R E A D IN G & L IT E R A CY E XPL A IN E R

‘Encoding’ Explained: What It Is and Why It’s Essential

to Literacy
Often overlooked, it deserves equal attention to its counterpart, decoding

By Elizabeth Heubeck — January 17, 2023 7 min read

— iStock/Getty

Ask an early-elementary teacher what the recently popularized term “science-based reading
instruction” means, and the response is likely to include something about decoding—the
process of translating words from print to speech by matching letters and their combinations to
the sounds they make.

This makes sense, as decoding is an undisputed hallmark of early literacy. So, too, is encoding,
decoding’s opposite, whereby a spoken word is broken down into its individual sounds in the
act of spelling and writing.

But encoding doesn’t get nearly the attention that decoding does, despite evidence that, from
the earliest grades on, writing practice is a powerful aid and complement to reading
instruction. As a result, say some literacy experts, students suffer.

“Encoding and decoding go hand in hand; they’re like two sides of a coin,” said Crystal
Whitman, an instructional coach at Rosman Elementary School in North Carolina’s
Transylvania County. “Our hands have been heavier on the decoding side, so we have some
weak spellers, weak writers.”

As literacy experts strongly suggest, encoding is often underrepresented in early literacy

instruction, even in programs that claim to be steeped in evidence-based practices.

Education Week spoke to literacy experts, researchers, and educators to find out why and what
students miss when their exposure to encoding is irregular or minimal. We also culled
strategies from structured-literacy advocates on how to embed encoding into daily classroom
instruction.

How did encoding get overlooked?

Literacy consultant Steve Graham has spent more than four decades studying the “hows” of
writing: how it develops, how to teach it effectively, and how writing can be used to support
reading and learning. The lack of emphasis on teaching writing, he points out, is nothing new.

“In pre-revolutionary days, you could teach someone how to read. But without additional
instruction, they didn’t necessarily learn how to write,” said Graham, a professor at Arizona
State University’s teachers college.

In many of today’s early-literacy programs, the weight of the pendulum remains firmly rooted
on the side of teaching reading over writing. Inadvertently, the recent rise of evidence-based
literacy programs based on the 2000 results of the congressional National Reading Panel may
be partly to blame.

Heavily publicized nationwide, the panel recommends combining the following techniques for
teaching children to read: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, guided oral reading,
teaching vocabulary words, and reading-comprehension strategy.
The report does reference writing, particularly in the context of phonemic awareness and
phonics, as students are learning how to manipulate sounds and letters. But it does not
specifically mention encoding—or other granular aspects of writing. And even today, there is
much less published research on the elements of effective writing instruction.

“I’ve done a number of national surveys,” Graham said. “Writing and encoding see much less
emphasis in the curriculum than reading does.”

Other literacy experts share similar experiences. “Most phonics instruction is heavily focused
on decoding. They want kids to learn how to read words. They might do some encoding, but it’s
often an afterthought,” said Margie Gillis, a nationally recognized literacy expert and the
president of Connecticut-based Literacy How, Inc., a company that creates professional-
development curricula for pre-K through middle school.

Reading professor Amy Murdoch says she’s seen schools “plop in” phonological-awareness
programs that are disconnected to the other important elements of early literacy like spelling
and writing.

Why encoding matters, and what it looks like in the

classroom

“You can’t separate the different strategies of language,” said Murdoch, an assistant dean and
associate professor in the School of Education at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati.

That’s particularly true for encoding and decoding. “We really drive home the point that
[decoding and encoding] are reciprocal, and they bootstrap each other,” Gillis said.

The brush strokes that, ideally, children begin practicing even before kindergarten form the
essential building blocks of encoding: letters and, subsequently, words and sentences.
Teaching proper letter formation through repetition breeds automaticity, which is critical for
the writing process, say literacy experts.

“I’m a stickler for letter formations. If our kids are not forming letters correctly to automaticity,
that impedes them in spelling and writing, because they’re having to then think of how to form
those letters,” said literacy expert Casey Harrison.
When students develop letter automaticity, they can shift their focus to whatever it is they’re
writing, points out Harrison, an Austin, Texas-based licensed dyslexia therapist and founder of
The Dyslexia Classroom, which provides resources for dyslexic learners as well as online
courses for educators, parents, and therapists.

Carrie Norris, the director of K-8 curriculum and instruction for the Transylvania County
schools in North Carolina, has witnessed firsthand the advantages that come with a focus on
early letter formation among her district’s kindergartners. “They learn how to do strokes first—
students doing horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and circle strokes,” said Norris, who added that
she’s seen a significant improvement in students’ ability to form letters correctly when given
consistent and step-by-step practice opportunities in kindergarten.

But even the earliest stages of encoding should not be happening in a vacuum, the experts
explain. “We are tying muscle movement and tactile kinetic letter formation with hearing the
sound and associating it with its name,” said Gillis.

Spelling assignments often miss the mark

Very young students just beginning to connect their understanding of phonetic awareness to
writing letters and words may struggle with the fine motor skills these tasks require. Making it
fun can help. Gillis suggests having students write on a plate of shaving cream. Colored sand is
another favorite, as are grooved surfaces that feel good on students’ fingertips. “It doesn’t have
to be ‘drill and kill’,” shes said.

Despite ample evidence of the reciprocal and necessary relationship between decoding and
encoding, some traditional assignments continue to miss the mark. Take spelling lists, for
instance.

“I still see spelling instruction whereby lists of [spelling] words are sent home that may or may
not have some spelling patterns in there,” Harrison said. “It makes me realize the deep
connection between sound-spelling for reading and sound-spelling for writing is not fully
understood.”

She doesn’t suggest getting rid of the age-old spelling list, rather, revising how it’s used.
“Spelling instruction should be part of daily literacy lessons,” Harrison said. “But we want
students drawing on their sound-symbol knowledge and connections to reading instruction.”
If our kids are not forming letters correctly to automaticity, that impedes them in
spelling and writing, because they’re having to then think of how to form those
letters.

Casey Harrison, licensed dyslexia therapist

Harrison explains her version of the spelling test. As a former classroom teacher, and now as a
licensed dyslexia therapist, she’ll make a video of the spelling concept of the week (for
example, spelling with the final /k/ sound or vowel-consonant-e pattern) and use it all week in
class as the students focus on decoding and encoding words containing the rule. On Friday,
students have their spelling test. Harrison picks 10 to 20 words containing the rule and has the
students write the words using the concept they’d learned that week.

When students spell the words correctly, Harrison knows they haven’t simply memorized a list
of words they were apt to forget later. Rather, they’ve mastered a phonetic rule of the English
language that they could apply to other words they attempt to read or spell.

“I tell them: I can’t teach you every word in the English language. But I can give you the tools to
apply to new, unknown words for reading and spelling,” Harrison said.

The science of reading movement has been largely led by advocates of students with language
disabilities. And as with decoding, teaching encoding in a systematic, explicit manner can
benefit all kids but is particularly critical to those with processing disorders.

“These are our students who are struggling in accessing the phonological code,” Harrison said,
referring to students with dyslexia. “They really need it broken down into a very systematic
approach, where things are explicitly taught.”

Students who are unable to spell words experience cascading effects like lower scores on
assignments and a disconnect between oral and written language, which can lead to poor self-
esteem and a negative outlook on schoolwork, Harrison observes. When students become
proficient readers and spellers, the opposite can occur.
 “I want to empower students,” Harrison said. “We do that by connecting the reading and the
spelling.”

Elizabeth Heubeck
Staff Writer

Elizabeth Heubeck is a staff writer for Education Week.

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