Reading Rope

What is reading rope? When we think about learning to read and to read well, we tend to immediately think about knowing letter sounds and how to sound out words. This is a prerequisite to reading fluency, but reading requires much more. Scarborough’s Reading Rope provides an excellent model of the skills needed to be an accomplished reader. Each rope strand represents a skill, and all the strands are then intertwined to indicate the relationship among the strands. When any one or more of the strands is weak, reading skills are compromised.

Reading Rope Skill Levels

A reading rope references two skill levels. One level is what we typically think of when learning to read. It consists of phonological awareness, decoding and recognizing sight words. Phonological awareness is knowledge of sounds and how sounds go together to make words. Decoding is sounding out words letter by letter and requires knowledge of the sounds associated with letters. Sight word recognition is knowing highly familiar words and reading these words without needing to sound them out. Sight word recognition helps us read more fluently.

The second level requires knowledge of language. Knowledge of language consists of background knowledge, vocabulary and sentence level understanding of language, verbal reasoning, and literary knowledge. Background knowledge (our understanding of concepts, ideas, etc.) and a strong vocabulary help readers understand what they are reading. They can relate new information in the text to knowledge they already have, and thus more easily understand what they are reading. Knowledge of language structure includes knowing the order in which we use words, rules that apply to the English language, and how an author’s choice of words and word order at the sentence level affects the meaning of the text.

Verbal reasoning is understanding figurative language which is knowledge of metaphors, similes, analogies, idioms, and inferencing. Readers usually learn a great deal about figurative language through school instruction. And lastly, literary knowledge is understanding book concepts such as turning pages, reading from left to right, and understanding the different types and styles of writing, such as fiction, nonfiction, autobiography/biography, poetry, etc. Our literary knowledge expands when we read different genres and styles of writing.

This reading rope model illustrates the skills needed to be an accomplished reader. Reading proficiently requires each skill, that is, to read text fluently and with understanding. A breakdown in any one skill will impact the ability to fully comprehend text and will make reading less enjoyable. Learn more about helping develop early literacy skills here.