Balanced vs Structured Literacy
Last updated: 27 May 2024. View or print pdf here.
If you are confused about the difference between a ‘Balanced’ Literacy and a ‘Structured’ Literacy approach we set out below a little content from Professor Pamela Snow and the International Dyslexia Association to help explain the two approaches and their differences.
Please note that semantics matter - we are seeing a lot of use of a ‘structured approach’ to literacy. This is NOT necessarily the same as a ‘Structured Literacy’ approach. You need to look into the detail of each approach to be able to judge if it is fully aligned with the teaching principles and content areas set out by the International Dyslexia Foundation (see below for more details). Otherwise, it is may be a modified version of a Balanced Literacy approach, or a more targeted or narrow aspect of a comprehensive Structured Literacy approach (for example, focusing on a specific age cohort, or focusing on one or two content elements of literacy instruction).
Content is drawn from Professor Pamela Snow’s article in the Journal of Perspectives on Language and Literacy (Winter 2020), as well as the International Dyslexia Association (IDA) website.
Structured Literacy
The term Structured Literacy refers to the content (WHAT we teach) and methods or principles of teaching reading and writing (HOW we teach) that are proven to work for struggling readers.
It is an evidence-based approach that requires teachers to have a good understanding of the science of reading (the cognitive processes happening in the brain as we learn to read and write) that underpins the approach (the WHY).
It is not an off-the-shelf scripted reading programme, or a fixed, one-size-fits-all approach.
Origins of the term
The term ‘Structured Literacy’ comes from the International Dyslexia Association (IDA), a not-for-profit charity operating since 1920 that provides advocacy, resources and services to teaching professionals, advocates and individuals and families impacted by dyslexia and other related learning differences.
In 2010, the IDA published its Knowledge and Practice Standards for Teachers of Reading which details the knowledge base required for skilled reading instruction for all teachers of reading. These were updated in 2018. Programmes that certify teachers of reading may differ in a number of ways, but they should ascribe to a common set of professional standards.
IDA has defined evidence-based reading through the Knowledge and Practice Standards and given the approach a name, ‘Structured Literacy,’ an explicit, systematic, multimodal, and diagnostic (more on these principles below) approach that focuses on giving students the ability to decode the words they encounter when learning to read.
“The term ‘Structured Literacy’ is not designed to replace Orton Gillingham, Multi-Sensory or other terms in common use. It is an umbrella term designed to describe all of the programs that teach reading in essentially the same way.”
Hal Malchow – International Dyslexia Association
Theoretical bases
From a theoretical perspective, a Structured Literacy approach aligns with the Simple View of Reading (SVR; Hoover & Gough, 1990) that holds that reading comprehension is the product (not sum) of decoding ability and language comprehension skills. It is not a “phonics only” approach.
This approach also aligns with cognitive load theory, an important contemporary theory on how children learn (Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation, 2017; Sweller, 1994), and the notion that novices benefit from careful task-analysis by teachers to acquire new knowledge and skills in a stepwise fashion during early stages of learning. This means that teachers should consider the complexity of the material being learned along three dimensions: intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load.
The intrinsic load refers to the complexity of the new material itself (which in the case of reading, can easily be controlled by the teacher, for example, by asking children to read only decodable texts comprising phoneme-grapheme correspondences that have been taught, in the early stages of reading). Extraneous load refers to unnecessary cognitive burden due to poor instructional design (e.g. overwhelming a beginning reader with lists of unrelated sight words to learn by rote). Germane load, on the other hand, refers to well-designed instruction that directly supports a student’s learning through careful task analysis and presentation of material that aligns with the student’s consolidated and emerging skills.
Asking children to read only decodable texts in the early stages of instruction in no way precludes adults reading to them from a range of texts that include elaborate vocabulary, grammatically complex sentences, and intricate narrative forms. This is strongly encouraged for the contribution it makes to ongoing language development, the development of background knowledge, and to reading comprehension.
Teaching principles
The teaching principles for Structured Literacy come from findings from the science of learning - also known as educational neuroscience. This interdisciplinary field of research aims to answer questions about how individuals learn, remember, problem-solve, and transfer their knowledge to new situations. Researchers investigate topics such as memory, attention, motivation, metacognition, and the impact of various teaching methods and technologies on learning outcomes.
The principles include:
Explicit instruction - purposeful teaching of knowledge. In SL instruction, the teacher explains each concept directly and clearly, providing guided practice. Lessons embody instructional routines, for example, quick practice drills to build fluency, or the use of fingers to tap out sounds before spelling words. The student applies each new concept to reading and writing words and text, under direct supervision of the teacher who gives immediate feedback and guidance. Students are not expected to discover or intuit language concepts simply from exposure to language or reading.
