How Research-Based Frameworks Help Us Understand Literacy Development
by
Understanding literacy development
Reading and writing develop together in a reciprocal process, yet they are often taught as separate skills. Research shows that strengthening writing can support reading development, and vice versa (Graham & Hebert, 2011). For educators, understanding how these skills develop and interact can feel overwhelming.
Research-based frameworks provide a roadmap for understanding how literacy develops, helping educators identify the skills that contribute to proficient reading and writing, guide instruction and assessment, and support informed decisions about intervention and support.
Key frameworks
No single framework explains every aspect of literacy development. Instead, educators can use multiple complementary frameworks to better understand how literacy skills develop, how those skills work together, and where students may need additional support.
Research shows that reading and writing rely on interconnected language and cognitive skills (Kim & Schatschneider, 2017). The frameworks below primarily focus on reading, providing practical, evidence-based guidance for teaching the essential skills that underlie proficient reading. While these frameworks focus on reading, they also help teachers see how the processes involved in reading connect to writing.
The Five Pillars (National Reading Panel, 2000)
The Five Pillars identify critical components of effective reading instruction. They highlight skills that research has shown are important contributors to reading success and provide a useful foundation for instructional planning.
- Phonemic awareness: The ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken words
- Phonics: The ability to connect letters and sounds to decode words
- Fluency: The ability to read accurately, automatically, and with expression
- Vocabulary: The ability to understand and use word meanings to support reading and writing
- Comprehension: The ability to understand and make meaning from text
Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986)
The Simple View of Reading frames reading comprehension as the combination of word recognition and language comprehension. Both matter. If a student struggles with either word recognition or language comprehension, reading comprehension will be affected.
The Simple View of Reading also provides a useful lens for assessment because it helps educators determine whether comprehension difficulties stem primarily from challenges with word recognition, language comprehension, or both.
Word recognition: The ability to translate print into spoken words, including phonics, decoding, and sight word recognition
Language comprehension: The ability to understand spoken language, including vocabulary, syntax, semantics, and background knowledge
Scarborough's Reading Rope (2001)
While The Simple View of Reading offers a high-level picture, learning to read and write is anything but simple. Scarborough's Reading Rope helps visualize the nuanced components of those two broad constructs. Each strand represents a collection of interwoven skills that develop over time.
The Reading Rope helps educators understand that skilled reading is not built on a single skill. Rather, it emerges as multiple language and word-recognition processes become increasingly strategic and automatic over time.
Word recognition
- Phonological awareness: recognizing and manipulating sounds in spoken words
- Decoding: applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships to read words
- Sight word recognition: reading words by blending sounds and, with practice, recognizing them automatically
Language comprehension
- Background knowledge: having a broad understanding of facts, concepts, and how things are connected
- Vocabulary: knowing and using word meanings
- Language structure: understanding grammar and sentence patterns
- Verbal reasoning: drawing inferences and understanding implied meanings
- Literacy knowledge: recognizing text structures, genres, and conventions
Together, these frameworks do more than guide instruction. They also help educators think about assessment. They provide a common language for understanding literacy development and help educators move beyond viewing reading achievement as a single score or outcome.
Instead, literacy can be understood as a collection of interconnected skills that develop over time. From this perspective, assessment can provide valuable information about student strengths, areas of need, and opportunities for targeted support.
The reciprocal nature of reading and writing
Reading and writing are two sides of the same coin. Research shows that young children need writing to help them learn about reading, and reading, in turn, supports writing. They also need oral language to help them learn about both (Roskos, Christie, & Richgels, 2003).
The Reading Rope illustrates just how complex skilled reading is and highlights the same underlying skills that make students stronger writers. Reading and writing draw on shared language systems: the ability to decode words supports encoding them in writing, and these processes are interdependent, so they should be taught and practiced together.
Writing development itself depends on two key components, as described by Berninger's Simple View of Writing: transcription, the ability to spell and produce text through handwriting or keyboarding, and composition, the ability to generate and organize ideas into written language (Berninger, 2002). These components mirror the processes in the Simple View of Reading, which include word recognition and language comprehension, and highlight how reading and writing develop in parallel.
Because reading and writing draw on the same underlying language systems, evidence gathered through either process can provide insight into a student's literacy development. Observing how students read, spell, and write can help educators better understand instructional needs and monitor growth over time.
As students write, they apply and strengthen their knowledge of spelling patterns, vocabulary, and sentence structure, reinforcing the same skills that support fluent reading. When students write about what they read, they deepen comprehension, build automaticity in word recognition, and strengthen both their expressive and receptive language skills.
Bringing it back to practice
Align instruction with research-based frameworks: Use frameworks such as the 5 Pillars, Simple View, and Reading Rope to understand the skills that contribute to literacy development and inform instructional planning.
Integrate reading and writing: Reading and writing draw on shared language systems. Intentional opportunities to connect the two can strengthen both.
Use assessment to understand learner needs: Gather information about student performance across literacy skills to identify strengths, target support, and monitor growth over time.
Base decisions on evidence: Use research and student data together to guide instructional, intervention, and support decisions.
Stay responsive: Adjust instruction based on what students know, can do, and are ready to learn next.
Keep learning
Reading and writing develop together in complex ways, and the frameworks we covered can help make sense of it all. The following resources offer clear explanations, practical strategies, and research-based insights that can support your teaching and help you strengthen literacy instruction.
National Reading Panel (2000), Teaching Children to Read – Evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for instruction.
Models of Reading, Reading Rockets – Overview of research-based literacy models.
Hennessy, N. (2020), What is the Language Literacy Connection for Skilled Reading? – Research-based insights connecting language and literacy development.
Moats, L. (2019), How Spelling Supports Reading – Explains how spelling and reading rely on the same underlying knowledge
A moment of reflection
Research-based frameworks provide a roadmap for understanding how reading and writing develop. Take a moment to reflect on your own instruction:
- Which skills highlighted in these frameworks are you already reinforcing effectively?
- How are you using evidence of student learning to identify strengths and needs?
- What is one intentional next step you could take to strengthen the connection between reading and writing in your classroom instruction?
References
Berninger, V. W., Vaughan, K., Abbott, R. D., Begay, K., Coleman, K. B., Curtin, G., … Graham, S. (2002). Teaching spelling and composition alone and together: Implications for the Simple View of Writing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(2), 291–304.
Gough, P., & Tunmer, W. E. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7(1), 6–10.
Graham, S., & Hebert, M. A. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710–744.
Kim, Y.-S. G., & Schatschneider, C. (2017). Expanding the developmental models of writing: A direct and indirect effects model of developmental writing (DIEW). Journal of Educational Psychology, 109(1), 35–50.
Moats, L. (2020). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (3rd ed.). Brookes Publishing.
National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Roskos, K. A., Christie, J. F., & Richgels, D. J. (2003). The essentials of early literacy instruction. Young Children, 58(2), 52–60.
Scarborough, H. (2001). Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 97–110). Guilford Press.