The Simple View of Reading and Its Essential Underpinnings

The Simple View of Reading (SVR) has recently been described as a dated, incomplete, and inadequate account of reading. But there is much that argues against this assessment. 

First, while the SVR is certainly old, especially for a cognitive theory that remains valid some 40 years after it was formally introduced, it is not dated—there is nothing that now supersedes its general account of the cognitive proximal causes and interrelationships underlying reading comprehension. Nor is there any substantiated body of contemporary research that counters its claims as supported in earlier research.

Dr. Wesley Hoover

Second, while the SVR captures the “big picture” of what constitutes reading comprehension, few would claim it provides a comprehensive view of reading—for instance, it does not address what distal skills and abilities are required to learn it, how it is accomplished, how it develops, how it relates to other linguistic and cognitive capacities, how to most effectively and efficiently teach it, or how to best remediate difficulties that may be encountered by those trying to master it. But these questions all extend beyond its boundaries, representing issues that were never within its focus, and they cannot be the basis for judging the SVR on its stated claims. 

Third, to hold the SVR is inadequate is to ignore its considerable base of supportive evidence, which includes methodologically diverse studies that involve students representing different age, education, expertise, and reading levels, as well as materials varying in both text type and language. In short, the SVR remains robust and gives a precise, well-supported view of reading within its defined boundaries. What follows are brief overviews of the SVR and an extension of it, the Cognitive Foundations Framework, as well as guidance about their applications in practice.¹

An Overview of the Simple View of Reading

The SVR holds that the ability to read a language, with comprehension, is the product of the ability to understand that language and to recognize, quickly and accurately, its words in print. That is, reading comprehension (RC) is the product of language comprehension (LC) and word recognition (WR), or RC = LC x WR. Through this formulation, the SVR makes a small set of fundamental claims—that word recognition and language comprehension will each make contributions to reading comprehension; that they, along with their product, will be the sole contributing factors to reading comprehension; and that good reading comprehension will only be found in those with strong skills in both factors, with poor reading comprehension skills resulting whenever there is limited strength in either.

Using the scales of 0–1 (no skill to perfect skill) in thinking about the SVR, most understand that having no skill in one of the two underlying factors results in no skill in reading comprehension regardless of the skill level in the other factor—skill in one factor cannot compensate for no skill in the other. But the more general relationship is that the level of skill in one factor limits how much the level of skill in the other can advance reading comprehension. 

For example, if you can recognize half the words in a text and can understand all the language that text conveys (e.g., if it was read to you), then you’ll be able to comprehend half of the text when you read it. But if you only understand half of the language that text conveys, then that same level of skill in word recognition (success with half the words) will only allow you to understand a quarter of the text when you read it, not half. This interdependence between the two proximal capacities is a critical feature of the SVR.

But to even better understand the SVR and to avoid misapplication, its users should keep in mind the main contrasts defining it, distinguishing what it is from what it is not:

• A theory of reading, more than a description, heuristic, or metaphor
• A theory giving a static account of reading, not a developmental one
• A theory detailing what must be known for reading success, not what instruction must be provided
• A theory of reading that addresses:
  • Cognitive factors, not all factors
  • Reading-specific cognitive factors, not general ones
  • Cognitive capacities, not processes
  • Receptive cognitive capacities, not expressive ones
  • Proximal cognitive capacities, not distal ones
  • Necessary proximal cognitive capacities, not optional (or always statistically significant) ones
  • Dissociable necessary proximal cognitive capacities, not necessarily uncorrelated ones
  • The sole necessary proximal cognitive capacities, word recognition and language comprehension, neither sufficient, but no others required

These contrasts defining the bounds of the SVR can also provide clarity about several persistent misunderstandings surrounding it:

• Reading is not simple but complex
  • Yes, but that complexity is limited to just two proximal factors
• Reading is not modular but interactive
  • Yes, but while reading processes can be interactive, the two proximal capacities that emerge from them can be dissociated
• The contributions of word recognition and language comprehension are not equal throughout time
  • Yes, but both capacities are always essential to reading success
• Reading difficulties have cognitive causes beyond word recognition and language comprehension
  • Yes, but such cognitive difficulties impact reading through its two proximal capacities
• There are many more cognitive factors beyond word recognition and language comprehension that are important for mastering reading
  • Yes, but those cognitive factors operate distally through the two proximal capacities
• Learning to read is learning to link print to language that is already known
  • Yes, in many though not all cases, but the SVR does not address what the relative strengths of its two proximal capacities will be at any given point in reading development, only that the product of those strengths will determine reading ability.
• The ability to understand the conversational language of speech does not determine the ability to understand the formal language of print
  • Yes, but the type of language and the medium through which it is engaged are distinct, and the ability to read a particular type of language depends on the ability to understand that type of language along with the ability to recognize its printed words

An Overview of the Cognitive Foundations Framework

The SVR can be extended to address what is required to master its two proximal capacities. The Cognitive Foundations Framework (CFF) provides such an account, detailing the cognitive capacities (and their interrelationships) that are the basis for learning to read. 

