Back to: Module: Helping Students Read
Helping Students Read is all about helping parapros support students who are learning to become effective readers. Parapros often work with students who find reading difficult. To provide help, they supervise one-on-one or small group practice sessions. Sometimes they serve on teams that plan reading lessons and assessments.
Parapros can do a lot to support students’ reading. A first step is to learn about what reading is and what happens when students learn to read.
This module provides answers. The answers come from a growing body of research called the science of reading.
Core Concepts
Reading is a complex process. The better we understand how that process works, the better we can help students learn to read. And the best way to understand, and therefore to help, is to base our practices on scientific evidence.
Key Vocabulary

- Assets-Based PedagogyA type of teaching that views and affirms students' differences as strengths rather than as obstacles to their learning achievement.
- Best PracticeAn effective method for doing something, especially when the method is supported by evidence.
- Decoding (or Sounding Out)Translating printed words into spoken words. Students match letters and sounds and recognize the patterns that make up syllables and words.
- DyslexiaDifficulty with word recognition, spelling, and decoding that is unusual relative to a student's other skills.
- English Learner (EL)A student whose primary language is not English but who is learning to rely on English in classroom settings.
- Phonemic AwarenessKnowing that small units of sound (called phonemes [FOH-neems]) make up words, including written words.
- PhonicsA method of teaching reading and writing by connecting the sounds of language with the spelling patterns that represent them.
- Print AwarenessKnowledge of how to use a book, including how to hold it, turn pages, show pictures, and read text.
- Scarborough's RopeA diagram of the reading process that shows each part of it as an intertwined thread of a larger rope. The more tightly wound the rope, the better a student reads.
- Science of ReadingAn understanding of reading that relies on scientific evidence, often from psychology or cognitive science.
- Sight WordsWords a reader recognizes almost automatically due to advanced decoding skills. Sight words are stored in our memory so we don't have to stop and figure them out.
- Simple View of ReadingThe view that reading comprehension consists of recognizing and then understanding words.
- Teaching (Designing) to the EdgesFitting instruction to the real skills and needs of students instead of to an imaginary average student who does not actually exist.
- Universal Design for LearningA way of teaching aimed at reaching all students by using flexible and adaptable methods that engage many different parts of the brain.