Systematic and cumulative - deliberate choice of what is taught and in what order, from simple to complex, and building cumulatively leaving no gaps in what needs to be learnt. In an SL approach, the teacher teaches language concepts systematically, explaining how each element fits into the whole. Instruction follows a planned scope and sequence of skills that progresses from easier to more difficult. One concept builds on another. The goal of systematic teaching is automatic and fluent application of language knowledge to reading for meaning.
Hands-on, engaging, and multimodal - methods often include hands-on learning such as moving tiles into sound boxes as words are analysed using hand gestures to support memory for associations, building words with letter tiles, assembling sentences with words on cards, colour-coding sentences in paragraphs, and so forth. Listening, speaking, reading, and writing are often paired with one another to foster multimodal language learning.
Diagnostic and responsive - checking for mastery and identifying gaps via continuous informal assessment (e.g observations while teaching) as well as more formal assessments (e.g. standardised tests such as phonological screening on school entry and phonics checks at year two). The teacher uses student response patterns to adjust pacing, presentation, and amount of practice given within the lesson framework. The teacher monitors progress through observation and brief quizzes that measure retention of what has been taught.
Content that is taught
Structured Literacy, as set out by the IDA, is an integrated language, reading and writing instructional approach that increasingly supports automaticity, fluency and reading and writing proficiency. It focuses on both word recognition, handwriting and spelling, and comprehension and composition.
It is important to remember that reading comprehension is a product of both word recognition and language comprehension. Throughout Structured Literacy instruction, students should be supported as they work with many kinds of texts—stories, informational text, poetry, drama, and so forth, even if that text is read aloud to students who cannot yet read it independently.
Reading rich texts that stimulate deep thinking is a critical component of Structured Literacy. It is a common misconception that rich ‘authentic’ texts are not a part of the Structured Literacy approach to instruction. They are. However they will not be the first texts that young children are given to read as they first learn the relationship between the sounds they hear and the written word.
Word recognition, handwriting and spelling
Phoneme awareness. This means knowing the individual sounds (phonemes) that make up words. It's crucial for learning to read and write. For example, changing the vowel sound in "mist" to "mast" makes a different word. In English, there are 44 phonemes, (consonant and vowel sounds). In te reo Māori, there are 20 phonemes. Phonemic awareness involves recognising what a phoneme sounds like, and how the articulatory structures of the mouth are moving to produce the phoneme.
Sound-Symbol (phoneme-grapheme) correspondences. In English, we use letters and letter combinations (graphemes) to represent these sounds (phonemes). Teaching how letters and sounds match is called phonics. It takes time to learn this because the English spelling system is far more complex than some languages such as te reo Māori, Spanish or Italian. Nevertheless, the correspondences can be explained and taught through explicit, systematic and cumulative instruction that may take several years to complete.
Patterns and conventions of print (orthography). This is about teaching the rules of how we use letters in writing. Like when we use -ck, -tch, or -dge after short vowels. Some letters can't be at the end of words, and some are doubled. This helps us read and spell better. Teachers learn about syllable types and syllable division in a Structured Literacy approach which aids their ability to help students decode and spell multisyllabic words.
Morphology. Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in words. They include prefixes, base words, and suffixes. Knowing these helps us understand and remember word meanings and spellings. Learning about the units of meaning is another mechanism to both understand and make meaning but also to decode unfamiliar words that have not been orthographically mapped.
Handwriting. Letter formation is explicitly modelled and taught with daily practice until mastered. A handwriting scope and sequence is followed.
Comprehension and composition
Syntax. This is about how words are ordered in sentences to make sense. It includes understanding parts of speech and grammar rules for making sentences.
Semantics. Semantics is all about meaning in language. It's about understanding word meanings, phrases, sentences, and how texts are organised to comprehend what we read or hear. Comprehension and composition of both oral and written language is developed by teaching word meanings (vocabulary), interpretation of phrases and sentences, and understanding of text organisation.
Critical thinking. Strategies for critical thinking are modelled and students given opportunities to practice using a wide range of text and topics.
Balanced Literacy
The literature on Balanced Literacy does not offer an agreed-upon definition. In fact, there are many definitions of Balanced Literacy.
