In order for students to comprehend text while reading, it is vital that they be able to read the words on the page. Teachers who are aware of the importance of the essential, fundamental elements which lead to successful word recognition—phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition of irregular words—are apt to make sure to teach their students each of these so that their word reading becomes automatic, accurate, and effortless. Today’s teachers are fortunate to have available to them a well-established bank of research and instructional activities that they can access in order to facilitate word recognition in their classrooms.

The Simple View of Reading’s two essential components, automatic word recognition and strategic language comprehension, combine to allow for skilled reading comprehension. Students who can both recognize the words on the page and understand the language of the words and sentences are much more likely to enjoy the resulting advantage of comprehending the meaning of the texts that they read.