comprehension is the purpose of reading. If students do not understand what they are decoding, then they are not really reading. It takes more than decoding skills to become a fluent reader with adequate comprehension. Good readers rely on their knowledge of words, language, and background content knowledge in order to make sense of a text.

Footsteps2Brilliance provides thousands of books, games and writing activities to develop vocabulary and content knowledge. Students experience rich instruction and practice targeting background knowledge and Tier 2 vocabulary words in both English and Spanish. Footsteps2Brilliance designers referenced the work of Margaret G. McKeown and Isabel L Beck, in addition to reviewing the Fry and Education Development Laboratory’s (EDL) word lists to ensure that targeted vocabulary is both rigorous and high-utility.

Vocabulary exposure in Footsteps2Brilliance is not a passive experience. Children see and hear the word in the context of an engaging story. Interactive illustrations add a deeper level of word understanding. Footsteps2Brilliance naturally peaks students’ interest and inspires repeated readings. Audio support helps all levels of readers to engage with the rich language of the books and games. Moreover, children can toggle between English and Spanish at any point in the book to enrich their bilingual understanding of the story. 

Each Footsteps2Brilliance book is part of a book unit that includes activities to develop comprehension, vocabulary, and other foundational skills. Each book unit culminates in an opportunity for students to write. 

Students are encouraged to apply and synthesize their understanding of text as they create their own story using the vocabulary, illustrations, and themes from the book. Create-a-Book and My Journal enable students and teachers to write, edit, print, and email books and expository texts using words and artwork from the books they read. All books are saved into an authentic assessment digital portfolio that students and teachers can easily showcase and review.

Sample activities from the “Nellie the Newt” book unit

Below is an example of a Create-a-Book written by a second-grade ELL student after completing the activities in the book unit above:

The examples above show how Footsteps2Brilliance is aligned to the Science of Reading.  This allows teachers to integrate reading methodology with easy-to-implement resources ensuring that all students have the opportunity to become proficient readers. 

 

 

Program Research References:

Footsteps2Brilliance is designed by educators with educators for educators.  Our designers regularly review the latest reading research to ensure the program is solidly grounded in evidence-based practices and aligned with the Science of Reading. The following bibliography represents key research we have referenced in developing the program.

Adams, Marilyn Jager. Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print. MIT Press, 1990.

Beck, I. L., and McKeown, M.G. (2007). Different ways for different goals, but keep your eye on the higher verbal goals. In Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension, edited by Richard K. Wagner, Andrea E. Muse, and Kendra R. Tannebaum, 182-204. New York: Guilford Press.

Beck, Isabel L., McKeown, Margaret G., and Kucan, Linda. Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction. 2nd ed., Guilford Press, 2013.

Beck, Isabel L., McKeown, Margaret G., and Kucan, Linda. Creating Robust Vocabulary: Frequently Asked Questions and Extended Examples. Guilford Press, 2008.

Beck, Isabel L. “Vocabulary Development: All Contexts Are Not Created Equal.” Educational Leadership, vol. 57, no. 6, 2000, pp. 68-71.

Biemiller. A. (2003). Vocabulary: Needed if more children are to read well. Reading Psychology, 24, 323-335. 

Birsh, J. R. (2018). Multisensory Teaching of Basic Language Skills. 4th ed. Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.

Brady, S. (2012). Taking foundational standards far enough. Perspectives on Language and Literacy, 38(4), 19–24. 

Brown, Kathleen J., Kelly C. Patrick, Matthew K. Fields, and Grace T. Craig. “Phonological Awareness Materials in Utah Kindergartens: A Case Study in the Science of Reading.” Reading Research Quarterly, vol. 56, no. S1, 2021, pp. S249–S272. doi:10.1002/rrq.386.

Cárdenas-Hagan, E. (2010). Response to intervention: Implications for Spanish-speaking English language learners. Perspectives on Language and Literacy,
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Dooley, C. M. (2010). Young children’s approaches to books: The emergence of comprehension. The Reading Teacher, 64(2), 120-130. 

Dooley, C. M., & Matthews, M. W. (2009). Emergent comprehension: Understanding compre- hension development among young literacy learners. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 9(3), 269-294.

Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2002). “Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension.” In Handbook of Reading Research, Vol. 3, edited by M. K. Kamil, P. D. Pearson, E. Moje, & P. Afflerbach, 205–242. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ehri, L. C. (2014). “Phases of Development in Learning to Read.” In Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, edited by C. A. C. McGill-Franzen & R. L. Flanigan, 4–18. U.S. Department of Education.

Fischel, J. E., Bracken, S. S., Fuchs-Eisenberg, A., Spira, E. G., Katz, S., & Shaller, G. (2007). Evaluation of curricular approaches to enhance preschool early literacy skills. Journal of Reading Research, 39(4), 471-501.

Fitzgerald, J., and Shanahan,T. (2000). Reading and writing relations and their development. Educational Psychologist, 35, 39–50.


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Graham, S., and Hebert, M. A. (2010). Writing to read: Evidence for how writing can improve reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, DC: Alliance for Excellent Education. 

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& P. Afflerbach (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (Vol. IV, pp. 684–710). Newark, DE: International Reading Association. 

Gutlohn, L., Epton, S., (2018). Assessing Reading Multiple Measures: For All Educators Working to Improve Reading Achievement (2^nd Edition). Consortium on Reading Excellence in Education, Inc. (CORE).

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Kilpatrick, David A. Equipped for Reading Success: A Comprehensive, Step-by-Step Program for Developing Phonemic Awareness and Fluent Word Recognition. 2nd ed., Casey & Kirsch Publishers, 2020. 

Lapp, D., Moss, B., Grant, M., Johnson, K., (2015). A Close Look at Close Reading: Teaching Students to Analyze Complex Texts Grades K-5. ASCD.

McGuinness, D., (1997). Why Our Children Can’t Read and What We Can Do About It. The Free Press. 

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Moats, Louisa C. Speech to Print: Language Essentials for Teachers. 3rd ed., Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co., 2020.

Nagy, W. E. (2007). Metalinguistic awareness and the vocabulary-comprehension connection. In Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension, edited by Richard K. Wagner, Andrea E. Muse, and Kendra R. Tannebaum, 52-77. New York: Guilford Press.

Nagy, W. E., and Scott, J. A. (2000). Vocabulary processes. In Handbook of reading research, vol. 3, edited by Michael K. Kamil, Peter B. Mosenthal, P. David Pearson, and Rebecca Barr, 269–284. Mahwah: Erlbaum Associates. 

National Early Literacy Panel (NELP) (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, D. C.: National Institute for Literacy, National Center for Family Literacy. 

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Scarborough, H. S. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. Neuman & D. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook for research in early literacy (pp. 97–110). New York, NY: Guilford Press. 

Shanahan, T. (2006). Relations among oral language, reading, and writing development. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, and J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 171–183). New York, NY: Guilford. 

Shanahan, T., et al. (2010). Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade: A Practice Guide. Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Shanahan, Timothy, Kim Callison, Christine Carriere, Nell K. Duke, P. David Pearson, Christopher Schatschneider, and Joseph Torgesen. Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade: A Practice Guide (NCEE 2010-4038). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, 2010.

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Sousa, D. A., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2011). Differentiation and the brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press. 

Stahl, S. A., Duffy-Hester, A. M., & Dougherty Stahl, K. A. (2006). Everything You Wanted to Know about Phonics (but Were Afraid to Ask). In K. A. Dougherty and M. C. McKenna (Eds.), Reading Research at Work: Foundations of Effective Practice (pp. 126–154). New York: Guilford Press 

Tierney, R., and Shanahan, T. (1991). Research on the reading-writing relationship: Interactions, transactions, and outcomes. In R. Barr, M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, and D. Pearson (Eds.), The handbook of reading research (Vol. 2; pp. 246–280). New York, NY: Longman. 

Torgesen, Joseph K., et al. “Prevention of Reading Difficulties: Research-Based Interventions.” Elementary School Journal, vol. 100, no. 5, 2000, pp. 211-226.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2012). Digest of Education Statistics, 2011.Willingham, Daniel T. “How Knowledge Helps: It Speeds and Strengthens Reading Comprehension, Learning—and Thinking.” American Educator, Spring 2006.