Scarborough’s Reading Rope

Scarborough’s Reading Rope illustrates how skilled reading involves two main strands: word recognition and language comprehension. Word recognition includes decoding skills—ability to break down and read words—and fluency, or reading smoothly. Language comprehension involves understanding vocabulary, background knowledge, and making sense of sentences and texts. As children develop, these strands intertwine and strengthen, enabling fluent, understanding reading. The rope analogy emphasizes that reading success depends on both strong decoding skills and deep language comprehension, and overcoming difficulties in either area can impact overall reading ability.