by Mary L. Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico

Author’s Note: The thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog post are my own and do not represent the Worlds of Words Center. The content is based on my professional experiences in Worlds of Words and in the LETRS professional development training sessions.

At first glance, WOW (Worlds of Words) and LETRS (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) (Lexia, 2024) seem worlds apart. After all, Worlds of Words is an organization focused on global literacies and literatures for all readers while LETRS is a professional development training for pre-k-3 educators and administrators. However, a closer inspection reveals a few surprising theoretical similarities that are worth discussing in WOW Currents. This comparison becomes particularly relevant as educators navigate the evolving shifts in reading instruction.

The Science of Reading (SoR) has been enacted into law in 38 states and the District of Columbia (see Figure 1) despite lacking a universal definition and facing criticism from experts in the fields of languages, literacies and literatures (see for example, Reading Research Quarterly, Volume 56, 2021).

Implementation of SoR legislation varies by state, including differences in approved curriculum materials. An internet search of each state will provide links to the legislation and to the approved list of materials. In New Mexico (NM) where I reside, Lexia’s LETRS professional development training was chosen to comply with the SoR law (Lexia, 2024). This context sets the stage for discussing the similarities and differences between Worlds of Words and LETRS’s approaches to reading instruction. But first, let me introduce myself.

I serve on the Executive Board of the Worlds of Words Center of Global Literacies and Literatures. My work with the center informs my approach to literacy teaching and learning which is grounded in constructivism, socio-psycholinguistics, and Reader Response theory. As an educator with 36 years of experience, I firmly believe that literature offers readers mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors; that is, opportunities to reflect on their own experiences, see other worlds, and step into new perspectives (Bishop, 1991).

I have undergone LETRS training twice, first in 2005 and most recently in 2024 when I was part of the first LETRS cohort for NM higher education faculty. I volunteered for both training sessions to better understand what in-service teachers are expected to know and do when they teach reading to students in the classroom. This knowledge of what is expected is essential for my current role as a university literacy professor.

A detailed description of Worlds of Words and LETRS is beyond the scope of this blog post but suffice it to say that their positions on literacy differ greatly. Nonetheless, to support educators who have been trained to teach LETRS in NM classrooms, I decided to explore potential commonalities in positions and practices that might loosely align with the center. In this post, I present two of the three commonalities.

The First Commonality: Valuing Readers and Reading

Most importantly, both Worlds of Words and LETRS value readers and reading. Additionally, both Worlds of Words and LETRS aim to support educators and other key stakeholders whose goal is to create lifelong readers who not only read but choose to read and look forward to reading the next text waiting in the wings.

The Second Commonality: Reading Cues or Processors

I, along with LETRS, believe that readers use cues, or processors as LETRS calls them, to support comprehension of texts. The list of cues/processors is nearly the same (see Figure 2).

Cueing Systems I Teach	Processors LETRS Teaches
Semantic	Phonologic
Syntactic	Orthographic
Graphophonic	Semantic
	Context

Figure 2. Reading Cues Taught by the Author and by LETRS.

However, the positions about the purpose of reading cues vary drastically in the approaches used to teach and implement them. As a reading instructor grounded in socio-psycholinguitics, I encourage readers to use semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic cues simultaneously to transact with texts in meaningful ways and then to respond through art, music, drama, dance, and more. Much of what I believe comes from my work with members in the WOW community.

Conversely, LETRS believes that readers must first use their orthographic and phonological processors to decode words before they can engage their meaning processor to comprehend the text. Additionally, readers can only access the context processor after using the meaning processor. In other words, readers must follow a path from orthographic and phonological processing to meaning processing and then to context processing. Simply stated, LETRS believes that readers must master phonics before they can read for meaning.

Distinct Entities

While there are some theoretical commonalities between Worlds of Words and LETRS in their goal of supporting life-long readers, the differences in their positions about reading are significant and likely won’t be easily bridged. The divergent positions on reading cues and processors, the role of decoding, and the overall philosophy of literacy instruction suggest that these two positions will continue to exist as distinct entities. Nevertheless, the key is to remain open-minded and willing to learn from different perspectives in order to improve literacy instruction for all learners.

Please check in for my next WOW Currents blog post in which I will share a third commonality between WOW and LETRS. In the meantime, please leave a comment below sharing how your position about reading instruction aligns with or does not align with LETRS. I look forward to reading your posts!

References

Bishop, R. S. (Summer, 1990). Mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom. 6(3).

Lexia (2024). Lexia® LETRS® Professional Learning (Pre-k-5). Lexia. https://www.lexialearning.com/letrs

WOW Currents is a space to talk about forward-thinking trends in global children’s and adolescent literature and how we use that literature with students. “Currents” is a play on words for trends and timeliness and the way we talk about social media. We encourage you to participate by leaving comments and sharing this post with your peers. To view our complete offerings of WOW Currents, please visit its archival stream.

array(9) {
  ["_edit_lock"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(14) "1719608094:264"
  }
  ["_edit_last"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(3) "264"
  }
  ["_thumbnail_id"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "37464"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_focuskw"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(5) "LETRS"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_metadesc"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(141) "The first part of July's WOW Currents looks at similiarities between the Worlds of Words Center and LETRS as experienced by Mary Fahrenbruck."
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_linkdex"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(2) "83"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_content_score"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(2) "30"
  }
  ["_yoast_wpseo_primary_category"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(4) "3388"
  }
  ["_wp_old_date"]=>
  array(1) {
    [0]=>
    string(10) "2024-07-01"
  }
}

• Themes: LETRS, Mary Fahrenbruck, New Mexico State University, Reading Cues
• Descriptors: Debates & Trends, WOW Currents