The Language Literacy Network: Say Hello to the Reading Rope’s Better Half

The Scarborough Reading Rope, which unpacks and illustrates the Simple View of Reading, is familiar to almost every professional concerned with the teaching of reading. It’s a useful model that constructively guides practice, but it presents only one half of the story: reading. Literacy is not just reading, but also writing.

The Language Literacy Network was created to provide education professionals with a more complete view of literacy. Similar to the Reading Rope, skilled writing is presented as an integrated multi-component process. As illustrated by The Language Literacy Network, writing shares a reciprocal relationship with reading, and both reading and writing share common underlying language processes.

The Language Literacy Network emphasizes the language processes of reading and writing. While many other processes are involved (e.g., attention, working memory, executive function
skills . . . ), reading and writing at its core is language: The comprehension and expression of language in its written form. By including writing, The Language Literacy Network can present a more current view of literacy than offered by the Reading Rope. Specifically with respect to word-level decoding and encoding, The Language Literacy Network infographic highlights the reciprocal relationship and transfer of skills between the decoding and spelling words and the advantages provided by a speech-to-print approach based on current models and research.

This webinar will begin with a review of the key features of the Simple View of Reading (SVR) and the Reading Rope Model. You’ll then be guided through the components of The Language Literacy Network infographic and explore its similarities and differences with the Reading Rope. You’ll realize the practical implications of The Language Literacy Network, including the speechto-print advantage for literacy and why both reading and spelling of words must be taught, and you’ll leave with new insights for evaluating your current teaching practices and for implementing new research.