From the Simple View of Reading to an Integrated View of Foundational Skills

Our guest author, Rafely Palacios, is a bilingual first-grade teacher in the Bay Area specializing in reading instruction for multilingual learners.

If you’re a teacher, you’ve likely encountered the Simple View of Reading (SVR). This model shows that reading comprehension results from two essential components: decoding (word recognition) and language comprehension (understanding spoken language). In many U.S. classrooms, these components are taught in separate instructional blocks: phonics for decoding and, later, a distinct time for comprehension or oral language. 

But could this separation have unintended effects on students’ development as readers?

In Elbow Room, a paper recently published by the Albert Shanker Institute, Dr. Maryanne Wolf challenges a siloed interpretation of the Simple View of Reading, shown by the separation of decoding and comprehension blocks in many classrooms. Instead, Dr. Wolf argues for a more integrated approach to foundational skills. Rather than treating decoding and language comprehension as parallel but separate strands, she emphasizes that children must develop word recognition, word meaning, syntax, and morphology as interrelated components within a coherent instructional sequence. Dr. Wolf argues that each skill, and their integration, must be taught explicitly, systematically, and cumulatively, ensuring no component is left to chance, while remaining dynamic enough to adapt pace and support to each learner's needs.

I recommend this paper to all primary-grade teachers. Dr. Wolf’s work broadens our understanding of how we act as architects for our students, revealing how every lesson and interaction reshapes a child’s mind. It answers questions we often have about why some students struggle, showing that the 'magic' happens when our instruction helps them integrate skills rather than teach them in isolation. In this post, I share key ideas from Dr. Wolf’s paper and reflect on how they are shaping my own first-grade reading instruction. 

Why the Reading Wars Miss the Point 

For decades, educators, researchers, parents, and policymakers have debated how best to teach reading. Two approaches are often positioned in opposition: Structured Literacy, which addresses all components of reading and emphasizes systematic, explicit instruction, especially in foundational skills such as phonology and decoding, and Whole Language, which prioritizes reading for meaning, using rich texts and context to support comprehension, with decoding often taught implicitly. 

It is essential to clarify that Structured Literacy is distinct from the Science of Reading (SOR). The Science of Reading refers to the body of interdisciplinary research on how the brain learns to read. Structured Literacy is one instructional approach informed by that research, but it is not synonymous with it.

Despite decades of debate, two facts are difficult to dispute. First, national assessments reveal a critical literacy gap: over one-third of students perform 'Below Basic,' meaning they lack the fundamental skills for grade-level work. While systemic factors like poverty, school underfunding, and the effects of the pandemic compound this issue, inconsistent instructional practices remain a primary, addressable concern. When classroom methods are not aligned with literacy research, the impact is not felt equally; as Dr. Wolf argues in Elbow Room, insufficient and inconsistent instruction most disadvantages marginalized students, who are often left without the foundational tools to bridge these divides.

Second, decades of neuroscience research have given us a clearer picture of how the brain learns to read. These studies show that reading circuits are built gradually and that explicit, systematic instruction matters, including sufficient practice with texts. They also reveal something important: the distinctions we draw between instructional camps do not exist in the reading brain.

Skilled reading does not involve switching between phonics and comprehension.

Decoding, language comprehension, background knowledge, and meaning-making operate together. As Dr. Wolf argues, this reality calls for humility. No single approach offers children everything they need. Each approach has something to contribute, and students benefit when instruction integrates the strengths of both approaches, intentionally and thoughtfully (explicit and systematic).

How the Reading Brain Is Built

A child’s reading journey begins long before formal schooling. At birth, the brain contains foundational systems for language, cognition, and vision. From infancy through early childhood, these systems are shaped through rich interaction, play, conversation, and meaningful engagement with the world. The quality of a child’s language environment, regardless of language or dialect, plays a crucial role in strengthening the neural pathways that later support decoding, word recognition, comprehension, and fluent reading.