The fact is, if you ask twenty different balanced literacy teachers to define balanced literacy, you will likely get twenty different definitions. It’s just not well-defined. But most balanced literacy teachers will say that they teach reading in a way that meets everyone’s individual needs while also promoting a love of reading. Balanced literacy came about in late 90’s as an answer to the whole language and phonics debate. - The Measured Mom
Balanced literacy has its roots in Whole Language (WL) instruction that emerged in the 1970s. This instructional approach aligned well with the educational zeitgeist of the 1970s, emphasizing child-led, discovery-based learning with minimal formal instruction provided by teachers.
Other important aspects of WL-based educational ideology were the positioning of the classroom teacher as the incontrovertible expert on reading instruction, together with a mistrust of research evidence derived from disciplines with positivist (traditional scientific) orientations, most notably relevant branches of psychology in favour of postmodern approaches which encourage multiple perspectives on meaning in research data (see Snow, 2016).
The (since discredited) belief at the center of WL pedagogy was that reading and by extension, writing and spelling, is a biologically innate skill (Goodman, 1987) which, like oral language is best acquired in the context of social interaction (Rushton, 2007). This led to a shift away from teacher-led instruction, that in turn, further (though possibly unintentionally) eroded the need for teachers to be content experts on the linguistic underpinnings of reading.
BL instruction does not align with the recommendations of the three international inquiries into the teaching of reading (National Reading Panel, 2000; Rowe, 2005; Rose, 2006), but most importantly, has not resulted in improvements in reading achievement levels in nations where it has been embraced, such as the USA, Australia, and the UK (and NZ).
Typical instructional practices
Typically, there is an emphasis in BL classrooms on such socially mediated instructional practices as guided reading, shared reading, and interactive writing (Bingham & HallKenyon, 2013).
BL also appeals to the “every child is different” truism in education, for example: “Learners, teachers, curricula, and schools vary. Not everyone learns in the same way; not every task requires the same strategies; not every teacher has the same talents; not every school has the same combination of learners and teachers” (Spiegel, 1998, p. 116). Such thinking then, aligns with the notion that individual teachers should select approaches that they believe are “balancing” the key reading elements of phonics, phonemic awareness, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency, for the children in their class, though not from a scope and sequence perspective.
Another notable absence in much of the BL literature is discussion of the fact that there are different approaches to phonics instruction, and they are neither synonymous nor interchangeable. Analytic, incidental, and embedded phonics align more with WL (whole-to-part analysis) than do approaches such as systematic synthetic phonics that emphasise part to-whole analysis for beginning readers (Wheldall, Snow, & Graham, 2017). Synthetic phonics explicitly teaches children how to synthesize (blend) sounds in order to form words. When teachers use analytic phonics the child is encouraged to look at the first letter of a problematic word, after having first attempted to deduce the word by using semantic cues (including removing their eyes from the text and looking at pictures) and syntactic cues to try to “decode” an unknown word.
WL- and BL-based approaches to initial reading instruction place great store on children memorising banks of so-called “sight” words (sometimes referred to as “irregular” or “high-frequency” words). In a structured literacy approach it is considered helpful to teach children a small and carefully selected list of high frequency words that are not easily decodable using common grapheme-phoneme correspondence patterns (e.g. you, was, said, one) so they can begin reading simple connected text as quickly as possible” (Buckingham, 2016).
So which instructional approach is best?
In summary, Balanced Literacy encourages eclecticism, rather than systematic, knowledge-based explicit-instruction, in keeping with a “dumbed-down” understanding of early reading as a social, rather than a cognitive process.
Although many young learners would master expressive and receptive language skills from repeated exposure alone as suggested by Balanced Literacy, there is a population of students for whom this is not sufficient (McCardle, Scarborough, & Catts, 2001). Therefore, utilising a Structured Literacy approach is best because it avoids making potentially erroneous assumptions about what students are naturally capable of implicitly learning. By explicitly teaching all concepts, students who readily internalise the patterns of language will learn quickly and easily, and those who otherwise may struggle will get the instruction they need for success. Moreover, these students are more likely to be identified if specific weaknesses arise in their foundational language skills.
Believe me, I never thought I’d be writing an article comparing balanced and structured literacy. I believed in balanced literacy with all of my heart. I became very angry when I read articles that slammed balanced literacy. The articles said I wasn’t teaching phonics (I was). The articles said I was teaching guessing (I felt that I was teaching my students to be strategic). The articles said I should be doing more explicit instruction (I felt that my mini-lessons served that purpose just as well as a 30-minute whole class lesson that would likely bore half my class). The articles criticized my lack of a structured curriculum (I felt that I knew my students much better than a scripted curriculum any day). The articles said balanced literacy didn’t work. I had plenty of anecdotal evidence that it did.
