Scarborough's Reading Rope
Scarborough's Reading Rope
The Reading Rope was developed by Dr. Hollis Scarborough, a senior scientist at Haskins Laboratories. It is an expansion of The Simple View of Reading and illustrates the complexities of learning to read with the interwoven strands that depict the necessary subskills within the two components of The Simple View: Word Recognition (Decoding) and Language Comprehension.
The lower strands are formed by three word recognition strands: phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. These strands work together as the reader becomes accurate, fluent, and increasingly automatic over time with repetition and practice.
The upper strands are formed by five language comprehension strands: background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. These strands reinforce one another and become increasingly strategic over time with repetition and practice.
The language comprehension strands and word recognition strands then weave together, becoming increasingly strategic and automatic to produce a skilled reader.
Amplify's The Science of Reading podcast is celebrating the anniversary of the rope as well. So far, the first three episodes of season three are focused on Scarborough's Rope. Subscribe & don't miss an episode!
2021 marks 20 years since the first publication of Scarborough's Reading Rope. PaTTAN is hosting a monthly webinar to take a close look at each strand. Each episode will be recorded and posted in the padlet above along with additional resources shared during the presentation.
AIM Institute for Learning and Research is offering the first 5 sessions of their new Pathways to Practice Webinar Series at no charge. This series is based on the Science of Reading and focuses on the Language Comprehension Upper Strands of Dr. Hollis Scarborough's Reading Rope.
Videos and downloadable materials are also available for each strand of the rope here: https://institute.aimpa.org/resources/pathways-to-practice/pathways-to-practice-resources