The Science of Reading in 2025: What Leaders Should Do Next

(for District & School Leaders in K–8 Education)

The Science of Reading (SoR) isn’t hype—it’s a durable body of evidence about how students learn to read. For leaders navigating implementation across classrooms and tutoring programs, the question isn’t whether to adopt SoR principles; it’s how to execute them well at scale. 

This 2025 update distills what to Examine, Create, Communicate, Inquire, Link, Reflect, and Strive for your teams to move from compliance to impact.

1) Examine: Keep the core model tight (and teach it explicitly)

Decades of research remain clear: strong early literacy hinges on explicit, systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Districts don’t need a new pendulum swing; they need fidelity in these essentials, supported by aligned instructional materials.

💡Leader move: Audit Tier 1, intervention blocks, and tutoring sessions against those five essentials. Look for explicit routines (I do/We do/You do), cumulative review, and clear mastery checks.

2) Create: Build instruction around both word recognition and language comprehension

Scarborough’s Reading Rope still offers the clearest roadmap: skilled reading emerges as strands of word recognition (phonological awareness, decoding, sight recognition) intertwine with language comprehension (background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, literacy knowledge).

💡Leader move: Require placement and progress tools that diagnose strand-level needs (e.g., phoneme manipulation vs syntax vs background knowledge) and ensure intervention lessons match the profile.

3) Communicate: Standards-aligned doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all

The What Works Clearinghouse practice guide outlines four concrete recommendations for K–3 foundational skills—teaching letter-sound relationships, blending/segmenting, decoding/spelling, and reading connected text with fluency supports. Share these plainly with principals, interventionists, and tutoring partners; leaders who make practices visible accelerate consistency.

💡Leader move: Publish a one-page “Foundational Skills Playbook” that names the routines you expect to see and the evidence behind them, then walk classrooms to celebrate bright spots.

4) Inquire: Dose, group, and time are implementation levers—treat them like strategy, not logistics

High-impact tutoring works best when sessions are frequent, consistent, and tightly connected to grade-level work and foundational gaps. To make tutoring additive (not disruptive), leaders should ask:

• Dosage: 3-5 sessions/week accelerates skill consolidation.

• Group size: 1:1 or very small groups keep practice and feedback precise.

• Time of day: Protect blocks that don’t conflict with core instruction or high-value specials.

  
  

  💡Leader move: Set dosage and group guidelines district-wide and monitor fidelity in weekly data reviews.

5) Link: Background knowledge and vocabulary are not “nice-to-haves”

Comprehension gains hinge on the content knowledge students bring to text. Ensure text sets in ELA and content areas build domain knowledge, academic vocabulary, and syntax facility from science and social studies to the arts.

💡Leader move: Require content-rich “foundational skills texts” and coherent knowledge-building sequences. Ask PLCs to plan pre-teaching of critical vocabulary and sentence structures in advance of complex texts.

6) Reflect: Teacher learning quality determines student learning quality

States have moved quickly to elevate SoR expectations, but policy alone won’t shift daily instruction. Encourage ongoing professional learning that models explicit instruction, provides coaching on error correction and cumulative review, and aligns to your adopted instructional materials.

💡Leader move: Offer ongoing, practice-based professional learning that features modeling, rehearsal, coaching cycles, and classroom-embedded feedback. Align tutoring partners to the same playbook.

7) Strive: Make progress monitoring simple, frequent, and actionable

Short, recurring checks tied to the taught skill (e.g., phoneme segmentation, decoding with specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences, rate/accuracy/prosody in connected text) ensure timely pivots.

💡Leader move: Standardize a district cadence (e.g., every 2-3 weeks) for quick checks and ensure tutoring partners and teachers review the same dashboard so everyone reads from one source of truth.

Implementation Checklist for District Leaders

• Examine your system: Do all K–3 classrooms and tutoring blocks teach the five essentials explicitly (BookNook does)? Are your instructional materials genuinely aligned to learning standards and SoR routines (not just labeled so)? 

• Create the enabling conditions: Lock dosage and group size guidance for intervention and tutoring. Schedule protects foundational skills time; tutoring complements, not replaces, core instruction.

• Communicate expectations clearly: A one-page routine list (phonemic awareness → phonics → connected text → fluency). Look-fors for principals; quick video exemplars for staff meetings.

• Inquire with data every week: Use a reading proficiency measure plus brief skill checks to drive regrouping and lesson selection. Track attendance, dosage, and growth together to spot where support is needed fastest.

• Link knowledge across subjects: Adopt knowledge-building text sets; plan explicit vocabulary and syntax supports in content classes.

• Reflect on adult learning: Provide rehearsal-based PD, coaching cycles, and classroom-embedded feedback tied to your materials and routines. 

• Strive for equity with precision: Prioritize students with the largest unfinished learning; schedule earlier in the day; monitor for accelerated progress across campuses.

Why this still matters

NAEP declines and widening gaps won’t reverse without disciplined execution of what the research already tells us works. Leaders who examine their programs honestly give students the strongest odds of reading success. When we keep the focus on explicit instruction, coherent materials, frequent practice in connected text, and tight progress monitoring, we move beyond buzzwords and into outcomes.

Next Steps / CTAs for District Leaders:

1. Schedule a 60-minute launch meeting with your literacy leadership team: Review your current foundational skills routines and map gaps in dosage, group size, or alignment.

2. Create a one-page “Foundational Skills Playbook” and distribute it to all K–3 and intervention teachers + tutoring partners this month.

3. Identify two campuses with the largest reading-proficiency gaps, and pilot a high-dosage tutoring schedule (3–5 sessions/week, 1:1 or 1:2) starting next term—then collect data at 6 and 10 weeks. Let BookNook help you! 

4. Launch a monthly coaching cycle for instructional leaders: each cycle includes a classroom walk-through, feedback aligned to your routines, and a shared reflection meeting with tutoring coordinators.