Progress in Reading Science

In this chapter, the authors highlight advances in the study of skilled reading, from word identification to comprehension, emphasizing language and writing system influences, the convergence of brain and behavior data, with brief links to reading difficulties and learning to read. They begin by replacing their metaphor of stream currents with a static representation of what reading science seeks to explain, drawing on the Reading Systems Framework. The authors apply the framework to examine research progress, describing three significant advances. These include: the word‐identification system in skilled alphabetic reading; comprehending while reading; and toward a more universal science of reading. Moving beyond alphabetic writing toward a more universal perspective, orthographic depth was extended to nonalphabetic writing, for example, the consonant‐based Abjad system and morpho‐syllabic Chinese. Comparative research has stimulated the extension of models of alphabetic reading to nonalphabetic reading.