_edited.jpg)
Structured Literacy
What is Structured Literacy?
Structured Literacy is an evidence-based approach to reading and writing instruction that supports all students. It is comprehensive and integrates listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It helps students understand how spoken language connects to written language by directly teaching the structure of language. Structured literacy is essential for students with dyslexia and beneficial for all learners. It is defined by both the content that is taught and the way instruction is delivered.
What is Taught in a Structured Literacy Lesson?
Dyslexia and most reading disorders originate with language processing weaknesses. Consequently, the content of instruction is analysis and production of language at all levels: sounds, spellings for sounds and syllables, patterns and conventions of the writing system, meaningful parts of words, sentences, paragraphs, and discourse within longer texts.
Phonemic Awareness
the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. It includes skills such as blending, segmenting, adding, deleting, and substituting sounds in words. It lays the foundation for reading and spelling by helping learners decode and encode words
How is a Structured Literacy Lesson Taught?
Systematic & Cumulative
teaching language concepts in a planned, logical sequence, showing how each element connects to the whole. It is important because it allows learners to build skills step by step, leading to automatic and fluent use of language when reading for meaning.
Multimodal
teaching language through multiple modes, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic activities. Engaging different senses helps learners make stronger connections between sounds, letters, and meaning, supporting reading, spelling, and writing development.
Explicit Instruction
teaching each concept clearly and directly, with guided practice and structured routines. It is important because it ensures learners apply new skills accurately to reading and writing while receiving immediate feedback, rather than relying on guesswork or exposure alone.
Diagnostic Teaching
using students’ responses to guide lesson pacing, presentation, and practice. It is important because it allows teachers to monitor progress, adjust instruction, and ensure that students retain and master the skills being taught.
Balanced Literacy vs Structured Literacy
Balanced literacy combines various reading experiences, including shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading. While it may not explicitly promote guessing at words, it often emphasizes context, meaning, and exposure to text rather than systematic instruction in the structure of language. It often includes analytic phonics, which teaches students to identify sounds in words by analyzing whole words rather than learning individual letter–sound relationships in a clear sequence.
​
Structured literacy takes a different approach by explicitly and systematically teaching the building blocks of language, including sounds, letters, word parts, sentence structure, and meaning. Skills are taught in a clear sequence, reinforced through guided practice, and applied across reading, writing, listening, and speaking. This approach ensures all students, especially those with reading difficulties, develop accurate and fluent decoding and encoding skills.