Progress in Reading Science and its Uneven Impact on Practice

From the first studies of reading over 100 years ago to the present day, much has been learned about how humans are able to obtain language-based messages out of written graphs of all kinds. How children learn to read words, the knowledge they have about spoken language that is critical in this process, the processes of skilled word identification and comprehension, the causes of reading difficulties, the extent to which reading varies with different writing systems, how the brain organizes itself to read: Progress has been made in all these aspects of reading. Although progress in the science of reading should be expected to support in the practices of teaching reading, this has occurred in uneven and incomplete ways.