Research Is Critical When it Comes to Reading Education

Based on sound evidence and comprehensive research, Istation is powered by the science of reading and covers the National Reading Panel’s “Big Five” foundational essentials: phonemic awareness, phonics, comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency.

“Lots of scholars worked under these groups to help us better understand these five components of reading,” said Claudia Casillas, a professional development (PD) specialist at Istation. “Because reading is this complex and dynamic process, it’s really important to access the wealth of knowledge that is available to us — because teachers are engaged in the most important process on the planet.”

Toni Montgomery, also an Istation PD specialist, has been innovating in the field of special education for years and remembers when separating readers of different abilities was just coming into vogue.

“We really looked at how to help students who had great learning difficulties learn,” Montgomery said. “So, they weren’t having success in the regular classroom for some reason, and that student really could not understand the text. We had to go back and restructure learning for them, helping them to look at individual sounds and alphabetic phoning principles, getting the student to focus on what they could do as opposed to what the students around them could do.”

Listen as MarketScale's Shelby Skrak chats with Claudia Casillas and Toni Montgomery about why a scientific understanding of reading is critical to making sure students are increasing literacy. Catch more on MarketScale’s podcast channel The Future of eLearning.