In the CFF, the essential distal capacities, or underpinnings, supporting the development of word recognition and language comprehension are arranged in hierarchies. But their development is not strictly hierarchical, as the CFF only holds that some skill at a given lower-level capacity is needed before any skill at a higher-level capacity can be acquired. But once such a skill level is reached, then further development between capacities is likely reciprocal. The hierarchy under each capacity is:

• For word recognition, letter knowledge and phonemic awareness are needed before knowledge of the alphabetic principle can develop. This, coupled with knowledge of concepts about print, then allows development of alphabetic coding skill, which is needed to support development of fast and accurate (automatic) word recognition (which connects a word’s orthography directly to its meaning).
• Language comprehension rests on linguistic knowledge, built from knowledge of phonology, syntax, and semantics, the latter including word knowledge (vocabulary) and sentential meaning (both within and between connected sentences). But beyond linguistic knowledge, language comprehension also requires the ability to effectively gain and use knowledge of the world and to make inferences from language reflecting that knowledge.

There is much more to say about these capacities, but that will need another post! For now, it is important to note that developing these capabilities is complex, and while word recognition abilities tend to be asymptotic, reaching a point at which skill is highly developed and further improvement is very gradual, growth in language comprehension is effectively unbounded, as knowledge of the world and its representation in language continues to expand. This difference has important implications for understanding reading development.

Applications in Practice

But why is this knowledge about what would-be readers must know to become successful useful to a practitioner who has undertaken the task of providing support to those learning to read? Because to be effective, practitioners must make informed decisions about what individual learners need given their responses to the instruction they have been provided. This is where knowledge of the SVR and CFF can be most helpful: If one knows the cognitive profiles of students learning to read then targeting aligned instruction can be more efficient and effective. The following highlight the ways the SVR and CFF, in conjunction with other instructional knowledge, can guide practitioners in their work:

• To improve reading comprehension:
• Improvements must be made in word recognition, language comprehension, or both
• These two capacities must be well developed for reading comprehension to show similarly strong development
• Just how much improvement can be realized in reading comprehension from any improvement in either one of the two proximal capacities depends on the level of skill in the other capacity
• In making instructional decisions, practitioners need to:
• Know their students’ skills in word recognition and language comprehension (i.e., gather and use assessment data that can reveal skills and development in these areas, and if weak, in their respective cognitive underpinnings, the distal factors described in the CFF)
• Recognize the interdependence between word recognition and language comprehension in determining reading comprehension (i.e., skill in the weaker proximal capacity sets the upper limit on reading comprehension at any given point in time) and determine which ones need relatively more support considering both short-run and long-run development of reading comprehension:
  • If word recognition represents more of a limiting factor, pursue improvements in it through explicit instruction targeting any weaknesses in its underpinnings, with the goal of developing the capacity for implicit learning of grapheme-phoneme relationships; once implicit learning is viable, let reading itself be the key tool for further word recognition advancement (which can also advance language comprehension)
  • If language comprehension represents more of a limiting factor, find out where difficulties may be seated by looking at its underpinnings and work to advance those
  • Recognize that some problems (e.g., phonological difficulties) may require specialized help
• Always keep in mind the general developmental trends that language comprehension tends to be unbounded while word recognition asymptotic, and thus language comprehension will come to drive development in reading comprehension once word recognition approaches mastery:
  • It can be wasteful (due to high opportunity costs) to continue to provide explicit instruction for word recognition (or its underpinnings) once implicit learning is fully engaged as such instruction will not efficiently advance implicit learning, taking away time that could be devoted to more impactful activities
  • It will never be wasteful to provide support that advances language competence but remember that effective support will show the largest gains in reading comprehension when word recognition is at mastery
  • Reading itself can advance both language comprehension and word recognition (once implicit learning is engaged)
• Finally, recognize that just because there are two proximal capacities underlying reading comprehension, that does not mean any instruction offered in support of it must address only one capacity at a time (e.g., group reading can advance both word recognition and language comprehension simultaneously)

This description of the main ideas and applications represented in the SVR and CFF is an invitation to further exploration. The general topics covered here are also the focus of an EDVIEW360 podcast—please listen in!
 

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References

¹ More detail on the SVR, the CFF, and their uses, as well as references for the points made here, can be found in the following materials:

Hoover, W. A. (2024). The simple view of reading and its broad types of reading difficulties. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 37, 2277-2298. doi:10.1007/s11145-023-10471-x
Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (2020). The cognitive foundations of reading and its acquisition: A framework with applications connecting teaching and learning. Cham, CH: Springer. ISBN 978-3-030-44194-4
Hoover, W. A., & Tunmer, W. E. (2022). The primacy of science in communicating advances in the science of reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 57, 399-408. doi:10.1002/rrq.446