During this period, children gradually come to understand three foundational concepts: words represent ideas and objects; words are composed of individual sounds; and these sounds can be represented by letters that form written words.

But understanding these concepts is only the beginning. The brain must organize them into a functional reading circuit that links letters, sounds, words, and meaning. Children are not born with this circuit. Reading is a cultural invention, and the brain must learn it by repurposing and connecting existing neural systems. This is why teaching reading is an act of building brain circuits.

Phonics and Beyond: Building an Integrated Reading Circuit

Phonics instruction teaches children how sounds map onto letters, the code of written language. But sounding out a word does not guarantee understanding. Readers must also know what words mean, how sentences work, and how ideas connect across text.

In my first-grade classroom, this integration occurs daily. When we decode a word like replay, we don’t stop at sounding it out. We pause to ask what re- means, how it changes the base word play, and how the word functions in the sentence we’re reading. During phonics, we talk about meaning. During reading, we return to studying word structure. I plan these moments to match what we are learning in phonics, build on our work with word structure in morphology, and connect to language comprehension. This is how our students' brains process text: not as separate skills in isolation, but as interconnected systems working together.

Dr. Wolf captures this complexity with the mnemonic POSSUM, which names the interdependent processes involved in skilled reading:

• P – Phonology, Phonemic Awareness, Prosody, and Pragmatics
• O – Orthographic patterns
• S – Semantics (meaning)
• S – Syntax (sentence structure)
• U – Understanding the alphabetic principle and stories
• M – Morphology (meaningful word parts) 

As Connie Juel noted in 2005, “The biggest mistake most early instructional approaches make is to assume that when children decode a word, they know the word.” Phonics is essential, but it is only one component of a much larger system. 

This integrated view also affects how we think about fluency. Fluency is not simply about reading faster. It reflects how efficiently multiple reading processes work, both independently and together. As children strengthen decoding, morphology, and syntax, these processes become more automatic and better coordinated, freeing cognitive space for comprehension and meaning-making.

Giving the Reading Brain Elbow Room

This brings us to Wolf’s central metaphor. Just as we need physical elbow room to move comfortably, the reading brain needs cognitive and instructional space to build and integrate its many components.

The elbow analogy helps teachers visualize how instruction should shift over time

• Early in reading development, foundational skills—phonics, decoding, and orthography—need the most emphasis. These are the “top arm” of the crossed-elbows model.
• Comprehension, however, is never absent. Even simple texts require meaning, syntax, and word knowledge. This reflects Dr. Wolf’s expanded view of foundational skills, in which decoding and understanding are developed explicitly and systematically from the start. Once a few letter-sounds are learned, this kickstarts decoding, word recognition, and so on.
• As fluency develops, deep reading comprehension processes (the bottom arm) gradually move to the foreground, while foundational skills continue to support from below. 

Imagine crossing your arms, then switching which arm is on top. The arms represent the balance between basic skills and comprehension; both are always present and support each other, but the focus (i.e., which takes the lead) shifts as children develop. 

Why This Matters

Phonics instruction is necessary but not sufficient. Fluency is not just about speed; it emerges when multiple processes become automatic and integrated, allowing the brain to focus on meaning rather than effort.

All children follow a shared developmental architecture for learning to read, with the same neural systems and cognitive processes involved. However, children differ in how quickly these systems develop and in the support they need. Teachers must adapt instructional pace to students' trajectories, language backgrounds, and prior knowledge.

As Dr. Maryanne Wolf writes in Elbow Room, “Phonemes need letters. Phonics needs knowledge of semantics, syntax, and morphemes. Words need stories. The reading brain connects all of these processes, and so should our teaching.

When we give ourselves elbow room, we do more than support the reading brain's processing of foundational skills. We create the conditions for children to become fluent, thoughtful readers who can integrate sound, structure, and meaning. This kind of reading does not emerge from rigid pacing or isolated skills, but from instruction that allows foundational processes to develop in a connected way for each learner. By understanding how the brain learns to read, we move beyond ideological debates and toward teaching that truly serves all children.