The science of reading (SoR) movement has driven states and districts to improve teacher preparation, adopt evidence-based materials, and clarify for K‒3 instruction. Yet one critical tier remains missing: early childhood education (ECE).
Children's ability to read begins long before phonics and decoding lessons. It’s built through oral language: the vocabulary, syntax, discourse skills, and back-and-forth talk that gives printed words meaning. When ECE is excluded from policy and funding, we make reading success contingent on remediation rather than prevention.
Recent peer-reviewed evidence underscores three key points: first, language drives later reading comprehension; second, explicit instruction in code-based skills, especially phonemic awareness, is effective in preschool and early primary years; and third, the strongest interventions combine language and code.
A 2021 meta-analysis showed that multicomponent reading interventions improve not only word reading, but also comprehension. Subsequent reviews have confirmed that phonemic awareness (PA) instruction is robustly effective from preschool through first grade and are identifying optimal dosage levels. A 2025 meta-analytic review found that interventions combining oral-language targets (vocabulary, inferencing) with code-based targets (phonological awareness) reliably strengthen emergent literacy—the integrated foundation children need for kindergarten readiness.
Language, however, grows not just in lessons but in relationships. Studies link the density of adult–child conversational turns with gains in language, executive function, and self-regulation—skills that make instruction “stick.” In classrooms, the quality of teacher talk also matters: a 2025 meta-analysis shows that richer teacher language is associated with stronger child language outcomes. Far from a “nice to have,” oral language is the foundation for reading comprehension and should be explicitly cultivated from birth onward.
If reading development begins at birth, SoR policies starting at kindergarten are starting late. Here’s how states, districts, and schools can fulfill SoR’s promise by pulling ECE into the center.
State: Align the system from birth to grade 3
1. Write ECE into literacy laws. Most SoR legislation to date has focused on K–3 and teacher preparation. States should explicitly include licensed child care, Head Start, and state pre-K in their literacy statutes, setting expectations for evidence-aligned language and early literacy instruction and funding the supports to deliver it. Multicomponent approaches that weave language and code already show the strongest preschool outcomes.
2. Fund professional learning and materials for birth–5. Grant programs should underwrite (a) shared-reading curricula that scaffold rich talk, and (b) explicit instruction in phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge in pre-K, using developmentally appropriate routines. Meta-analyses confirm PA’s effectiveness and suggest that optimal dosage delivers gains without displacing language-rich interactions.
3. Adopt common birth–grade-3 standards and assessments that include oral language. Align standards for vocabulary, syntax, listening comprehension, and discourse with code-based skills. Approve screeners that capture both strands—not to “test toddlers,” but to detect risks early. Comprehension in later grades depends on language growth now.
4. Incentivize family language partnerships. Evidence shows that coaching families to increase conversational turn-taking boosts children’s language. Policies should fund programs that measurably expand adult–child talk.
District: Build a single B–3 literacy spine
1. Select curricula that interweave language and code. Adoption processes should ensure pre-K materials provide (a) sequenced PA and print concepts and (b) structured talk through interactive read-alouds, narrative retell, and oral reasoning. Combined language and code interventions have the strongest evidence.
2. Create a birth–grade-3 professional learning continuum. ECE teachers, K–3 teachers, reading specialists, and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) should train together. PD should cover designing conversations that stretch language, delivering brief explicit PA routines, and connecting oral language to comprehension.
3. Include pre-K in MTSS. Many districts start MTSS at kindergarten. Include universal screening for language and PA in pre-K, add Tier 2 small-group interventions (vocabulary, inferencing, grammar), and monitor progress in both language and code. Early prevention yields far more leverage than remediation.
4. Measure what matters. Beyond letter names and sounds, track growth in vocabulary depth, narrative skills, and listening comprehension, capacities that drive comprehension in grades 2–4. Oral language is the bottleneck for later understanding.
School: Make language visible in daily practice
1. Use interactive read-alouds with purposeful talk every day. Model rare and academic words, press for explanations (“why” and “how”), and scaffold complex syntax. Structured shared reading improves preschoolers’ vocabulary, the raw material for comprehension.
2. Explicitly teach phonological awareness. In pre-K, target larger sound units (sentences, words, syllables, onset–rime) and simple phoneme play; in K–1, link PA tightly with phonics. Meta-analyses affirm its effectiveness through grade 1 and highlight dosage as key: short, consistent daily routines outperform longer, infrequent lessons.
3. Engineer conversational turns. Organize small-group centers and routines that prompt children to talk with adults and peers. Turn-taking builds language, executive function, and attention—skills that make instruction more effective.
4. Plan with SLPs as instructional partners. SLPs are not just service providers but language experts who can help teachers design oral-language targets, monitor progress, and co-lead Tier 2 language groups. This collaboration aligns with the evidence that multicomponent interventions work best.
The payoff: Fewer “late” readers, more fluent comprehenders.
When we wait until decoding begins to address language, we ask phonics to bear the entire load of reading development, and the evidence is clear that it cannot. The SoR literature shows both strands, language and code, must be woven early. Combined approaches in preschool set children up for later reading success.
To put simply: The best K–3 reading reforms are actually birth–3 policies in disguise. To realize the full promise of the science of reading policymakers must write birth–5 into literacy laws and budgets; districts must create a unified B–3 spine linking curriculum, PD, assessment, and MTSS; and schools must make oral-language growth as measurable and routine as mastery of letter-sounds.
Until early childhood sits at the heart of literacy policy, we’ll keep trying to fix in third grade what could have been built from birth.
References
- Denton, C. A., et al. (2021). A meta-analysis of the effects of foundational skills and multicomponent interventions on reading comprehension.
- Rice, M., et al. (2022). A meta-analysis for planning effective instruction: Phonemic awareness in PK–1.
- Erbeli, F., et al. (2024). A meta-analysis on optimal cumulative dosage of phonemic awareness instruction.
- Cusiter, J., et al. (2025). Combined language and code emergent literacy interventions: A systematic meta-analytic review.
- Carolus, A. E., et al. (2023). Conversation disruptions in early childhood predict EF and language links.
- Jiang, Y., et al. (2025). Does teacher talk matter? A meta-analysis of partial correlations.
- Hulme, C., Snowling, M. J., et al. (2020). Children’s language skills can be improved: Lessons for policy makers and educators.
- Cipolletti, L. B., et al. (2025). Structured shared-book reading improves preschool vocabulary.