Here’s the thing. And this is something we all need to take note of. Balanced literacy works for some children. Many children DO learn to read without a lot of explicit instruction. But it doesn’t work for others.
Explicit instruction is good for all children. It’s absolutely essential for many of them. In other words, If we use a balanced literacy approach, we will not reach all of our students.
Summary of differences
There are many differences between the two approaches, but this list from the Measured Mom blog describes some of the key differences.
Phonemic awareness instruction
In balanced literacy, we typically see a haphazard approach to phonemic awareness instruction.
Structured literacy includes systematic, sequential instruction in phonemic awareness.
Through the work of David Kilpatrick, we’ve learned that phonemic awareness may very well be the missing key for struggling readers. It’s essential that we give daily lessons in phonemic awareness (not just orally, paired with letters) for those students that need it.
Our students need lessons in phoneme isolation, blending, segmenting, and manipulation.
Phonics instruction
In balanced literacy, phonics lessons are typically quite short and may not follow a scope and sequence.
In structured literacy, phonics is taught through an explicit, systematic and sequential approach following a scope and sequence.
A strong phonics lesson is 20-30 minutes long and has most, if not all, of the following components:
A phonemic awareness warm-up that connects to the phonics skill
Explicit introduction of the new sound-spelling relationship
Blending practice
Word building
Practice reading decodable text
Guided writing practice
High frequency words
Balanced literacy teaches rote memorisation of high frequency words.
In structured literacy, high frequency words are taught according to their phonics patterns, and even irregular words are taught explicitly.
A better approach is to teach a small number of “sight words” to get kids started (such as the and is), and to teach the rest when you teach their related phonics patterns. As for irregular words, you can still be explicit about teaching them.
Reading books
In a balanced literacy classroom, beginning readers read leveled texts using the three-cueing system.
In a structured literacy classroom, early readers read decodable texts that include already-learned phonics patterns.
Error correction
In a balanced literacy classroom, there is typically a greater focus on the meaning of the text rather than on the accuracy of what is read.
Structured literacy teachers correct misread words; they encourage their students to sound them out.
Improvement
Balanced literacy teachers believe that students get better at reading by reading.
Structured literacy teachers will tell you that students get better at reading by learning and practicing the code.
This one is a little tricky. Kids need to practice reading, whether or not they’re in a balanced literacy classroom.
But first they need to learn to decode the words, which they learn through explicit instruction.
Motivation to read
Balanced literacy teachers believe that the point of reading instruction is to get children to love reading.
Structured literacy teachers believe that the point of reading instruction is to teach children to read.
This is NOT to say that balanced literacy teachers aren’t concerned with teaching children to read.
Of course they are.
This is NOT to say that structured literacy teachers don’t want children to love reading.
Of course they do.
But structured literacy teachers understand that success breeds motivation.
When you teach children to read, and they see that they can do it … that they are actually pulling those words off the page by connecting the sounds to the letters, THAT is what gets them excited about reading.
Further reading
This blog post by Professor Pamela Snow from La Trobe University sets out what the education academics and policy makers need to come to grips with, as a matter of urgency, to address the failings of a balanced literacy approach. These quotes from the blog sum up the problems with balanced literacy appraoches:
Balanced literacy has been the perfect Petrie dish for cultivating eclecticism in reading instruction. It asks next to nothing of education academics in terms of understanding decades of cognitive psychology research on the nature of the reading process and sharing this with the next generation of classroom teachers. Education academics in turn, have exploited this freedom by busying themselves with their own preferred patches of garden, in authentic children’s literature, digital literacy, critical literacy, multi-literacies, and so on. Teaching reading, however, must be about the time-sensitive needs of children, not the aesthetic preferences and ideologies of adults.
Balanced literacy epitomises the golden mean fallacy or “argument to moderation”: the idea that when views on a topic are polarised, there must be a logical “sweet spot” in the middle where we all need to meet and strike a compromise. We have tried the sweet spot experiment in reading instruction, and it didn’t work. We can’t unsee the population-level data associated with the failed balanced literacy experiment. Teachers are haunted by the faces of children who they can’t forget; the ones left behind by balanced literacy’s known but brushed-over and forgiven shortcomings.
This blog post by the Measured Mom sets out her journey from balanced literacy teacher to structured literacy advocate, as well as a handy table showing some of the key differences between the two approaches.
And if you are after a journalist’s view on the reading wars and the need to move on from that narrative and to look to the evidence, this piece by the Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald is very good at setting out the issues.