Connecticut State Department of Education

Teacher of the Year Ceremony
Due to inclement weather, the Teacher of the Year Ceremony has been postponed to December 16, 2025 from 5-7pm. Doors will open at 4pm. The Ceremony will take place at the Bushnell Theater in Hartford, and the order of events will remain the same.

The Literacy How Reading Wheel

Circular diagram with five sections around a center labeled ‘Oral Language at the Core.’ The sections are: Text Comprehension & Written Expression, Vocabulary & Morphology, Syntax – sentence-level skills, Phonics & Spelling, and Phonemic Awareness.

Reprinted with permission from Literacy How

Another conceptual model for reading instruction is the Literacy How Reading Wheel. While it includes many of the same aspects critical to literacy instruction as in other frameworks (e.g., phonics and spelling, syntax, text comprehension), it has some notable differences that deserve attention as they reflect recent developments in research.

One primary difference is that it considers oral language to be foundational to literacy growth, placing it in the center of all instruction.

Second, it prioritizes phonemic over phonological awareness; students must be able to identify, blend, and segment sounds in order to begin to read and spell. This necessary skill should be taught in kindergarten and does not require prior instruction in such phonological skills as rhyming and syllable counting.

Third, it calls out morphology, which is the study of the meaningful parts of words, as equally important to the attainment of word knowledge as vocabulary.

Fourth, it integrates written expression with text comprehension, recognizing how teaching them together maximizes learning.

References

  • Brady, S. (2020). A 2020 perspective on research findings on alphabetics (phoneme awareness and phonics): Implications for instruction. The Reading League Journal, 1(3), 20-28.
  • The Literacy How Reading Wheel. Retrieved from Literacy How: https://literacyhow.org/literacy-how-reading-wheel/.